Abstract
THIS is the first part of an extended treatise, and it discusses Fluid Pressure and the Calculation of its Effect in Engineering Structures. The treatment of the subject is refreshing and stimulating, by contrast with the arid methods of our scholastic text-books. The illustrations of the abstract theory are taken from actual problems on a large scale, which appeal to the engineering student, to whom this treatise is addressed. A striking novelty is the discussion in Chapters iv. and vi. of the buckling tendency in straight pipes under uniform fluid pressure. Although the material of the pipe carries no longitudinal thrust, the conditions of stability are exactly the same as in Euler's theory of the bending of a column. This paradoxical fact is discussed theoretically, and its experimental verification is described in an Appendix. Chapter v. is on Fluid Arches, and shows how the pressure in a main, forming a tubular arch, can be used to assist the stability. We are reminded of Prof. Fitzgerald's suggestions of inflated structures and columns, and the pneumatic system of architecture, in which the strength is kept up by compressed air, pumped in at intervals as required, as in the tires of our bicycles. A short account of Prof. Fitzgerald's theory will be found in the recent edition of Perry's “Applied Mechanics.” Chapters viii. and ix. treat of the equilibrium and stability and bending stresses of floating bodies, not from the point of view of the Naval Architect, but as required by the Civil Engineer in the design of pontoons, bridge-caissons, and gas-holders.
Calculations in Hydraulic Engineering.
By T. Claxton Fidler, Professor of Engineering, University College, Dundee. Part i. Pp. xii + 155. (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1898.)
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G. Calculations in Hydraulic Engineering. Nature 59, 148 (1898). https://doi.org/10.1038/059148b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/059148b0