Arthur Vierendeel

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Arthur Vierendeel (born April 10, 1852 in Leuven (Flemish Leuven , French Louvain ) in Flemish Brabant, Flanders, Belgium; † November 8, 1940 in Ukkel (French Uccle) near Brussels) was a Belgian civil engineer . (The year of birth 1853, which is occasionally given, is probably wrong.) Vierendeel is the inventor of the Vierendeel girder , the girder without diagonals .

Arthur Vierendeel

CV and work

He was born as Jules Arthur Meunier. It was not until his mother's second marriage that he was given the name Vierendeel at the age of five. In 1874 he graduated from the “Ecoles Spéciales de Génie Civil, des Arts et Manufactures et des Mines” of the Catholic University in Leuven. From 1876 to 1885 he was an employee in a steel mill, the "Ateliers Nicaise et Delcuve" in La Louvière .

In 1877 he built the steel structure of the Cirque royal (Royal Circus) in Brussels . It was such a light, slim and bold steel frame construction that at first it was suspicious of its stability. Therefore, a whole regiment of soldiers had to test the load capacity before the structure was released. In 1885 he became chief engineer and technical director of the Province of West Flanders. Among other things, he was responsible for building a road network in the administration.

From 1889 to 1935 he taught as a professor or lecturer and successor to Louis Cousins ​​at the “Ecoles Spéciales” of the University of Leuven in the subjects of material strength, structural planning and architectural history. In 1889 he published a work on structural engineering and in 1896 he received the Prix du Roi (King's Prize) for his steel structures and his work "La construction architecturale en fonte en fer et en acier".

Early Vierendeel girder bridge in Avelgem

In 1896 he developed the Vierendeel girder and received a patent for it. He built the first Vierendeel girder bridge in 1896/97 for the Brussels World Exhibition (with a span of 31.5 m) in Tervueren at his own expense and loaded it to the point of failure in order to test the correspondence between theory and practice. As a result, many bridges were built with this girder, especially for the Belgian State Railways, but also worldwide (the first bridge in the USA with this system in 1900). An early bridge in 1902 was the bridge over the Schelde River in Avelgem . He had to fight for his innovations, however; the professional world (including Otto Mohr and Franz Cech ) initially reacted contradictingly. For example, there was a lively debate in 1912 in the magazine Der Eisenbau . The many articles on the analysis of its statics at the beginning of the 20th century also promoted the development of the displacement method .

Vierendeel also made an important contribution to research into the buckling of compression rods, the loading capacity of steel under tensile load, and the calculation of foundations . He ended his work as technical director of the province of West Flanders in 1927. His last publication, the last edition of his structural engineering, appeared in 1935.

Buildings

  • Cirque royal in Brussels (1877; demolished around 1947)
  • Steel tower of the church of Dadizeele (1890)
  • Vierendeel girder test bridge with a span of 31.5 m in Tervuren (1898) for an international exhibition in Brussels
  • Reading room of the Old Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris

Fonts

  • L'architecture métallique au XIXe siècle et l'exposition de 1889 à Paris . Ramlot, Brussels 1890 ( archive.org )
  • Stabilité des Constructions (8 volumes). Edited by A. Uystpruyst. Louvain / Paris 1901–1920 ( Volume 2  - Internet Archive ; Volume 3  - Internet Archive ; Volume 5  - Internet Archive )
  • La construction architecturale en fonte, fer et acier par Arthur Vierendeel (text and panel). Louvain and Paris 1902 ( digitized , Biblioteca Digital Hispánica)
  • Esquisse d'une histoire de la technique (2 volumes). 1921

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Kurrer, History of the theory of structures, 2008, p. 770
personal data
SURNAME Vierendeel, Arthur
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Belgian civil engineer
DATE OF BIRTH April 10, 1852
PLACE OF BIRTH Leuven , Flanders, Belgium
DATE OF DEATH November 8, 1940
Place of death Ukkel near Brussels