|
National Filling Factory, Banbury
National Filling Factory, Banbury, officially called National Filling Factory No. 9. was a British Ministry of Munitions filling factory, constructed during World War I and located in Banbury, Oxfordshire. The production of filled shells began in April 1916 and ended when the factory closed in 1924 Background At the outbreak of World War I, the production of explosives and the associated filling facilities for high explosives were limited to the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich, and the facilities of the Elswick Ordnance Company at Derwenthaugh and Lemington Point, both close to Newcastle Upon Tyne. The British Army found itself on the Western Front short of explosive shells and bullets. The Ministry of Munitions (MoM) under new minister David Lloyd George, were tasked to construct a suitable infrastructure of National Filling Factories (NFFs) to supply the Army. Principles of layout and operation The MoM were looking to create a number of munitions production facilities quickly and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ministry Of Munitions
The Minister of Munitions was a British government position created during the First World War to oversee and co-ordinate the production and distribution of munitions for the war effort. The position was created in response to the Shell Crisis of 1915 when there was much newspaper criticism of the shortage of artillery shells and fear of sabotage. The Ministry was created by the Munitions of War Act 1915 passed on 2 July 1915 to safeguard the supply of artillery munitions. Under the very vigorous leadership of Liberal party politician David Lloyd George, the Ministry in its first year set up a system that dealt with labour disputes and fully mobilized Britain's capacity for a massive increase in the production of munitions. The government policy, according to historian J. A. R. Marriott, was that: : No private interest was to be permitted to obstruct the service, or imperil the safety, of the State. Trade Union regulations must be suspended; employers' profits must be limited, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scientific Management
Scientific management is a theory of management that analyzes and synthesizes workflows. Its main objective is improving economic efficiency, especially labor productivity. It was one of the earliest attempts to apply science to the engineering of processes to management. Scientific management is sometimes known as Taylorism after its pioneer, Frederick Winslow Taylor. Mitcham, Carl and Adam, Briggle ''Management'' in Mitcham (2005) p. 1153 Taylor began the theory's development in the United States during the 1880s and 1890s within manufacturing industries, especially steel. Its peak of influence came in the 1910s. Although Taylor died in 1915, by the 1920s scientific management was still influential but had entered into competition and syncretism with opposing or complementary ideas. Although scientific management as a distinct theory or school of thought was obsolete by the 1930s, most of its themes are still important parts of industrial engineering and management toda ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shrapnel Shell
Shrapnel shells were anti-personnel artillery munitions which carried many individual bullets close to a target area and then ejected them to allow them to continue along the shell's trajectory and strike targets individually. They relied almost entirely on the shell's velocity for their lethality. The munition has been obsolete since the end of World War I for anti-personnel use; high-explosive shells superseded it for that role. The functioning and principles behind Shrapnel shells are fundamentally different from high-explosive shell fragmentation. Shrapnel is named after Lieutenant-General Henry Shrapnel (1761–1842), a British artillery officer, whose experiments, initially conducted on his own time and at his own expense, culminated in the design and development of a new type of artillery shell. Usage of term "shrapnel" has changed over time to also refer to fragmentation of the casing of shells and bombs. This is its most common modern usage, which strays from the o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Naval Mines
A naval mine is a self-contained explosive device placed in water to damage or destroy surface ships or submarines. Unlike depth charges, mines are deposited and left to wait until they are triggered by the approach of, or contact with, any vessel or a particular vessel type, akin to anti-infantry vs. anti-vehicle mines. Naval mines can be used offensively, to hamper enemy shipping movements or lock vessels into a harbour; or defensively, to protect friendly vessels and create "safe" zones. Mines allow the minelaying force commander to concentrate warships or defensive assets in mine-free areas giving the adversary three choices: undertake an expensive and time-consuming minesweeping effort, accept the casualties of challenging the minefield, or use the unmined waters where the greatest concentration of enemy firepower will be encountered. Although international law requires signatory nations to declare mined areas, precise locations remain secret; and non-complying individual ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Italian Front (World War I)
The Italian front or Alpine front ( it, Fronte alpino, "Alpine front"; in german: Gebirgskrieg, "Mountain war") involved a series of battles at the border between Austria-Hungary and Italy, fought between 1915 and 1918 in the course of World War I. Following secret promises made by the Allies in the 1915 Treaty of London, Italy entered the war aiming to annex the Austrian Littoral, northern Dalmatia, and the territories of present-day Trentino and South Tyrol. Although Italy had hoped to gain the territories with a surprise offensive, the front soon bogged down into trench warfare, similar to that on the Western Front in France, but at high altitudes and with very cold winters. Fighting along the front displaced much of the local population, and several thousand civilians died from malnutrition and illness in Italian and Austro-Hungarian refugee-camps. The Allied victory at Vittorio Veneto, the disintegration of the Habsburg empire, and the Italian capture of Trento and Tries ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Copper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orange color. Copper is used as a conductor of heat and electricity, as a building material, and as a constituent of various metal alloys, such as sterling silver used in jewelry, cupronickel used to make marine hardware and coins, and constantan used in strain gauges and thermocouples for temperature measurement. Copper is one of the few metals that can occur in nature in a directly usable metallic form ( native metals). This led to very early human use in several regions, from circa 8000 BC. Thousands of years later, it was the first metal to be smelted from sulfide ores, circa 5000 BC; the first metal to be cast into a shape in a mold, c. 4000 BC; and the first metal to be purposely alloyed with another metal, tin, to create ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lyddite
