Eiffel, G 2

Full Name: Gustave Eiffel

Achievements: New formula for structural analysis ; responsible for construction of the Eiffel Tower, Paris

Born: December 15, 1832; Dijon, France

Died: December 28, 1923; Paris, France (Aged 91)

Field & Discipline: Civil engineering

Language: French

Father: Father: Alexandre Eiffel

Mother: Catherine Moneuse

Siblings: 2 sisters: Marie; Laure

Spouse: Marie Gaudelet

Children: 2 sons: Edouard; Albert. 3 daughters: Clare; Laure; Valentine

Education: College du Dijon; Ecole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures, Paris

Life & Times:

In 1856 Eiffel joined an engineering firm that was engaged in public works and which specialized in the construction of railway equipment and steam engines. He began to work mainly on bridges and his first large project came in 1857-60: an iron bridge over the river Garonne at Bordeaux.

Eiffel married in 1862 and in 1864 set up his own as a freelance engineer constructor.  He opened his own metal-working premises on the outskirts of Paris and in 1867 got the contract to design the iron arch-girders for the Galerie des Machines in the Paris Universal Exhibition of that year. The halls for machines were always vast and Eiffel was about to produce the biggest yet.

He studied the work of the English scientists [studied work of] Hooke* and [studied work of] Thomas Young* who had established elasticity principles for metals and then worked out his own formula for wrought-iron construction.  Eiffel published a formula which became a valuable addition to scientific structural analysis for other engineers, most of whom still based their calculations on theories put forward in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Over the course of his career he designed and constructed bridges, viaducts, harbor installations, exhibition halls, galleries and department stores.  The principal material in his constructions was iron and he also used a great deal of glass. Eiffel’s formula enabled him to build iron bridges with open latticework -  light but strong. The most important factor was that the spaces in the latticework allowed the wind to pass through so Eiffel’s structures survived where thousands did not.

One of most impressive was a bridge across the Sioule River, completed in 1869. It was one of the highest bridges in the world and for the first time, Eiffel used wrought iron for the truss-work and also curved the edges of his piers inwards to give greater stability at their base. He also introduced a new method of putting the bridge deck in place by using a system of rollers on rockers (it supported the deck evenly as it was pushed out over the void to join the next pier). All these innovations were later used in the construction of the Eiffel Tower. In 1876 he worked on the building of the Bon Marche department store in Paris.

Eiffel was one of first engineers to use compressed-air caissons in bridge building. His company built almost fifty railway bridges and viaducts for French railway lines and also began to get work in other countries. In 1877 he constructed a bridge in Oporto in Portugal  which had a 530 ft  steel arch spanning the river Douro. From 1879-84 he was engaged on the construction of  the Garabit viaduct across  the Truyere in southern France. It was a massive undertaking and Eiffel compared it to standing the Vendome column in Paris on top of the spires of Notre Dame.

He contributed the iron framework for the [built frame for] Statue of Liberty* in 1884 and the following year designed the movable dome of the observatory at Nice. Among the many prestige jobs his company carried out abroad were the train station at Pest in Hungary and the Tan An Bridge in French Indochina.

In 1884 the French government proposed a competition for a design for a monument for the centennial exposition of 1889 to commemorate the French Revolution. Eiffel won the competition to build a tower, the idea of which was first put forward by Maurice Koechlin and Emile Nougier.  Eiffel’s formula, his extensive knowledge about how metal arches react under pressure and the effects of wind and loading on a structure, enabled him to come up with a revolutionary technical solution for the tower: an openwork design which reduced problems of wind resistance.

His ideas offended many people aesthetically and in 1886 signatories on a protest against his scheme included the composer [work opposed by] Gounod* and the writer [work opposed by] Maupassant* (both of whom were won over when they saw the finished construction).

The tower was built between 1887-89.  At 984 ft  it was twice as high as the dome of St Peter’s in Rome and it remained the tallest building in the world until the Chrysler building was completed in New York in 1930. Many of the sections were pre-constructed and riveted together before erection.  It opened to the public on 15 May 1889 and soon became the prime tourist attraction in Paris and one of the world’s best-known landmarks.

Working on the tower had triggered Eiffel’s interest in meteorology and aerodynamics and he used the tower as a laboratory for a number of experiments.

[tower used by] Cailletet* installed a 900 ft manometer on the tower,  and studied air resistance on falling bodies. Eiffel was also interested in using the tower as a natural communications post and encouraged experiments by radio pioneers. After [inspired by] Marconi*’s successful transmission in 1899, Eiffel financed the radio experiments of a captain in the French army and allowed the army the use of the tower.

The Eiffel company had been retained by the company headed by [hired by] de Lesseps* to work on a Panama Canal project but in 1888 the Panama Canal Company had gone bankrupt. Eiffel, who believed in the project, continued work by his company in Panama but eventually had to pull out.

Eiffel was interested in aviation and eventually built the first aerodynamic laboratory at Auteuil after residents complained about the noisy investigations being conducted at the foot of the tower. Wind tunnels based on Eiffel’s design were built in the United States, Holland and Japan.

In the same year he was presented with the Langley Gold Medal by the Smithsonian Institute (presented to the French ambassador in Washington by [honored by] Alexander Graham Bell* who praised Eiffel’s contributions to the science of flight).

Assessment: His lasting memorial is the Eiffel Tower.

Oneliner: Gustave Eiffel, who built the Tower

Bibliography:

• Harriss, Jospeh, The Eiffel Tower, Symbol of an Age, Paul Elek, London,1976.