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41 Moulton, Alexander
[br]b. 9 April 1920 Stratford-on-Avon[br]English inventor of vehicle suspension systems and the Moulton bicycle.[br]He spent his childhood at The Hall in Bradfordon-Avon. He was educated at Marlborough College, and in 1937 was apprenticed to the Sentinel Steam Wagon Company of Shrewsbury. About that same time he went to King's College, Cambridge, where he took the Mechanical Sciences Tripos. It was then wartime, and he did research on aero-engines at the Bristol Aeroplane Company, where he became Personal Assistant to Sir Roy Fedden. He left Bristol's in 1945 to join his family firm, Spencer \& Moulton, of which he eventually became Technical Director and built up the Research Department. In 1948 he invented his first suspension unit, the "Flexitor", in which an inner shaft and an outer shell were separated by an annular rubber body which was bonded to both.In 1848 his great-grandfather had founded the family firm in an old woollen mill, to manufacture vulcanized rubber products under Charles Goodyear's patent. The firm remained a family business with Spencer's, consultants in railway engineering, until 1956 when it was sold to the Avon Rubber Company. He then formed Moulton Developments to continue his work on vehicle suspensions in the stables attached to The Hall. Sponsored by the British Motor Corporation (BMC) and the Dunlop Rubber Company, he invented a rubber cone spring in 1951 which was later used in the BMC Mini (see Issigonis, Sir Alexander Arnold Constantine): by 1994 over 4 million Minis had been fitted with these springs, made by Dunlop. In 1954 he patented the Hydrolastic suspension system, in which all four wheels were independently sprung with combined rubber springs and damper assembly, the weight being supported by fluid under pressure, and the wheels on each side being interconnected, front to rear. In 1962 he formed Moulton Bicycles Ltd, having designed an improved bicycle system for adult use. The conventional bicycle frame was replaced by a flat-sided oval steel tube F-frame on a novel rubber front and rear suspension, with the wheel size reduced to 41 cm (16 in.) with high-pressure tyres. Raleigh Industries Ltd having refused his offer to produce the Moulton Bicycle under licence, he set up his own factory on his estate, producing 25,000 bicycles between 1963 and 1966. In 1967 he sold out to Raleigh and set up as Bicycle Consultants Ltd while continuing the suspension development of Moulton Developments Ltd. In the 1970s the combined firms employed some forty staff, nearly 50 per cent of whom were graduates.He won the Queen's Award for Industry in 1967 for technical innovation in Hydrolastic car suspension and the Moulton Bicycle. Since that time he has continued his innovative work on suspensions and the bicycle. In 1983 he introduced the AM bicycle series of very sophisticated space-frame design with suspension and 43 cm (17 in.) wheels; this machine holds the world speed record fully formed at 82 km/h (51 mph). The current Rover 100 and MGF use his Hydragas interconnected suspension. By 1994 over 7 million cars had been fitted with Moulton suspensions. He has won many design awards and prizes, and has been awarded three honorary doctorates of engineering. He is active in engineering and design education.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsQueen's Award for Industry 1967; CBE; RDI. Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering.Further ReadingP.R.Whitfield, 1975, Creativity in Industry, London: Penguin Books.IMcN -
42 Vitruvius Pollio
SUBJECT AREA: Architecture and building[br]b. early first century BCd. c. 25 BC[br]Roman writer on architecture and engineering subjects.[br]Nothing is known of Vitruvius apart from what can be gleaned from his only known work, the treatise De architectura. He seems to have been employed in some capacity by Julius Caesar and continued to serve under his heir, Octavianus, later Emperor Augustus, to whom he dedicated his book. It was written towards the end of his life, after Octavianus became undisputed ruler of the Empire by his victory at Actium in 31 BC, and was based partly on his own experience and partly on earlier, Hellenistic, writers.The De architectura is divided into ten books. The first seven books expound the general principles of architecture and the planning, design and construction of various types of building, public and domestic, including a consideration of techniques and materials. Book 7 deals with interior decoration, including stucco work and painting, while Book 8 treats water supply, from the location of sources to the transport of water by aqueducts, tunnels and pipes. Book 9, after a long and somewhat confused account of the astronomical theories of the day, describes various forms of clock and sundial. Finally, Book 10 deals with mechanical devices for handling building materials and raising and pumping water, for which Vitruvius draws on the earlier Greek authors Ctesibius and Hero.Although this may seem a motley assembly of subjects, to the Roman architect and builder it was a logical compendium of the subjects he was expected to know about. At the time, Vitruvius' rigid rules for the design of buildings such as temples seem to have had little influence, but his accounts of more practical matters of building materials and techniques were widely used. His illustrations to the original work were lost in antiquity, for no later manuscript includes them. Through the Middle Ages, manuscript copies were made in monastic scriptoria, although the architectural style in vogue had little relevance to those in Vitruvius: these came into their own with the Italian Renaissance. Alberti, writing the first great Renaissance treatise on architecture from 1452 to 1467, drew heavily on De architectura; those who sought to revive the styles of antiquity were bound to regard the only surviving text on the subject as authoritative. The appearance of the first printed edition in 1486 only served to extend its influence.During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Vitruvius was used as a handbook for constructing machines and instruments. For the modern historian of technology and architecture the work is a source of prime importance, although it must be remembered that the illustrations in the early printed editions are of contemporary reproductions of ancient devices using the techniques of the time, rather than authentic representations of ancient technology.[br]BibliographyOf the several critical editions of De architectura there are the Teubner edition, 1899. ed. V.Rose, Leipzig; the Loeb Classical Library edition, 1962, ed. F.Granger, London: Heinemann, (with English trans. and notes); and the Collection Guillaume Budé with French trans. and full commentary, 10 vols, Paris (in progress).Further ReadingApart from the notes to the printed editions, see also: H.Plommer, 1973, Vitruvius and Later Roman Building Manuals, London. A.G.Drachmann, 1963, The Mechanical Technology of Greek and Roman Antiquity Copenhagen and London.S.L.Gibbs, 1976, Greek and Roman Sundials, New Haven and London.LRD -
43 AST
AST, action speed, tactical————————AST, administrative supply technician————————AST, advanced simulation technology————————AST, aerial survey team————————AST, air and surface transport————————AST, air service [servicing] training————————AST, Air Staff Target————————AST, Бр Air Staff Task————————AST, air stationавиационная станция [база]————————AST, air surveillance technician————————AST, air-supported threat————————AST, aircraft systems trainer————————AST, Alaska standard time————————AST, all systems test————————AST, area specialist teamгруппа специалистов (данного) направления [района]————————AST, arming system testerконтрольно-измерительный прибор системы приведения БЧ в готовность к действию————————AST, Army satellite tracking center————————AST, Army specialized training————————AST, assembly and structure test————————AST, Atlantic standard time————————AST, automatic shop testerEnglish-Russian dictionary of planing, cross-planing and slotting machines > AST
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