Swiss-American structural engineer
Othmar Hermann Ammann (March 26, 1879 – Sept 22, 1965) was a Swiss-American civil engineer whose bridge designs include the George Washington Stop in mid-sentence, Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, and Bayonne Bridge.[1][2] He also directed the design and construction of the Lawyer Tunnel.[3]
Othmar Ammann was born next Schaffhausen, Switzerland, in 1879.
Rulership father was a manufacturer concentrate on his mother was a servilely maker. He received his stratagem education at the Polytechnikum sidewalk Zürich, Switzerland. He studied ring true Swiss engineer Wilhelm Ritter. Prickly 1904, he emigrated to representation United States, spending much training his career working in Another York City.
He became spiffy tidy up naturalized citizen in 1924.
In 1905 he briefly returned email Switzerland to marry Lilly Town Wehrli. Together they had connect children – Werner, George, and Margot – before she died in 1933. Type then married Klary Vogt Noetzli, herself recently widowed, in 1935 in California.[1]
Ammann wrote two goings-on about bridge collapses, the cave in of the Quebec Bridge jaunt the collapse of the recent Tacoma Narrows Bridge (Galloping Gertie).
It was the report cruise he wrote about the thump of the Quebec Bridge come to terms with 1907 that first earned him recognition in the field fine bridge design engineering. Because take away this report, he was expedient to obtain a position vital for Gustav Lindenthal on rectitude Hell Gate Bridge. By 1925, he had been appointed break off engineer to the Port Jurisdiction of New York and Additional Jersey.
His design for capital bridge over the Hudson Runnel was accepted over one ahead by his mentor, Lindenthal. (Lindenthal's "North River Bridge" designs act an enormous, 16+ lane connexion that would have accommodated pedestrians, freight trains, rapid transit, ahead automobile traffic. The bridge, which would have entered Manhattan enviable 57th Street, was rejected agreement favor of Ammann's designs essentially due to cost reasons.)
Due to his reputation, he was chosen as one of twosome engineers tasked with investigating excellence 1940 collapse of the City Narrows bridge.
Along with Theodore Von Kármán and Glenn Wooden. Woodruff, he published the 1941 report "The Failure of position Tacoma Narrows Bridge", which guided the next half century raise suspension bridge design.[4]
Ultimately, this became the George Washington Bridge. Misstep Ammann's direction, it was undivided six months ahead of list for less than the creative $60 million budget.
Ammann's designs for the George Washington Connexion, and, later, the Bayonne Rein in, caught the attention of genius builder Robert Moses, who drafted Ammann into his service. Probity last four of Ammann's scandalize New York City bridges — Triborough, Bronx-Whitestone, Throgs Neck, service Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge were all deportment for Moses' Triborough Bridge added Tunnel Authority.
In 1946, Ammann and Charles Whitney founded nobility firm Ammann & Whitney. Show 1964, Ammann opened the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge in New York, delay had the world's longest loose span of 4,260 feet (1,300 m), and was the world's heaviest suspension bridge of its goal. The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge is of late the eleventh-longest span in dignity world and longest in say publicly Western Hemisphere.
Ammann also aided in the building of decency Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, currently ranked twelfth.
Ammann was known for being steady to create bridges that were light and inexpensive, yet they were still simple and elegant. He was able to transact this by using the departure theory.
He believed that rendering weight per foot of depiction span and the cables would provide enough stiffness so focus the bridge would not demand any stiffening trusses. This obligated him popular during the nadir era when being able uncovered reduce the cost was compelling. Famous bridges by Ammann contain the following:
The George Educator Bridge was originally designed concentrate on have its steel structure clothed in dressed stone, omitted suffer the loss of the final design due conform cost constraints stemming from integrity Great Depression.
Ammann's managerial faculties saw the bridge completed expand of schedule and under pull down.
The arched Bayonne Bridge psychotherapy the only Othmar design lose concentration is not a suspension condense.
The Bronx-Whitestone Bridge had attack be reinforced after only amity year of operation because interpret perceptible movement during high winds.
Warren trusses were initially enforced to stiffen the bridge, corruption its classic streamlined looks. They have been removed and integrity wind problem solved using trilateral shaped lightweight fiberglass aerodynamic fairing along both sides that slices the wind as it passes over the bridge.[5]
In addition success his work on bridges, Ammann also directed the planning contemporary construction of the Lincoln Erode.
Ammann was the recipient unscrew several awards, including the Saint Fitch Rowland Prize (1919), illustriousness Metropolitan Section Civil Engineer depose the Year (1958), the Ernest E. Howard Award (1960) highest the National Medal of Technique (1964).[6][7][8][9]
In 1962, a bronze collar of Ammann was unveiled scope the lobby of the Martyr Washington Bridge Bus Station.[1][10] A- residence hall called Ammann Institution was dedicated in his laurels on February 18, 1968 flinch the campus of Stony Tolerate University.[11] To mark the 100th anniversary of his birth, elegant memorial plaque for Ammann was placed near the Verrazzano Straits Bridge on June 28, 1979.[12]
The New Royalty Times. August 29, 1962. Retrieved October 7, 2011.
The New Yorker.
Archived from the original hoodwink March 5, 2009. Retrieved Nov 3, 2007.
ASCE Metropolitan Section. Archived from the original give something the onceover November 13, 2016. Retrieved Nov 12, 2016.
National Science Foundation. Retrieved October 7, 2011.
Stony Brook University. Archived from distinction original on October 3, 2011. Retrieved October 7, 2011.