Picric acid is an organic compound with the formula (O2N)3C6H2OH. Its IUPAC name is 2,4,6-trinitrophenol (TNP). The name "picric" comes from el, πικρός (''pikros''), meaning "bitter", due to its bitter taste. It is one of the most acidic phenols. Like other strongly nitrated organic compounds, picric acid is an explosive, which is its primary use. It has also been used as medicine (antiseptic, burn treatments) and as a dye. History Picric acid was probably first mentioned in the alchemical writings of Johann Rudolf Glauber. Initially, it was made by nitrating substances such as animal horn, silk, indigo, and natural resin, the synthesis from indigo first being performed by Peter Woulfe during 1771. The German chemist Justus von Liebig had named picric acid (rendered in French as ). Picric acid was given that name by the French chemist Jean-Baptiste Dumas in 1841. Its synthesis from phenol, and the correct determination of its formula, were accomplished during 1841 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Belfast Truss
A lattice bridge is a form of truss bridge that uses many small, closely spaced diagonal elements forming a lattice. The lattice Truss Bridge was patented in 1820 by architect Ithiel Town. Originally a design to allow a substantial bridge to be made from planks employing lower–skilled labor, rather than heavy timbers and more expensive carpenters, this type of bridge has also been constructed using many relatively light iron or steel members. The individual elements are more easily handled by the construction workers, but the bridge also requires substantial support during construction. A simple lattice truss will transform the applied loads into a thrust, as the bridge will tend to change length under load. This is resisted by pinning the lattice members to the top and bottom chords, which are more substantial than the lattice members, but which may also be fabricated from relatively small elements rather than large beams. Belfast truss The ''Belfast truss'' is a cross betw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Timber-framed
Timber framing (german: Holzfachwerk) and "post-and-beam" construction are traditional methods of building with heavy timbers, creating structures using squared-off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden pegs. If the structural frame of load-bearing timber is left exposed on the exterior of the building it may be referred to as half-timbered, and in many cases the infill between timbers will be used for decorative effect. The country most known for this kind of architecture is Germany, where timber-framed houses are spread all over the country. The method comes from working directly from logs and trees rather than pre-cut dimensional lumber. Hewing this with broadaxes, adzes, and draw knives and using hand-powered braces and augers (brace and bit) and other woodworking tools, artisans or framers could gradually assemble a building. Since this building method has been used for thousands of years in many parts of the world, many s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Picric Acid
Picric acid is an organic compound with the formula (O2N)3C6H2OH. Its IUPAC name is 2,4,6-trinitrophenol (TNP). The name "picric" comes from el, πικρός (''pikros''), meaning "bitter", due to its bitter taste. It is one of the most acidic phenols. Like other strongly nitrated organic compounds, picric acid is an explosive, which is its primary use. It has also been used as medicine (antiseptic, burn treatments) and as a dye. History Picric acid was probably first mentioned in the alchemical writings of Johann Rudolf Glauber. Initially, it was made by nitrating substances such as animal horn, silk, indigo, and natural resin, the synthesis from indigo first being performed by Peter Woulfe during 1771. The German chemist Justus von Liebig had named picric acid (rendered in French as ). Picric acid was given that name by the French chemist Jean-Baptiste Dumas in 1841. Its synthesis from phenol, and the correct determination of its formula, were accomplished during 1841. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Standard Gauge Railway
A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), International gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge and European gauge in Europe, and SGR in East Africa. It is the most widely used track gauge around the world, with approximately 55% of the lines in the world using it. All high-speed rail lines use standard gauge except those in Russia, Finland, and Uzbekistan. The distance between the inside edges of the rails is defined to be 1435 mm except in the United States and on some heritage British lines, where it is defined in U.S. customary/Imperial units as exactly "four feet eight and one half inches" which is equivalent to 1435.1mm. History As railways developed and expanded, one of the key issues was the track gauge (the distance, or width, between the inner sides of the rails) to be used. Different railways used different gauges, and where rails of different gauge met – ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sloane Square
Sloane Square is a small hard-landscaped square on the boundaries of the central London districts of Belgravia and Chelsea, located southwest of Charing Cross, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. The area forms a boundary between the two largest aristocratic estates in London, the Grosvenor Estate and the Cadogan. The square was formerly known as 'Hans Town', laid out in 1771 to a plan of by Henry Holland Snr. and Henry Holland Jnr. Both the square and Hans Town were named after Sir Hans Sloane (1660–1753), an Anglo-Irish doctor who, jointly with his appointed trustees, owned the land at the time. Location The bulk of Chelsea, especially the east end more local to Sloane Square, is architecturally and economically similar to South Kensington, Belgravia, St James's, and Mayfair. The largely retail at ground floor Kings Road with its design and interior furnishing focus intersects at Sloane Square the residential, neatly corniced and dressed façades of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
