VILLANUEVA, MAERI JEESAS G.

ARC42
The Eiffel Tower was built by Gustave Eiffel for the 1889
Exposition Universelle, which was to celebrate the 100th year anniversary of
the French Revolution. Its construction in 2 years, 2 months and 5 days was a
veritable technical and architectural achievement. "Utopia achieved", a
symbol of technological prowess, at the end of the 19th Century it was a
demonstration of French engineering personified by Gustave Eiffel, and a
defining moment of the industrial era. It was met immediately with
tremendous success.

Only intended to last 20 years, it was saved by the scientific
experiments that Eiffel encouraged, and in particular by the first radio
transmissions, followed by telecommunications. For example, the radio
signals from the Pantheon Tower in 1898; it served as a military radio post in
1903; it transmitted the first public radio programme in 1925, and then
broadcast television up to TNT more recently.

The plan to build a tower 300 metres high was conceived as part of preparations
for the World's Fair of 1889. Emile Nouguier and Maurice Koechlin, the two chief engineers in Eiffel's
company, had the idea for a very tall tower in June 1884. It was to be designed like a large pylon with
four columns of lattice work girders, separated at the base and coming together at the top, and
joined to each other by more metal girders at regular intervals. The company had by this time
mastered perfectly the principle of building bridge supports. The tower project was a bold extension
of this principle up to a height of 300 metres - equivalent to the symbolic figure of 1000 feet. On
September 18 1884 Eiffel registered a patent "for a new configuration allowing the construction of
metal supports and pylons capable of exceeding a height of 300 metres

Sauvestre proposed stonework pedestals to dress the legs, monumental arches to
link the columns and the first level, large glass-walled halls on each level, a bulb-shaped design for the
top and various other ornamental features to decorate the whole of the structure. In the end the
project was simplified, but certain elements such as the large arches at the base were retained, which
in part give it its very characteristic appearance.
The curvature of the uprights is mathematically determined to offer the most efficient wind
resistance possible. As Eiffel himself explains: "All the cutting force of the wind passes into the
interior of the leading edge uprights. Lines drawn tangential to each upright with the point of each
tangent at the same height, will always intersect at a second point, which is exactly the point through
which passes the flow resultant from the action of the wind on that part of the tower support
situated above the two points in question. Before coming together at the high pinnacle, the uprights
appear to burst out of the ground, and in a way to be shaped by the action of the wind".

The assembly of the supports began on July 1, 1887 and was completed twenty-
two months later.

All the elements were prepared in Eiffels factory located at Levallois-Perret on the outskirts of Paris.
Each of the 18,000 pieces used to construct the Tower were specifically designed and calculated,
traced out to an accuracy of a tenth of a millimetre and then put together forming new pieces around
five metres each. A team of constructors, who had worked on the great metal viaduct projects, were
responsible for the 150 to 300 workers on site assembling this gigantic erector set.


All the metal pieces of the tower are held together by rivets, a well-refined
method of construction at the time the Tower was constructed.

First the pieces were assembled in the factory using bolts, later to be replaced one by one with
thermally assembled rivets, which contracted during cooling thus ensuring a very tight fit. A team of
four men was needed for each rivet assembled: one to heat it up, another to hold it in place, a third to
shape the head and a fourth to beat it with a sledgehammer. Only a third of the 2,500,000 rivets used
in the construction of the Tower were inserted directly on site.

The uprights rest on concrete foundations installed a few metres below ground-
level on top of a layer of compacted gravel.

Each corner edge rests on its own supporting block, applying to it a pressure of 3 to 4 kilograms per
square centimetre, and each block is joined to the others by walls. On the Seine side of the
construction, the builders used watertight metal caissons and injected compressed air, so that they
were able to work below the level of the water.

The tower was assembled using wooden scaffolding and small steam cranes mounted onto the
tower itself.

The assembly of the first level was achieved by the use of twelve temporary wooden scaffolds, 30
metres high, and four larger scaffolds of 40 metres each.

"Sand boxes" and hydraulic jacks - replaced after use by permanent wedges - allowed the metal girders
to be positioned to an accuracy of one millimetre.
On December 7, 1887, the joining of the major girders up to the first level was completed. The pieces
were hauled up by steam cranes, which themselves climbed up the Tower as they went along using the
runners to be used for the Tower's lifts.


It only took five months to build the foundations and twenty-
one to finish assembling the metal pieces of the Tower.
Considering the rudimentary means available at that period, this
could be considered record speed. The assembly of the Tower was a marvel of
precision, as all chroniclers of the period agree. The construction work began in
January 1887 and was finished on March 31, 1889. On the narrow platform at the
top, Eiffel received his decoration from the Legion of Honour.
Journalist Emile Goudeau describes the spectacle visiting the construction site at
the beginning of 1889.

"A thick cloud of tar and coal smoke seized the throat, and we were deafened by the din of metal
screaming beneath the hammer. Over there they were still working on the bolts: workmen with their
iron bludgeons, perched on a ledge just a few centimetres wide, took turns at striking the bolts (these
in fact were the rivets). One could have taken them for blacksmiths contentedly beating out a rhythm
on an anvil in some village forge, except that these smiths were not striking up and down vertically, but
horizontally, and as with each blow came a shower of sparks, these black figures, appearing larger than
life against the background of the open sky, looked as if they were reaping lightning bolts in the
clouds."

The Construction Schedule
The construction work took 2 years, 2 months and 5 days.
The first floor was finished on the 1st April 1888
The second floor was finished on the 14th August 1888.
The assembly was completed once and for all, with the top, on the 31st March 1889.

A Few Figures
18,038 metallic parts
5,300 workshop designs
50 engineers and designers
150 workers in the Levallois-Perret factory
Between 150 and 300 workers on the construction site
2,500,000 rivets
7,300 tonnes of iron
60 tonnes of paint
2 years, 2 months and 5 days of construction
5 lifts.