12th November 2010
Engineers & Engineering
1724-1792
The Lighthouse on the Eddystone Rocks near Plymouth, England, - Completed in 1759
Lighthouse with a team of stonemasons
and built an interlocking circular structure of such great strength that it is still used as a model for the construction
and built an interlocking circular structure of such great strength that it is still used as a model for the construction
The Lighthouse was moved stone-by-stone from the rocks on which it stood to a site on Plymouth Hoe when the rocks on which it stood developed significant cracking.
of lighthouses to this day. Smeaton developed designs for Tidal-Power mills and worked on improving the diving bell equipment of Edmund Halley ( of Halley’s Comet fame.) Smeaton also pioneered the use of cast iron in the construction of machinery - and developed other scientific instruments using the skills he developed after leaving his early career in law within his father’s law firm, amongst which were a
navigational aid for mariners based on a rapidly revolving
disc and a pyrometer for measuring the expansion of
materials with changes in temperature.
disc and a pyrometer for measuring the expansion of
materials with changes in temperature.
Smeaton’s work with water and air, whilst examining potential power sources for generating equipment, led
him to develop a fuller understanding than that of the time - that pressure reduced with increasing speed of flow.
It is this principle that the Wright Brothers used - as does any aircraft - to obtain lift from the moving air over wings.
Errors in the value assigned to this effect by other scientists were corrected by Smeaton and the naming of the constant of proportionality as the “Smeaton coeffcient” has been his reward.
him to develop a fuller understanding than that of the time -
Coldstream Bridge
Hexham Bridge
Charlestown harbour -St Austell Cornwall
