Why Eads' 1874 Chrome Steel Defied Gravity While Modern Galvanized Beams Sag
Автор: Industrial Age Archives
Загружено: 2025-11-20
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Why Eads' 1874 Chrome Steel Defied Gravity While Modern Galvanized Beams Sag
James Eads built the first steel bridge across the Mississippi (The Eads Bridge) using a material nobody trusted yet: Chromium Steel. The old method: Eads bypassed standard iron and utilized a new alloy recipe with chromium, demanding that every single stave be tested to failure before installation, creating the first major bridge to use steel for structural ribs. Modern method: Modern infrastructure uses standard A36 or A992 carbon steel protected by surface galvanization; once the coating scratches, the underlying metal is soft and prone to rapid oxidation and deflection compared to Eads' rigid alloy.
When James Eads proposed his bridge, critics claimed a span that wide was mathematically impossible and would collapse under its own weight. To prove the strength of his untested chromium steel, Eads didn't just show charts; he closed the bridge to traffic and marched an elephant across it. When that didn't convince the public, he filled 14 locomotives with coal and water and drove them back and forth across the spans simultaneously, proving the chromium steel ribs could hold loads that would have crumpled wrought iron.
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