The “Vulcan Overview”: Unravelling Its Mysteries

A digital copy of the advertisement above came into my possession recently. Much of the development of this site has involved research and some educated (hopefully) guesswork as to the date and purpose of a drawing, photograph or other document. This one raises some interesting questions in a number of ways which we will explore.

Purpose and Date

It’s not clear where this appeared. It looks like it was prepared for some kind of buyer’s guide of construction equipment. It covers only the pile driving equipment, which by the date of publication (more about that shortly) was Vulcan’s entire output, save for the manhole covers. The #5 had disappeared from the product line and what’s featured are the Warrington-Vulcan air/steam hammers, the California hammers, and the drop hammers.

As far as the date is concerned, the piece notes that “Size “G” (California hammer) is now ready for the market.” The hammer was first built in 1922 and formally introduced in 1924. The address of 327 North Irving Avenue is also correct for the time; the name wasn’t changed to 327 North Bell Avenue until around 1936.

Earlier appears this statement: “For more than half a century the Vulcan Iron Works, of Chicago, has specialized in the design and manufacture of pile driving machinery…” The use of the definite article to refer to the company was customary until after World War II. Turning to the Warrington-Vulcan hammers to help date the document, the 1920 catalogue gives the following information:

The experience of these Works in the making of automatic steam pile hammers extends backward to the year 1875, when their manufacture was begun under the patent of Mr. T.T. Loomis, who employed the main features of the old English Naysmith hammer, with an improved valve gear. The success of the Loomis hammer led to an improved form under the patents of Mr. Thomas M. Skinner, in which the number of parts was greatly reduced and the valve actuated by steam. This form was manufactured for several years and earned an excellent reputation. Difficulty was found occasionally, however, with the steam-moved valve, as well as with some minor features, and the outcome of it was the designing and patenting of the Warrington hammer.

Using fifty years after the 1875 date would put the publication no earlier than 1925, which is not unreasonable with the information on the California hammer. As an aside, it also underscores the fact that Vulcan was producing pile hammers before the Warrington brothers George, James and William purchased the company from O.B. Green in 1881, and between 1864 and 1876 the company was owned by Atkins and Burgess. The Warrington-Vulcan hammers were not original with the brothers but they improved by them into the durable product that made the company the leader in the field.

It is difficult to date this piece accurately; the mid-1920’s is probably the best we can do.

Warrington-Vulcan Hammers

The five models refer to the #0, #1, #2, #3 and #4, the 0R (and its successors, the 08, 010, etc.) coming much later. The “heavy ram-short stroke” issue is discussed here.

California Hammers

One of the interesting things said about this hammer is that “The hammer can be operated with either steam or air without change of adjustment.” The California hammers were the only hammers–along with the Airmizer, which was a variation of the MKT “C” series hammers–that used the air or steam expansively. Since both fluids expand differently, designing for that was no mean feat. Also, Vulcan hoped that the expansive use of the fluid–which was also a feature of the Menck hammers–would give a competitive edge with operating costs. The reality is, however, that the advantages were minimal. Irrespective of whether a hammer is designed to use air or steam expansively, either fluid will expand during operation and add energy to the hammer.

Vulcan Drop Hammer, and the Question of Weight Distribution

The part on the drop hammers brings up an issue that would come back to challenge Vulcan in, of all places, its offshore hammers.

The piece states that “We aim to get as much weight as possible in the bottom of the hammer.” For the drop hammers this was probably to stabilise the fall of the hammer, along with the next item to make the leader guides as long as possible. One factor that was occasionally included in the discussions of the dynamic formulae was whether to take into account the elasticity of the drop hammer, as is evident in Goodrich’s paper.

As pile hammers went offshore, Vulcan’s competitor Menck put forth the proposition that putting most of the weight at the lower part of the ram made for a more efficient impact. Although Vulcan’s rams generally had a uniform distribution of weight vertically, the length of the ram point pushed upward the centre of gravity of the ram. Menck was able to convince people such as T.J. Hirsch of the TTI program that their idea was correct, which led later wave equation programs such as WEAP to include a segmented ram with distributed mass and elasticity (which made more sense for, say, a diesel hammer with its long ram.) How much this adds to the modelling accuracy of a cushioned ram is a matter of debate.

Vulcan was soon to find out, however, that putting more weight towards the bottom of the ram disproportionally loaded the lower column bores in the four-column arrangement Vulcan had used from the first #2 onwards. This was the undoing of the 6300, which was designed in part to meet a height limitation. This would not have affected the drop hammers, which effectively had a two-column arrangement. (Putting one on a Warrington-Vulcan hammer would run into leader width limitations, as American contractors were and are not as enthusiastic about running the hammer in front of the leads as their European and other counterparts.)

It is interesting to note that the successful IHC hammers have a long and relatively slender ram, albeit cushionless.

Vulcan Pile Cap

Although driving wood piles directly with a drop hammer was a common way of putting them into the ground (as was evident in Goodrich’s study,) the existence of the Casgrain cap shows that the pile head damage led at least some contractors to use a hammer cushion even in this case. The development of concrete piles made this even more important.