Johann Wilhelm Schwedler

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Portrait and signature of Johann Wilhelm Schwedler

Johann Wilhelm Schwedler (born June 28, 1823 in Berlin ; † June 9, 1894 there ) was a German civil engineer and construction clerk of the 19th century, the designer of bridges and the inventor of the Schwedler girder . The Schwedler Dome is also named after him.

Life

The Schwedlerbrücke in Frankfurt-Ostend , named after Schwedler , looks towards the Ostpark

Schwedler came from a poor family of carpenters. He attended the trade school in Berlin and finished it in 1842 with the matriculation examination. Then he passed exams for civil service and a "re-examination for land and hydraulic engineering". In 1852 he became site manager in Siegburg . In 1858 he returned to Berlin as a royal railway builder in the railway department of the Prussian Ministry of Public Works. In 1868 he received the title of Privy Building Councilor , became the highest Prussian building officer and professionally reached the zenith of his work in iron construction and construction-oriented structural engineering. This means that his collaboration in almost all major engineering structures in Prussia can be assumed. Therefore, only works from this period with significant or leading participation are listed. His successor as the highest Prussian construction officer was Hermann Zimmermann in 1891 .

Nonetheless, he continued to produce significant engineering achievements: Swing bridges without a roller rim, elevation of the Kreuzberg monument and contribution to the theory of the railway superstructure ; With the latter publication, Schwedler made a decisive contribution to the validation and dissemination of Emil Winkler's (1835–1888) ideas for analyzing the railway superstructure in English-speaking countries.

From 1864 to 1873 Schwedler was also a teacher at the Berlin Building Academy . He was also a longstanding member of the editorial committee of the Bauwesen magazine . The Schwedlerbrücke, a pedestrian bridge over the Frankfurt – Hanau railway in Frankfurt-Ostend , and the Schwedlerstraße to the south, were named in Schwedler's memory .

In 1878, Schwedler was sent to the United States by the Prussian Ministry of Public Works to study the bridge and iron structures there and attended the World Exhibition in Philadelphia as an official. Schwedler passed on his encyclopedic engineering knowledge in numerous committees, commissions and juries. He has received numerous honors, including the Great Officer's Cross of the Order of the Italian Crown for Art and Science (1881) and the Gold Medal for Services to the Construction Industry (1883). On November 9, 1888, Schwedler suffered a minor stroke, but on January 2, 1889, he resumed his service in the Prussian Ministry of Public Works. But soon he asked for a retirement. After almost 43 years of service, Schwedler was granted the status of Real Secret Senior Building Councilor with the rank of First Class Council on March 1, 1891. On this day, a delegation made up of top-class representatives from the construction and engineering sectors, the Ministry of Public Works, the Academy of Construction, the Reich and State Railway Authorities, the technical universities and industry presented an artistically decorated address with more than 3500 signatures, 500 of them from abroad.

In structural engineering in German-speaking countries in the second half of the 19th century, Schwedler takes first place. Like no other, he shaped the construction language of iron construction. His buildings are the result of a structural composition process: They represent the steady state of form, function, strength and manufacture - they constitute the art and science of ingenious constructions in the establishment phase of iron construction (1850–1875). As a protagonist of steel construction science, Schwedler paved the way for structural engineering in his country to become world leaders.

plant

View of the Unterreichenbach railway bridge , a Schwedler girder
Section of the gasometer on Fichtestrasse in Berlin
South station hall of Frankfurt Central Station

From around 1850 he worked together with his older brother Johann Gottlob Schwedler (1805-1859), who was an engineer in Cologne, on the construction of steel railway bridges. In his “Theory of Bridge Beam Systems” he developed a scientific theory of the statically determined truss , with which the tension and compression struts of a truss that is subjected to bending stress could be measured and dimensioned. One consequence of his theory was that the top chord of its wearer was curved in an arc. This was first applied to the Czersk Railway Bridge . Actually, the arch should have a small kink down in the middle. However, this is not done for aesthetic reasons.

