Who Knew That Old George Was So Cool

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If you have ever lived in Pittsburgh, you've got in all probability heard of George Westinghouse. Pittsburgh is house to the George Westinghouse Bridge, Westinghouse Park and - a memorial to George Westinghouse in Schenley Park. Even when you don't stay in Pittsburgh, perhaps you have heard of Westinghouse, EcoLight the corporate that bears the man's name. The Westinghouse firm name adorns merchandise from TVs to light energy-saving LED bulbs to nuclear energy plants -- even a Brooklyn, New York high school. The company also used to own tv and radio stations. George Westinghouse was an inventor and engineer who held more than 300 patents over the course of his life. He each created new technologies and refined current ones. He helped make Pittsburgh one among America's industrial centers. Lots of the companies that he founded stay in operation right this moment, together with the Westinghouse Air Brake Firm (at the moment working below the name Wabtec), and the nuclear energy powerhouse Westinghouse Electric Company. The man even beat out Thomas Edison in the race to construct the nation's electrical infrastructure.



Keep reading to study more about George Westinghouse via his top five innovations. Next time you doze off while riding in a automotive, thank George Westinghouse. In 1910, Westinghouse invented a compressed air shock absorber for vehicles. Before that point, riding in a automobile could possibly be extremely tough. Most early automotive suspensions used leaf or coil springs. Leaf springs are curved pieces of metallic; the automobile's body sits at the top of the curve, which gives somewhat because the car travels over tough surfaces, relieving the bumps. A coil spring is a coiled piece of steel that compresses over bumps. A compressed air spring or shock absorber uses pressurized air or different gasses -- not metal -- to absorb bumps. In the shock absorber, pressure builds up. When the car hits a bump, the compressed fuel within the shock absorber pushes again in opposition to the surface forces, preserving the experience clean.



As we speak, many luxury vehicles and off-road automobiles use compressed air suspensions that operate on related ideas to Westinghouse's initial concept. Low riders and automobiles which have adjustable suspensions use the know-how. Who knew that previous George was so cool? However the most effective a part of this story is that the compressed air shock absorber got here from his early work on railroad security. Keep studying to find out more. That wasn't all the time the case. While early railroads knew methods to get big, heavy locomotives going, stopping them was one other matter. That's where George Westinghouse got here in. Westinghouse invented train airbrakes, and fashionable trains still use his primary design. Before the introduction of airbrakes, locomotive brakes needed to be applied manually: Brakemen in each car would manually apply the brakes based on indicators given by the engineer. Nevertheless, the brakemen could not always hear the signals; they sometimes utilized the brakes incorrectly, resulting in accidents.



Compressed air in a tank is launched by pipes on the underside of the practice cars, and the compressed air applies the brake shoes to the prepare's wheels. Probably the most innovative a part of Westinghouse's design was that it was fail-secure: If the system felt a leak within the pipes, the brakes deployed routinely, stopping the train earlier than its velocity grew to become a problem. Westinghouse's airbrakes are nonetheless used on trains at this time. If you utilize natural gas to heat your own home or cook, nonetheless, you might have much more to thank George for. After his innovations in the railroad industry, EcoLight Westinghouse settled in Philadelphia, where he had a natural gasoline effectively drilled on his property. The effectively allowed Westinghouse to work on his next great invention: a valve that allowed for the secure distribution of natural gas to properties. There's an issue with using pure fuel for gasoline at residence: The fuel is extremely pressurized when it leaves the properly -- it has to be in order to move the gasoline via distribution pipes.