Vladimir Shukhov
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Vladimir Shukhov
Vladimir Grigoryevich Shukhov ( 1853 – 1939) was a Russian engineer-polymath, scientist and architect renowned for his pioneering works on new methods of analysis for structural engineering that led to breakthroughs* in industrial design of world's first hyperboloid structures*, diagrid shell structures*, tensile structures*, gridshell structures*, oil reservoirs, pipelines, boilers, ships and barges. Besides the innovations he brought to the oil industry and the construction of numerous bridges and buildings, Shukhov was the inventor of a new family of doubly curved structural forms. These forms, based on non-Euclidean hyperbolic geometry, are known today as hyperboloids of revolution. Shukhov developed not only many varieties of light-weight hyperboloid towers and roof systems, but also the mathematics for their analysis. Shukhov is particularly reputed for his original designs of hyperboloid towers such as the Shukhov Tower. He was born in a small town in Kursk province (in present-day Belgorod Oblast). His father was the Director of the local branch of the St. Petersburg state bank. At the age of 11, Vladimir entered Saint Petersburg gymnasium. Already as a schoolboy, he showed mathematical talents, once demonstrating to his classmates and teacher an original proof of the Pythagorean theorem. He graduated with distinction and a Gold Medal in 1871 and entered the Emperor's Moscow Technical School in Moscow (now the Moscow State Technical University - MGTU). They proposed to him a job as a lecturer in mathematics at the Imperial Moscow Technical School, but Shukhov decided to seek a job in the industry instead. Shukhov participated in the trip to USA, the aim of which was the collecting of information about the latest technical achievements. Shukhov visited the World exhibition in Philadelphia and studied the arrangement of the American railway transport. For some time, he stayed in Philadelphia to work on the Russian pavilion at the World's Fair and to study the inner workings of the American industry. On coming back to Russia, Shukhov assumed the office of Chief Engineer in a new company specializing in innovative engineering. In 1892 Shukhov built his first railway bridges. In the subsequent years 417 bridges were built according to his projects at the different railway lines. Simultaneously with the construction of bridges Shukhov started the development of the overhead cover structures. Shukhov managed to design and practically realize the structures of various coverings distinguishing with such a principal novelty, that it would be just enough for him to take a special, honorable place among the famous engineers-builders of that time. Till 1890 Shukhov created exclusively light arch structures with thin inclined tightening. Even today these arches serve as bearing elements of the glass vault over the biggest Moscow shops: GUM and Petrovskiy arcade. In 1895, Shukhov submitted the claim for a patent on lattice coverings in the form of shells. That meant lattices from strip and angle steel with rhombus-shaped cells. They were used to build the big-span light hanging coverings and lattice vaults. The development of these lattice coverings marked the creation of a completely new type of bearing structure. For the first time Shukhov shaped a hanging covering into a finished spatial structure, which was used again only decades later. Even in comparison with the structure of metal vaults highly developed by that time, his lattice vaults which were formed only of one type of core elements represented a significant step forward. During the All-Russia exhibition in Nizhniy Novgorod in 1896 Shukhov presented to the public's judgment his new structures of the overhead covers. Totally, there were built eight exhibition pavilions of the sufficiently impressive sizes. Besides, in the center of one of the halls with lattice hanging covering there was a hanging covering made of thin tin-plate (membrane), which had never been used earlier in construction. Besides those pavilions, there was built a unique lattice steel water tower in the form of a hyperboloid shell. The constructions got wide resonance and the foreign press reported in detail about Shukhov's structures. The shell of the hyperboloid of rotation was a completely new constructional form, never used before. It allowed creating a spatially bent lattice surface out of straight cores installed with an inclination. As a result, the structure of the tower, which was a lattice steel shell in the form of a hyperboloid of rotation, turned out to be light and rigid. At the height of 25.60 meters, the Nizhniy Novgorod water tower carried a tank with a capacity of 114.000 liters to supply the whole territory of the exhibition with water. A high technical perfection of the construction caused a big surprise in Russia and abroad. The success at the exhibition may for certain explain the fact that in the subsequent years Shukhov got a lot of orders for the construction of factory workshops, roofed railway platforms and water towers.
