Thames tunnel (london) Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words - 1

Thames tunnel (london) - Research Paper Example The tunnel measures 11m (35 feet) wide 6m (20 feet) high and 396 m (1,300 feet) long (Teape 6). It runs a depth of 23 m (75 feet) below the surface of River Thames when measured at high tide. In early 19 century, there was no land that could connect the South and north banks of the Thames and to connect the expanding docks on either side of the River. The port of London the main hub of across the entire British Empire and the business worldwide. Any bridge constructed was supposed to allow ships that had masts over one hundred feet tall to be sailed under them yet there was no available technology if the Tower bridges lifting bascules to early engineers (Will 15). It could not be possible for a horse to pull a cat that was loaded up through a steep hill up to 100 feet into the air at a gentle slope. The approach ramps needed to be very long, which made in impractical. This pressing need so Engineer Ralph Dodd develop a tunnel to between Tilbury and Gravesend in 1799 (Teape 6). This first attempt did not succeed. Later (1805-1809) a group of Cornish miners being led by Richard Trevithick made another attempt of digging a tunnel upriver between Limehouse/Wapping and Rotherhithe. The equally encountered difficult conditions and failed. As Cornish miners, they were used to dealing with hard rocks. They needed to modify the methods they used in digging hard rocks to enable them to deal with quicksand and soft clay (Teape 8). There was also the problem of the flooding of the initial pilot tunnel. It was reported that after 1000 feet of the total 1,200 feet became flooded, the Thames Archway project was abandoned. It measures 2 to 3 feet by 5 feet, and was intended to be used for a passenger’s use. The failure of this early project made engineers to come to a conclusion that constructing an underground tunnel was impractical. However, Marc Brunel , the Anglo-French engineer, could not agree to this.