Joseph Monier
The important point of Monier's idea was that it combined steel and concrete in such a way that the best qualities of each material were brought into play.
Steel, on the other hand, is easily procurable in simple forms such as long bars, and is extremely strong.
Concrete had been avoided for making beams, slabs and thin walls because its lack of tensile strength doomed it to fail in such circumstances.
But if a concrete slab is reinforced with a network of small steel rods on its undersurface where the tensile stresses occur, its strength will be enormously increased.
François Hennébique saw Monier's reinforced concrete tubs and tanks at the Paris Exposition and began experimenting with ways to apply this new material to building construction.
When friends of the duke began to ask his advice, his horizons widened and he started to make the high-level contacts that were to define his later career.
Responsible for the orangery, he began to look for a more durable form of container for the orange trees, which were moved from the open air into the greenhouses during the winter.
He began to make them of cement (mixed with sand, cinders, and/or crushed firebricks) and reinforced them with a grid of iron rods.
There was a general notion at the time that thermal expansion and contraction of embedded iron would rupture the concrete.
The fashion at the time was to decorate large gardens with rockeries and grottoes and to form these from plain concrete.
He also created small garden pavilions, shaping and carving the concrete surface to imitate the rustic wooden originals.
In September of that year he applied for a patent for panels suitable for cladding buildings, and for use as pavers and tiles.
Paris was under siege for 4 months and in December, starving citizens invaded Monier's property and removed everything edible, including the horses.
Monier was careful to check with clients after some years, to ensure that his products had performed well, and to obtain testimonials.
About 1875 Monier built a staircase leading to the offices above his workshop and applied for a patent to cover this form of construction.
The technique is recorded in photographs of a demonstration house which is shown under construction; completed; and in course of demolition.
The firm's projects included a reinforced concrete laundry building, and pipes for a sewage treatment plant.
In retirement, Monier was harassed by bailiffs and by the tax office, which reasoned that he should have been receiving large commissions from his many foreign patents.
In 1902 a number of foreign firms that had profited from his patents appealed to the President of France to grant him a pension, describing him as the inventor of reinforced concrete, and as their "former master" (ancien maître).
Monier opted to sell his rights outside France to local businessmen and engineers for a lump sum payment.
Research into the science and mathematics of reinforced concrete structures progressed rapidly in the last decade of the 19th Century.
Initially, the main products were pipes and arch structures using the Monier system as refined by Wayss and his colleagues.
They were built by firms associated with Frank Moorhouse Gummow, and design engineer William (Wilhelm) Julius Baltzer in 1897/8.
[3] Monier pipes produced by Gummow Forrest & Co, joined end-to-end, were used as tubular foundations for a number of bridges built by the Public Works Department of NSW, the first being over Cockle Creek near Newcastle.
