Tuesday, 8 May 2007
Bringing Out the Inventor in all of us
Over time, many inventions have shaped the way we all live our day-to-day lives. As civil engineers, some inventions have been instrumental in how we do our jobs. These inventions have influenced productivity, efficiency and most importantly safety! Civil engineers are charged with protecting the safety and welfare of citizens, so it is imperative that what we build and construct is state-of-the-art and use the most innovative techniques to get the job done.
The whole notion of invention in civil engineering goes way back to the days of John Roebling, who in the 1840s, invented wire cables for suspension bridges. Roebling saw this building material as a safer and more economic alternative to commonly used hemp ropes and in 1841, filed a patent application for a cable made of parallel wires. These wire cables allowed for diagonal stays that protected suspension bridges from falling. This resulted in a thriving business venture for Roebling who would later go on to work on other suspension bridges in Pittsburgh and the famed bridge connecting New York City and Brooklyn-the Brooklyn Bridge.
Civil engineers continue to invent mechanisms and tools to make our jobs better and the lives of those we serve safer. I recently learned that two civil engineers are among the 25 Semi-Finalists in the Modern Marvels Invent Now Challenge, which seeks to find America's next great invention idea. John Hillman is a structural engineer from Illinois whose invention, the Hybrid-Composite Beam, is a new type of structural beam for use in highways and railroad bridges. The other Semi-Finalist, David Jensen, is a civil engineering professor at Brigham Young University. His invention, Continuous Fabrication of Complex Composite IsoTruss® Structures is an automated process for continuously manufacturing composite grid structures. The winner of this competition will be announced during Modern Marvels Invent Now Week on The History Channel® May 15-17. You can learn more about all 25 Semi-Finalists by going online to History.com/invent. I sure hope that one of our civil engineers will continue the great tradition of noted civil engineer inventors and their invention will be named the 2007 Modern Marvel of the Year.
What do you think are some of the greatest inventions to affect the civil engineering profession?