David B. Steinman

David B. Steinman

David B. Steinman (born June 11, 1886 in Chomsk, Brest district , Belarus ; † August 21, 1960 in New York City , USA ) was an American bridge construction engineer who, in particular, through his Mackinac Bridge over the waterway of the same name between Michigan - and became known to Lake Huron .

Life and accomplishments

David Barnard Steinman was one of seven children of a family of Belarusian immigrants about whom little is otherwise known. According to some sources, he was born on June 11, 1886 in Chomsk in the Brest district of Belarus and emigrated with his parents to New York City in 1890, according to others he was born on that date in New York City, but according to Ratigan and his own account, was he was born in New York City in 1887. He spent his childhood in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge while the Williamsburg Bridge was being built nearby . He graduated in 1906, the City College of New York with summa cum laude and then studied at the Columbia University , where he in 1909 as a Civil Engineer with a thesis on a steel truss arch for the future Henry Hudson Bridge doctorate . Shortly thereafter, he was appointed professor of engineering at the University of Idaho in Moscow , Idaho , the youngest in the United States.

First bridge construction

Steinman soon moved back to New York. He therefore applied to Gustav Lindenthal , who was in charge of the construction of the Hell Gate Bridge . Lindenthal hired him and Othmar Ammann , who was a few years older than him, as assistants, thus laying the foundation for a 40-year rivalry between Ammann and Steinman. During that time he also worked on the Sciotoville Bridge , a railroad bridge over the Ohio River . After the First World War he worked as an assistant engineer on the completion of the Kingston-Port Ewen Suspension Bridge ( Roundout Creek Bridge ) over the Hudson River and for the New York Central Railroad .

Robinson & Steinman

In 1920, Holton D. Robinson (1863-1945), one of the engineers of the Williamsburg Bridge, Steinman proposed a collaboration on the design of the Hercílio Luz Bridge in Florianópolis , Santa Catarina , Brazil . Shortly thereafter, they founded Robinson & Steinman , which developed into a successful engineering office, with whom they designed and built numerous bridges around the world until Robinson's death in 1945. In addition to the bridge in Florianópolis, completed in 1926, the most important are

• the first Carquinez Bridge (1927) on San Pablo Bay northeast of San Francisco , the second largest cantilever bridge in the USA,
• the Mount Hope Bridge (1929), a suspension bridge in Rhode Island ,
• the Pont de Grand-Mère (1929), a suspension bridge in Shawinigan -Grand-Mère, Québec , Canada ,
• the St. Johns Bridge (1931), a suspension bridge in Portland , Oregon ,
• the Waldo-Hancock Bridge (1931), a suspension bridge in Maine ,
• the Henry Hudson Bridge (1936), on which he wrote his doctoral thesis,
• the Thousand Islands Bridge System (1938/1939), a series of bridges spanning the Saint Lawrence River between the United States and Canada,
• the Sullivan-Hutsonville Bridge (1939), a false suspension bridge over the Wabash River between Illinois and Indiana ,
• the Deer Isle Bridge (1939), a suspension bridge in Maine .

After Robinson's death in 1945 Steinman continued the office with other partners as Steinman, Boynton, Gronquist & London , later as Steinman, Boynton, Gronquist & Birdsall , which was finally taken over by the Parsons Transportation Group in 1988 . From this time are to be mentioned

• the renovation of the Brooklyn Bridge beginning in 1948 ,
• the Mackinac Bridge (1957), a suspension bridge over the waterway of the same name between Lake Michigan and Lake Huron , regarded as his main work ,
• the Kingston – Rhinecliff Bridge (1957), a continuous truss bridge over the Hudson River,
• the July 14 Bridge (1964), a suspension bridge over the Tigris in Baghdad , Iraq
• the Ponte 25 de Abril (1966), a suspension bridge over the Tagus in Lisbon , Portugal , the design of which he had further influenced by his office Steinman, Boynton, Gronquist & London .

David B. Steinman was recognized in professional circles as one of the outstanding bridge construction engineers, especially for the construction of large suspension bridges. In the general public, however, he was always in the shadow of Othmar Ammann, who had caused the most sensation with his George Washington Bridge . Steinman's hope of being able to build the Liberty Bridge across New York Harbor for it was dashed when the Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapsed , which initially postponed all major suspension bridge projects.

When building the Thousand Islands Bridge and the Deer Isle Bridge , David B. Steinman learned how sensitive long and narrow suspension bridges can be. This experience brought him to the realization that the deflection theory, which was widely recognized and which he also applied and developed further, did not take into account the aerodynamic effects of the wind at all - which was shortly afterwards due to the collapse of the Tacoma-Narrows Bridge planned by Moisseiff on 7 November 1940 was proven. David B. Steinman responded by providing the Mackinac Bridge, which was built from 1954 to 1957 and is regarded as his life's work, with extremely deep and stiff girders made of wind-permeable half-timbered structures. He founded the construction method of giving suspension bridges the necessary rigidity by means of trusses, which were later called American suspension bridges , in contrast to the European suspension bridges with flat, aerodynamically shaped hollow box girders .

To Steinman's great disappointment, his rival Othmar Ammann was also commissioned with the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge (1959–1964), probably due to his better contacts with Robert Moses , the most important man in New York City in the award of bridges. Steinman's endeavors to build a really large suspension bridge led him to work out designs for a bridge over the Strait of Messina - the construction of which is still not in sight.

literature

• Karl-Eugen Kurrer : The History of the Theory of Structures. Searching for Equilibrium , Ernst & Sohn 2018, p. 114 and p. 1063f (biography), ISBN 978-3-433-03229-9 .

Web links

Commons : David Barnard Steinman  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Steinman's middle name is Barnard (see authority data), not Bernard , as can be read occasionally.
2. ↑ Bernd Nebel: David Barnard Steinman
3. ↑ David B. Steinman. In: Structurae
4. ↑ David Barnard Steinman on the website of the ASCE - American Society of Civil Engineering
5. ^ William Ratigan: Highways over broad waters . Wm.B. Eerdmans Publishing, Grand Rapids 1959
6. ↑ Richard Scott: In the wake of Tacoma, suspension bridges and the quest for aerodynamic stability. ASCE Press, Reston, Va. 2001, ISBN 0-7844-0542-5 , p. 35 ff.