Alfred Brandt (engineer)

Alfred Brandt (* 3 September 1846 in Hamburg , † 29. November 1899 in Brig ) was a German mechanical engineering - engineering and the inventor of the hydraulic rotary drill . He planned the Simplon Tunnel and managed its construction from 1898.

Life

Alfred Brandt came from a Hamburg shipowner and merchant family. After graduating from school, he began training in mechanical engineering in Grimma . Brand then completed a degree at the Zurich Polytechnic . During his studies, he began to develop a new type of rotary drilling machine with pressurized water drive, which was to replace the compressed air-driven impact drilling machines used in mining and tunnel construction .

At the Vienna World Exhibition in 1873, Brandt first presented a machine based on this principle, which was initially ridiculed by experts. But after further improvement and patenting in 1877 as a Brandt rock drilling machine ( German Reich patent no. 1355), it quickly gained recognition from experts of the time, for example Franz von Rziha (1831–1897). He founded the joint engineering office Brandt & Brandau with his former college friend Karl Brandau in Hamburg-Uhlenhorst . Brandt finally managed to win over the Swiss mechanical engineering company, the Sulzer brothers, to produce its drilling machine.

“Alfred Brandt”, collective grave for engineers and technicians ,
Ohlsdorf cemetery

The Brandt rock drilling machine was subsequently used in the construction of tunnels for the Silesian Mountain Railway , the Pfaffensprung tunnel of the Gotthard railway , in the Sonnstein-Brandleite-Arlberg tunnel of the Salzkammergut railway, Ronco tunnel (Italy), Surram tunnel (Caucasus) and Gravhal tunnel (Norway). In addition, it successfully found its way into the mining industry in Rhineland, Saxony and Spain. Brandt machines were among others in operation at the royal Saxon coal works in Zauckerode and the ore mines in Freiberg .

In 1886 the engineering office Brandt & Brandau, in a consortium with the Zurich construction company Locher, was awarded the contract to build the Simplon Tunnel . It also applied for the construction of the Gotthard tunnel . Brand died a year after construction of the Simplon Tunnel began. His final resting place is in the Ohlsdorf cemetery in Hamburg-Ohlsdorf: there, engineers and technicians from the Althamburg Memorial Cemetery are remembered on the collective grave plate, including Alfred Brandt.

A Brandt rock drilling machine is exhibited in the Deutsches Museum in Munich.

Services

What was new about Brandt's drilling machine was that, in contrast to the previous pneumatic drilling machines, it was powered by water pressure. Instead of an impact movement of the drill, a rotary movement took place. The tip of the drill had a hollow crown shape. At a constant pressure of approx. 50  atmospheres , the rotating drill head was pressed against the rock at approx. Ten revolutions per minute and the rock was abraded with it.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Judith Schueler: Artifacts in the hero role . In: history of technology , issue 1/2009, p. 8 f.

literature

• Thomas Fuchs: Brandt, Alfred. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
• Carl Graf von Klinckowström :  Brandt, Alfred. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1955, ISBN 3-428-00183-4 , p. 532 ( digitized version ).
• Judith Schueler: Artifacts in the hero role: The forgotten glory of the Brandtschen hydraulic rotary drill . In: Technikgeschichte , Issue 1/2009, pp. 3–36. (with extensive bibliographical information)
• Ernst Mathys: Men of the Rail . Kümmerly & Frey, Bern 1955. (short biography)
• Conrad Matschoss : men of technology. A biographical manual . Berlin 1925. (short biography)
• Freiherr von Röll: Encyclopedia of Railways , Volume 2. Berlin / Vienna 1912, p. 479. ( Access to zeno.org )
• Franz Rziha: The Brandt rock drilling machine . In: Weekly of the Austrian Association of Engineers and Architects , 36th year 1877, p. 231 f.
• Brandt's hydraulic rotary drilling machine. In: Die Eisenbahn , 7th year 1877, issue 13, p. 97 ff.

Web links

• Illustration of the Brandt rock drilling machine in: Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon, Volume 7. Leipzig 1907, Rock drilling , pp. 746–748.
• Illustration of the Brandt rock drilling machine in: Meyers Konversationslexikon, Verlag des Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig and Vienna, fourth edition, 1885–1892, vol. 7, rock drill p. 255.
• Helmut Soering: Alfred Brandt. Hamburg's forgotten hero of the underworld. In: Hamburger Abendblatt from May 22, 2006 (accessed on March 27, 2014)
• Photograph of Alfred Brandts and Max Rosenbauer with families in front of the north straightening tunnel, SBB Historical Heritage Foundation (SBB Historic), signature: P_0647.