The diagonals of the so-called "Schwedlerträger" should only be used in tension. Therefore, the diagonal direction changes in the middle of the bridge, and some fields in the middle of the bridge have cross double diagonals because of the variable load from traffic loads . This Schwedler carrier was dominant until around 1900. He formed the connections of the struts with movable joints.

He later developed the three-hinged arch as a further development of the Schwedler carrier . Its principle prevents restraint stresses in the structure due to its static determinacy . Schwedler used this principle to build roofs on station halls (e.g. Berlin Ostbahnhof, Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof).

The steel "Schwedler Dome" was first used in 1863 to roof the gas container on Holzmarktstrasse in Berlin. He constructed roofs as a spatially load-bearing shell structure with a diameter of up to 45 m.

Fonts (selection)

  • Bridge beam system theory. In: Zeitschrift für Bauwesen , Volume 1, 1851, Sp. 114–123 , Sp. 162–173 and Sp. 265–278 .
  • Support line theory. A contribution to the shape and strength of arched arches. In: Zeitschrift für Bauwesen , vol. 9, 1859, pp. 109–126
  • Static calculation of the fixed suspension bridge. In: Zeitschrift für Bauwesen, Vol. 11, 1861, Sp. 73–94
  • The iron superstructure of the Brahe Bridge near Czersk, on the Bromberg-Thorner Railway. In: Zeitschrift für Bauwesen , vol. 11, 1861, pp. 579–602
  • Determination of the deflections of some of the most common bridge construction systems. In: Zeitschrift für Bauwesen , Vol. 12, 1862, Col. 269–282
  • Over bridge beam systems from 200 to 400 feet span. In: Zeitschrift für Bauwesen , Vol. 13, 1863, Sp. 115–128

buildings

Honors

The Schwedlerstrasse was named after him in 1898 in Berlin-Grunewald (Wilmersdorf). In Frankfurt am Main, the Schwedlerbrücke , the Schwedlersee and Schwedlerstrasse are named after him.

literature

See also

Web links

Commons : Johann Wilhelm Schwedler  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Karl-Eugen Kurrer: The half-timbered structure conquers the third dimension: 150 years of the Schwedler Dome. Momemtum Magazon, accessed February 22, 2020 .
  2. ↑ Alexander Kierdorf: Between genius and utopia - Schwedler's forgotten alternative design for the first Cologne Rhine bridge . Stahlbau Vol. 80, 2011, Issue 3, pp. 198–204
  3. ↑ Schwedler: Roof construction for the gas tank building of the Imperial Continental Gas Association in Berlin. In: Zeitschrift für Bauwesen , Volume 13, 1863, Column 151–166; with drawings on sheets 25 and 26 in the atlas
  4. ↑ Ulrike Robeck: The older halls of the Bochumer Verein as functional buildings and monuments of the iron and steel industry, (Monument preservation and research in Westphalia, Volume 50), Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 2010, pp. 41–112
  5. ^ Johann Wilhelm Schwedler: Short and long Oder bridge in Breslau . In: Journal of Construction . tape 43 , no. 4-7 , 1868, pp. 157-174 ( kobv.de [PDF]).
  6. ↑ Volker Rödel: The main train station in Frankfurt am Main: Rise, fall and rebirth of a large city train station / Ed .: State Office for Monument Preservation Hesse; DB Station & Service AG (workbooks of the State Office for Monument Preservation Hesse), Volume 8, Stuttgart: Theiss 2006
  7. ↑ Lisa Steiner: Rundlokschuppen in Pankow: District sets property owners a deadline. November 23, 2016, accessed on March 2, 2019 (German).
  8. ↑ Honor. In: Centralblatt der Bauverwaltung , No. 39, September 29, 1883, p. 358
  9. ↑ Schwedlerstrasse. In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein (near  Kaupert )
personal data
SURNAME Schwedler, Johann Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German civil engineer, structural engineer and designer
DATE OF BIRTH June 28, 1823
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH June 9, 1894
Place of death Berlin