FIRE-PROOF BUILDING CONSTRUCTION. 613 

 FIRE-PROOF BUILDING CONSTRUCTION* 



Bv WILLIAM E. WARD. 



IF society is indebted to the restless spirit of progress for most of 

 its modern comforts and conveniences, it certainly is not yet a 

 debtor for any methods which guarantee immunity against calamities 

 from fire. While other departments of industry have received the 

 benefits of improvement, the persistent use of combustible material for 

 exposed portions of buildings has limited the intrinsic elements of the 

 art of building construction, and coufined improvements only to mat- 

 ters of design. 



Incombustible materials are easily obtained, and, for every ap- 

 parent reason, much better adapted to the purpose. Doubtless, the 

 question of increased cost, both in money and in time required for 

 more thorough construction, may be in a measure responsible for the 

 tardiness in adopting safer methods ; and, in addition to greater ex- 

 penditure, there may have been a want of confidence in the fire-proof 

 methods which have been offered to the public for adoption. The 

 importance of this question induced the writer, in 1871-'72, to make 

 some experiments in a new and special direction, for the purpose of 

 ascertaining whether a practically fire-proof building could be designed 

 and constructed at a comparatively moderate cost. 



The incident which led the writer to the invention of iron with 

 beton occurred in England in 1867, when his attention was called to 

 the difficulties of some laborers on a quay, trying to remove cement 

 from their tools. The adhesion of the cement to the iron was so firm 

 that the cleavage generally appeared in the cement rather than be- 

 tween the cement and the iron. 



The experiments which followed were confined exclusively to 

 working up the reciprocal value of beton, in combination with iron, in 

 the construction of beams which were designed for supporting floors 

 and roofs made of the same material. In this particular the facts 

 were conclusively developed that the utility of both iron and beton 

 could be greatly increased for building purposes, through a properly 

 adjusted combination of their special physical qualities, and very 

 much greater efficiency be reached through their association than 

 could possibly be realized by the exclusive use of either material, sepa- 

 rately, in the same or in equal quantity. 



Experience had long ago proved that unprotected iron, associated 

 with combustible materials, is altogether unreliable for building pur- 

 poses when exposed to a severe fire-test ; but it has been demonstrated, 



* Read at the meeting of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, held in 

 Cleveland, Ohio, June, 1883. 



