 | University of Virginia record February, 1912 |  |
LABORATORY WORK IN ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING.
The Scott Laboratory of Electrical Engineering.—This laboratory
was initially equipped and endowed by Mrs. Frances Branch Scott,
of Richmond, Va., as a memorial to her late son, an alumnus of
this university. During the year 1910 the equipment was substantially
increased through the generosity of the Hon. Charles M.
Crane, of Chicago, Ill., a friend of the university.
In addition to full sets of electric meters with the appliances
for testing and calibrating them, galvanometers of the best modern
types, standard cells and resistances, standard condensers, and
other pieces of apparatus for minor tests, it contains numerous
pieces of the very best construction. Such are the Wolff Potentiometer,
the Siemens and Halske Thomson Double Bridge, the
Koepsel Permeameter, the Duddell Double Projection Oscillograph,
the Station Photometer with Lummer-Brodhun screen, the Carey-Foster
Bridge and others.
For the work in machine testing there are a number of direct
current generators and motors, series, shunt and compound, an interpole
motor, a double current generator, a two phase alternator, a
General Electric experimental test set for alternating current comprising
a generator furnishing single, two, three, six or twelve phase
current and in addition offering three types of induction motors
repulsion motor, a two phase induction motor, two three phase induction
motors, several pairs of constant voltage transformers, a
constant current transformer, a frequency meter, power factor indicator,
synchronism indicator, ground detector and the auxiliary
apparatus used in testing these machines.
The laboratory has been arranged with a system of universal
plug and receptacle connections to facilitate the setting up of all
experimental combinations.
The laboratory work is carried on in squads or groups of two
or three students and the work is so arranged that each student will
become familiar with all the details and connections of each particular
test. A most important feature of the laboratory instruction is
the required preparation of a preliminary report on each experiment
before the actual test is carried out. These preliminary reports
are written up in the classroom at assigned hours and consist
of a complete résumé of the test under discussion. The object, the
theory, the scheme of connections necessary, the choice of measuring
instruments and all auxiliary devices needful for the proper
performance of the experiment are here worked out and this preliminary
report is handed in for correction or approval. After approval
the test is assigned for a definite laboratory hour and the
work is then carried through. A final report is then handed in
consisting of the preliminary and the additional data in tabulated
and in graphical form. Such a final report comprises a complete
text on any given experiment and will prove of great value in later
work in commercial fields.
It is recognized that the outlined method for laboratory work
is of the greatest benefit to the student inasmuch as it requires a
thorough understanding of each given test, and at the same time inculcates
habits of self-reliance and a spirit of originality which cannot
prove to be other than beneficial in the later work when the
engineer must rely upon his own ingenuity to a great extent.
| University of Virginia record February, 1912 | |