Word Finder - piers

definition

A raised platform built from the shore out over water, supported on piles; used to secure, or provide access to shipping; a jetty.

definition

A similar structure, especially at a seaside resort, used to provide entertainment.

definition

A structure that projects tangentially from the shoreline to accommodate ships; often double-sided.

definition

A structure supporting the junction between two spans of a bridge.

definition

A rectangular pillar, or similar structure, that supports an arch, wall or roof, or the hinges of a gate.

The city has immense coal piers.

In the rolls of parliament of 1437 mention is made of Piers Venables, a robber who took to the woods "like as it had been Robin Hood and his meyne."

The walls, piers and arches, are all built in brick, covered with stucco, a great portion of which is preserved down to the present day.

The harbour is enclosed by two stone piers, and there is good anchorage in the bay.

The oldest mention of Robin Hood at present known occurs in the second edition - what is called the B text - of Piers the Plowman, the date of which is about 1377.

The piers carrying the arches have shafts at their angles, the earliest examples known, and the decoration of the walls consists of friezes, borders, and impost-bands, all enriched with conventional patterns interwoven with cufic characters and modelled in stucco.

In the earliest mosque at old Delhi, they adopted the piers and bracketed capitals of the Jaina builders, whom they probably employed to build their mosque.

The covered aisles of the court of the Jumma Musjid at Jaunpur are in three storeys with piers, bracket-capitals and architraves, bearing therefore no resemblance to the arcades of Kairawan and Cordova, and constituting a different style.

As a contrast to the Ahmedabad mosques, the Kadam Rasul mosque at Gaur in Bengal possesses some characteristics which resemble those of the mosque of Tulun in Cairo, possibly due to the fact that it is entirely built in brick, with massive piers carrying pointed arches.

The control of the harbour, piers, pleasure grounds, &c., was acquired from the lord of the manor by the local board in 1886.

The town, which is quite modern, contains many churches and chapels of all denominations, a town hall, public libraries, the Victoria hospital, three piers, theatres, ball-rooms, and other places of public amusement, including a lofty tower, resembling the Eiffel Tower of Paris.

The whole of the eastern side of Darling Harbour is occupied by a succession of wharves and piers, there being in all 4000 ft.

Black ironwood is likewise used in building wagons, while sneezewood is largely utilized for supports for piers and other marine structures, being impervious to the attacks of the Teredo navalis.

Guy, the 2nd, distinguished himself in the Scottish campaigns of Edward I., who warned him at his death against Piers Gaveston.

Thus "the great unknown" from the Oberland is the ideal character, "who illustrates how God does his work for the world and for the church through a divinely trained and spiritually illuminated layman," just as William Langland in England about the same time drew the figure of Piers Plowman.

The present Westminster Bridge, of iron on granite piers, was opened in 1862, but another preceded it, dating from 1750; the view from which was appreciated by Wordsworth in his sonnet beginning " Earth has not anything to show more fair."

The harbour, originally constructed as a refuge for British ships of war, is one of the best on the east coast, and has been improved by the widening of the piers and the extension of the breakwaters.

The port has two piers.

A rectangular trough of boards, whose dimensions depend chiefly on the size of the planks available, is set up on the higher part of the ground at one side of the claim to be worked, upon trestles or piers of rough stone-work, at such an inclination that the stream may carry off all but the largest stones, which are kept back by a grating of boards about 2 in.

There are two piers, and a railway viaduct of eleven arches crosses the harbour.

He erected a stone bridge with wooden piers across the Rhine at Mainz, and began a canal between the Altmiihl and the Rednitz to connect the Rhine and the Danube, but this work was not finished.

His son Thomas, who inherited the title, took the lead among the nobles of Edward II.'s time in opposition to Piers Gaveston and the Despensers, and was beheaded for treason at Pontefract.

These " pilgrim signs " are frequently alluded to in literature - notably in the Canterbury Tales and in Piers Plowman.

On the other hand, when the bottom was rocky so that the piles could not be driven, they were steadied at their bases by being enveloped in a mound of loose stones, in the manner in which the foundations of piers and breakwaters are now constructed.

In many cases the span is fixed by local conditions, such as the convenient sites for piers, or the requirements of waterway or navigation.

On the other hand, a girder imposes only a vertical load on its piers and abutments, and not a horizontal thrust, as in the case of an arch or suspension chain.

The objection to continuity is that very small alterations of level of the supports due to settlement of the piers may very greatly alter the distribution of stress, and render the bridge unsafe.

Some piers are said still to exist.

Bridges with stone piers and timber superstructures were no doubt constructed from Roman times onward, but they have perished.

The bridge over the East Dart near Tavistock had three piers, with slabs FIG.

The chains pass over lofty piers on which they usually rest on saddles carried by rollers, and are led down on either side to anchorages in rock chambers.

There are wrought iron saddles and steel rollers on the piers.

Intermediate piers support the trusses in the side spans.

The opening bridge between the river towers consists of two leaves or bascules, pivoted near the faces of the piers and rotating in a vertical plane.

There was an idea of using suspension chains combined with a girder, and in fact the tower piers were built so as to accommodate chains.

Though each girder has been made continuous over the four spans it has not quite the proportions over the piers which a continuous girder should have, FIG.

The side spans are erected first on staging and anchored to the piers.

The shore piers carry cantilevers projecting one way over the river openings and the other way over a shore span where it is secured to an anchorage.

The cantilever rests on two river piers 120 ft.

Eads, the engineer, determined to establish the piers and abutments on rock at a depth for the east pier and east abutment of 136 ft.

Wire cables were used in the erection, by which the members were lifted from barges and assembled, the operations being conducted from the side piers.

It is formed by a crescent-shaped arch, continued on one side by four, on the other side by two lattice girder spans, on iron piers.

The lattice girders of the side spans were first rolled into place, so as to project some distance beyond the piers, and then the arch ribs were built out, being partly supported by wire-rope cables from (3) Draw or Bascule Bridges.

In these bridges each bascule is prolonged backwards beyond the hinge so as to balance at the hinge, the prolongation sinking into the piers when the bridge is opened.

The end lifts which transfer the weight of the bridge to the piers when the span is closed consist of massive eccentrics having a throw of 4 in.

The substructure of a bridge comprises the piers, abutments and foundations.

Occasionally metal work or woodwork is used for intermediate piers.

When girders form the superstructure, the resultant pressure on the piers or abutments is vertical, and the dimensions of these are simply regulated by the sufficiency to bear this vertical load.

The intermediate piers should also have considerable stability, so as to counterbalance the thrust arising when one arch is loaded while the other is free from load.

The piers require to be carried above the platform, and their design must be modified according to the type of suspension bridge adopted.