The world`s first hyperboloid structure designed by V. Shukhov in 1896 (Nizhniy Novgorod, All-Russian Fair)
This world's first hyperboloid tower has remained one of the most beautiful constructions of Shukhov. It was sold to a rich landowner Nechaev-Maltsev, who installed it in his estate Polibino near Lipetsk. The tower stays there even today. The immediately increased demand for water towers brought a lot of orders. In comparison with ordinary towers, the Shukhov's lattice tower was more convenient and cheaper in respect of constructional techniques. About 200 originally designed towers were built by Shukhov’s design in Russia and abroad, including the famous Shukhov Tower in Moscow. It is interesting to know, that in 1919 when given the order of the Council of National Commissioners, Vladimir Grigorievich originally offered the design of the radio tower consisting of 9 sections, 350 meters high. The tower was going to be higher than Eiffel tower (305 meters high), however it was three times lighter in weight. Sharp deficiency of metal did not allow the original design come into reality, otherwise the tower could enter a history of engineering art. The design had to be changed. The existing tower made of six hyperboloid structures, 152 meters high was built with a unique method of telescopic assembly, invented by V. G. Shoukhov. The tower remained the highest structure in Russia for a long time. After the October Revolution, Shukhov decided to stay in the Soviet Union despite having received alluring job offers from around the world. Many Soviet engineering projects of the 1920s were associated with his name. In 1919 he framed his slogan: We should work independently from politics. The buildings, boilers, beams would be needed and so would we. After the Soviet Russia had been formed, Shukhov got one of the main constructional orders: the construction of a tower for the radio station in Shabolovka in Moscow. The tower was the further modification of lattice hyperboloid structures. Its elegant simplicity from afar belies its complex geometry up close. Shukhov had conducted groundbreaking research on hyperboloids, a non-Euclidian geometric surface that can produce structures that are both lightweight and strong. The tower consists of six blocks of the appropriate form. In 1922, the radio station tower was put in operation. Rather than relying on more costly curved beams, a hyperboloid structure achieves greater strength using straight beams arranged in a lattice. You may touch any point on the surface of a two sheet hyperboloid structure, and you'll find two straight lines that compose that surface and pass through that point. This unbelievably light, openwork tower with details, that win over by their simplicity and the original form, is the pattern of a brilliant structure and the acme of the constructional art. The construction of the Shukhov Tower caused general delight. Shukhov designed the tower, the apotheosis of his engineering work, by stacking hyperboloids of diminishing size on top of each other. Each steel beam comes to rest at one of a few increasingly smaller rings that rise along the tower at regular intervals. Although so many years have passed since it was finished, the tower still inspires architecture in the digital age, and it still broadcasts television and radio signals. That approach to a tower, which Shukhov used to design water towers and electricity masts, would subsequently take flight across architecture. Le Corbusier, Gaudí, Eduardo Torroja, Oscar Niemeyer and Ieoh Ming Pei have used the hyperboloid to build towers. In the later 1930s during the Great Purge* he retired from engineering work but was not arrested or persecuted. The last years of V. Shukhov’s life were clouded with the inquisitions, happening in the 30-s, endless concern about his children, unfair blaming, his wife’s death, retirement because of the bureaucratic regime he hated so much. All these deteriorated his health making him disappointed and depressed. During his last years he led a secluded way of life. He met only close friends and old colleagues in his house and spent time thinking and reading. Shukov died on February 2, 1939 in Moscow and was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery. His many honours included the Lenin Prize (1929) and the title of Hero of Labour (1932). V. G. Shukhov’s polytechnical activity, represented in his brilliant engineering developments in different fields cannot be compared with anything in the world. Our fellow countryman belongs to the brilliant pleiad of Russian engineers, whose inventions and research were far more advanced compared with their contemporaries. They changed the trends in technological progress decades ahead. The scope of V. G. Shukhov’s engineering achievements can be compared with the contribution into science made by M. Lomonosov, D. I. Mendeleev, I. V. Kurchatov, S. P. Korolev. The above names made Russian science world-known and respected. During his lifetime V. G. Shukhov was already called «Russian Edisson» and " engineer number one in the Russian Empire", nowadays V. G. Shoukhov is included into the list of top 100 world outstanding engineers. And even in this list he has the right to take the top position. T. Edisson, the name of an American inventor, is known almost to everyone in Russia these days, but very few are familiar with V. G. Shukhov, whose engineering and inventor’s gift has considerably higher value and significance. This ignorance resulted from an inexcusable sin — keeping silence over his name for many years. We are obliged to eliminate the lack of information concerning our outstanding fellow countryman. For us and the whole of the world V. G. Shukhov is a personified genius of engineering art, like A. S. Pushkin in Russian poetry, P. I. Chaikovski as a top music composer, and M. V. Lomonosov as a scientific genius. V. G. Shukhov’s creative work integrated the insight and fundamental scientific background, fine artistic taste and ideal engineering logic, sound calculation and deep spirituality. Shukhov`s works remain models of constructivism, a period that grew out of cubism and Russian Futurism, and that aimed for a more progressive approach to art. Its proponents urged that art could be more than just painting, sculpture, or photography, but an extension of reality, imbued with a kinetic sense of industrialization, technological innovation, and a striving toward new Utopian social systems. Now, in XXI century, the memory about Vladimir Grigorievich Shukhov, an amazing person and talented engineer, is going to be alive for ever. Every generation of Russian engineers and researches honour V. G. Shukhov like a symbol of engineering genius and an example to follow as a person dedicated to his work and his own country. Notes: * breakthrough - прорыв (например, в науке или технике) *the Great Purge ( “Великая чистка”) It was a campaign of political repression in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1939. It involved a large-scale purge of the Communist Party and government officials, repression of peasants, Red Army leadership, and widespread police surveillance, suspicion of "saboteurs", imprisonment, and arbitrary executions. *hyperboloid structures - гиперболоидные конструкции, т.е. сооружения в форме однополостного гиперболоида или гиперболического параболоида. Такие конструкции, несмотря на свою кривизну, строятся из прямых балок. *diagrid shell structure – оболочечная конструкция с использованием перекрытия из диагональных перекрестных элементов *tensile structure - растяжимая конструкция *gridshell structure – решетчатая оболочечная конструкция *doubly curved structural forms – конструкционные формы с двойным изгибом *non-Euclidean hyperbolic geometry - неевклидова гиперболическая геометрия
Food for Thought: Do you think that hyperboloid structure has a great perspective in the future? Can you think of an example of its application at present? Make up a short presentation in PowerPoint Program devoted to some hyperboloid structure created in our days.
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