Engineering Drawings of Leonardo da Vinci

Engineering Drawings of Leonardo da Vinci

Introduction

As a polymath, Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), though best recognized as the painter of the 'Mona Lisa' and 'The Last Supper' showed numerous skills in science, engineering and creations. Da Vinci was a very distinguished inventor, scientist and engineer of his time. The areas of scientific study in which da Vinci worked includes aeronautics, anatomy, astronomy, botany, civil engineering, chemistry, geology, geometry, hydrodynamics, mathematics, mechanical engineering, optics, physics, pyrotechnics and zoology. Although all the material from his scientific works and inventions become known only in the last 150 years, Da Vinci was engaged in engineering and had to use his inventive skill throughout his life. Da Vinci worked on the major royal courts of Europe, including for the family of Sforza and the Medici. This led to a significant increase in the level of his knowledge of anatomy, civil engineering and hydrodynamics. He marked his work in the fields of architecture, sculpture, philosophy and writing, but these activities have played a smaller role in his life. Around 7000 pages of his notebooks with drawings, sketches and research notes can still be found today (www.da-vinci-inventions.com).

Discussion

Da Vinci is best known for his paintings and for his studies on the flight, probably much less for the many other things of which he was a true precursor, such as in the field of geology. He was among the first, in fact, to understand what were the fossils, and because there were marine fossils in the mountains. Contrary to what was believed at that time, that it was the evidence of the great flood, the biblical event which would have drowned the whole earth. Leonardo imagined the movement of water masses on earth, like the blood circulation, with a slow but continuous change, coming to the conclusion that the places where the fossils surfaced once must have been the seabed. Although with very original reasoning, the conclusion of Leonardo was surprisingly accurate (www.leonardodavincisinventions.com).

During his lifetime, da Vinci invented many concepts. Some of them, such as the flying machine, were real prototypes. He made notable inventions for the field of military. He designed a machine called 'the scorpions', a machine which draws some stones and darts, which can be used to destroy the enemy machines. He designed several machines to use guns against enemy ships, the coils of which are suitable against the "galleys, to offend the enemy from afar. It threw 4 pounds of lead from rafts to burn enemy ships moored in the harbor. He also designed the ships with spikes that break the enemy hulls and fire bombs composed of charcoal, saltpeter, sulfur, tar, incense and camphor. It produced a fire on the ships and burns them all (www.da-vinci-inventions.com).

Leonardo da Vinci had deeper knowledge about the laws of physics that govern the body weight, force and motion, the closer it seemed to be the solution. The later journals of Leonardo da Vinci contain detailed descriptions of research on flights of birds and the wings ...