Repository: UIHistories Project: Booklet - Engineering Experiment Station and Industry (1909) [PAGE 19]

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Breckenridge—Engineering Experiment Station

Breckenridge—Engineering Experiment Station

35

terial growing more and more expensive, as wood, and the correct factors of strength of new materials, as concrete, are always subjects for the most careful investigation. To this work we are giving considerable attention, and the demand for the results of our tests on reinforced concrete which are being carried on under the supervision of Professor A. N. Talbot indicates the interest which is taken in this work and the necessity felt by architects, constructors and builders for the most exact information along these lines. The work of the Station will also extend into some fresh fields, seeking to discover new ways and means' for economizing energy and materials, for the prevention of waste, for the protection of labor-saving machinery, for safer methods of travel, and for surer sanitary methods of water supply and sewage disposal. Fuel supply is of such prime importance in our industrial development that no effort should be spared in the introduction and promulgation of improved methods and processes in the mining, preparation and consumption of coal. From broad economical considerations wasteful methods of using coal, or the rejection of any combustile part as waste, are to be discountenanced. Exhaustive and careful experiments will be required before the best conditions can be attained. These experiments must include analyses of coals from all parts of the state, a determination of the best kinds of coal for specific purposes, best methods of burning Illinois coals, effects of various methods of preparation, experiments on various kinds of furnace construction, etc. Along the line of power production there is opportunity for much investigation. New problems are confronting both the builders and users of steam and gas motors. There is at present a noteworthy change from the reciprocating engine of large size to the steam turbine. Gas engines of large power have recently been installed, and the development of this type of motor bids fair to be more rapid in the near future. Still newer types of motors are being proposed from time to time/the gas turbine being one that at present occupies much attention as an attractive possibility. For the user of power, the Station can investigate questions relative to the economy of various types of power installations with given conditions of service. For the builders of motors it can investigate the new and perplexing problems that have arisen. The properties of the various fluids used in heat motors need careful study. Superheated steam is essential to the proper working of a steam turbine, yet many of its properties remain to be investigated. The properties of ammonia and other fluids used in refrigeration are not known accurately, and even the properties of saturated steam are based on Regnault's experiments made nearly seventy years ago. A careful investigation of the properties of heat media of all kinds, extending if necessary over a series of years, would furnish data of the greatest value to engineers, and would in addition be a noteworthy contribution to science.

Considerable work for the railroad interests has already been done by the railway engineering department of the university. This department owns jointly with the Illinois Central Railroad a dynamometer car equipped for steam road experimental work. With this car have been made numerous road tests for the establishment of tonnage ratings. The department also owns a 200 H.P. electric car of the interurban type, especially designed and thoroughly equipped for electric traction work. Railway work with both these cars will be prosecuted vigorously under the direction of the new school of railway engineering and administration recently organized. It is expected that the Experiment Station will prove helpful to the manufacturing and building interests. In the first place, it will supply accurate data regarding the properties of the materials used in engineering structures and buildings. The laboratory of applied mechanics with its extensive field needs much greater facilities for this line of work, as the reinforced concrete tests now in progress show great possibilities. In the near future, an extensive series of tests on cast-iron columns, and on various forms of steel and iron members is contemplated. Secondly, the Experiment Station will investigate manufacturing processes. As an example of this kind of work the high-speed steel tests are cited. Thirdly, problems relating to design and construction will be studied, and all useful results will be published for the benefit of those engaged in design or construction. As a rule the Experiment Station will undertake only such investigations as will lead to results of fundamental importance, results that will be helpful to a large class of engineers or manufacturers. It will not, in general, undertake work of importance to individuals only, e. g., the testing of a device or invention for the sole benefit of the inventor. The Station is now planning to make a more systematic study of the industrial and engineering interests of the state of Illinois, more particularly with the thought in mind that these industries should be advised as to the work already accomplished by the Station, and also that more exact knowledge may be obtained concerning the needs of the various industrial interests throughout the state. Professor Kenneth G. Smith in the capacity of Industrial Visitor, has during the year, visited the manufacturing centers of Illinois in order to become acquainted with the problems confronting these various interests so that such fundamental problems as affect a large number of our industries can be taken up and such study of these problems made as facilities and funds permit. There are at present, as already pointed out, fully fifty persons doing some work for the Station; of this number only twenty are devoting all of their time to the station work, the remainder giving but a part of their time to its interests. There are now (May, 1909) in progress nearly sixty different investigations which could doubt-