If you look around outside in any town or city, the chances are you are likely to see plenty of things that are made of steel. Since the Industrial Revolution, many of the things that we have around us have been reliant on steel.
As well as the actual material itself, in order to make it useful for these engineering and building projects, we also need to be able to bend, cut or form it into the correct shape for the use. Machinery like these Euromac bending machines https://www.cotswold-machinery-sales.co.uk/euromac-bending-machines/horizontal-bending-machines is something that can do that job for us and therefore we can create all sorts of structures, from towering skyscrapers to bridges that can support vehicles to cross a river.
One of the most ambitious bridges that was built in the UK was the Forth Bridge. This was a building project that was started in the Victorian era, in the year 1882, with steel workshops being built either side of the river to allow steel to be fabricated right where it was needed.
Once these were put up and work was started on the steel for the bridge itself, the actual groundworks could begin to get the bridge in place. The foundations of the bridge were dug and within just seven years, this feat of engineering was complete.
However, this was a day and age where work on these sorts of projects was incredibly dangerous, and thousands of men came to work on the bridge, and of those many died or were left injured and disabled from the various accidents that occurred on this huge building project.
There were efforts made to reduce the risks of working there – there were a team of boats that could be deployed to rescue people who had fallen in the water, as well as warm clothing given to the workers who were working in these difficult conditions. There were also dining rooms that were heated and set up where the workers could take a break, have something to eat and get warm – at that time, these were above many of the standards in other workplaces.
Once the bridge was completed, it was tested to ensure that it could bear the loads that would be travelling across it. A steam train was slowly driven across the bridge to check this.
