It is often suggested that Marc’s inspiration for his tunnelling shield was the humble shipworm, Terredo Navalis. This tiny creature bores into ships’ timbers. Marc saw first hand the impact of Terredo Navalis up close when he worked in Chatham Dockyard.
Ship worms, which are in fact clams rather than worms, use their shells on top of their heads to bore tunnels through timbers of ships. It does its damage by using shell-like protrusions on either side of is head to dig, then excreting the excavated wood out of its body, using it to line and reinforce the tunnel as it moves along.
It is often suggested that Engineer Marc Brunel inspiration for his tunnelling shield was the humble shipworm, Terredo Navalis. saw first hand the impact of Terredo Navalis up close when he worked in Chatham Dockyard.To construct the Thames Tunnel, Marc Brunel built the first ever “travelling shield”. Made of iron and weighing more than seven tons, it contained 36 adjacent cells all of which contained a miner working independently. The design for the shield was inspired by Marc’s observation of the shipworm “teredo navalis”, which excretes digested wood to line the walls of its self-made tunnel. The huge iron frame made the construction not only safer, as it prevented the whole face collapsing at once, but also more accurate, as it kept the design to an exact size and shape.
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