 | The University of Virginia record April 15, 1936 |  |
BUILDINGS
The buildings at present wholly or partially devoted to the work of the
Department of Engineering are the following:
Thornton Hall.—The new center for instruction in engineering at the
University of Virginia, open for use at the beginning of the 1935-1936 session,
is named Thornton Hall, in honor of the first Dean of Engineering at Virginia,
William Mynn Thornton, whose active service spanned 55 years, from 1875
to 1930.
The building plans were perfected by the Architectural Commission of
the University upon a skeleton plan for service needs prepared by the teaching
staff of the Department of Engineering. The Commission was particularly
fortunate in its finished plan in securing two important essentials: harmony
with the well-known Jeffersonian architecture of the rest of the University;
and at the same time fitness for service as a working home for the activities
in class and laboratory of a department concerned with engineering instruction
of a professional character.
The Setting of the Building
The site selected, at the southern end of the main campus, on McCormick
Road, affords a pleasing outlook on all sides and secures an unencumbered
abundance of light and air for the working areas. The building is designed to
several years of the course, and it is expected that the matriculation in engineering
will be restricted to that approximate number, in the belief that it
affords an ideal group for the University to train in its engineering school.
The building is in a sense three interconnected structures arranged in
U-fashion, with a central grass court 150 feet square, closed at the top of
the U by an arcaded walk which furnishes ready access between the two
wings. The main unit of the group consists of basement and two upper
floors; the western wing is of one-story, and the eastern wing of two-story,
construction, each unit being approximately 300 feet long.
The entire building is erected upon reinforced concrete foundations with
the walls of over-size brick of a color to match other campus structures, and is
of a simple, dignified design most pleasing from every aspect. Cast stone
bands, with the same material as a part of door and window trim, serve to
relieve the severity of extensive uninterrupted areas of brick. The arcade
motif is used throughout the construction rather than the colonnade, which is
a feature of many of the earlier buildings on the campus. Reinforced concrete
floors are the rule; partitions of brick, tile or gypsum block predominate, and
the slate roof is supported on structural steel trusses.
Floors vary from those of concrete in most of the laboratories, through
terrazzo in corridors, to mastic-covered concrete in offices, classrooms and
library. The classrooms and offices have plastered walls and sound-absorbing
ceiling surfaces, while the walls of most of the laboratories and drawing
rooms are of painted brick. Basement corridors and lavatories are finished
in general with glazed tile walls to a height of about 6 feet. Throughout the
building generous window allotment has been secured to insure ample natural
light and ventilation.
Heating and Illumination
The entire building is heated from the central heating plant of the University,
which provides a circulating hot-water system, with radiators wall-supported
to aid in maintaining cleanliness. The building's water supply is
obtained from the main service of the University. All laboratories are piped
for the necessary water supply, electric water heaters provide essential service
to lavatories, and electric coolers in strategic locations make available a ready
supply of cool drinking water. All laboratories which have use for gas are
piped for that service from the city mains.
The problem of adequate artificial illumination for all purposes was given
careful attention, and as a result the planned illumination will be in accord
with the best modern practice. An ample arrangement of panel boards with
heavy mains together with a finely divided individual control of circuits provides
a flexible and entirely adequate system suited to the several uses made
necessary in such an all-inclusive structure. Semi-indirect and totally indirect
lighting is utilized in most locations, with such a variety of lighting units
as will serve both to provide essential illumination and at the same time be an
exemplification of several means of obtaining approved illumination of required
intensity but free from glare. Incandescent units ranging in size from
100 to 1,500 watts are in the main utilized. A single installation of modern
mercury-arc units is applied, however, in the repair shop.
In connection with the electrical system, care has been taken to supply,
wherever requisite, an ample number of convenience outlets, so that electric
fans, projection apparatus, etc., may readily be connected when needed.
Interior communication will be afforded between various parts of the
building by an intercommunicating telephone system of some 40 stations. A
number of electric clocks are installed, and class periods will be announced
on an electric program service reaching every portion of the building.
Interior Arrangement of Central Unit—Building A
The central unit of the group is entered from the main walk through an
arcaded entrance leading to the lobby in which the main bulletin boards are
placed. From this open lobby the main corridor extends in both directions,
giving access at each end by stairways to the upper floor level and also by
stairways downward to the basement and connecting passageways to the
other two units of the building. Arranged along the main corridor are eleven
offices for ten professors and the secretary to the Dean, which overlook the
central grass court, and in each of which modern steel office equipment is
installed.
From the main corridor, across from the offices, are three classrooms
and a Faculty conference room. Side corridors lead to six other classrooms,
to which access is also possible through two side doors from the front plaza.
The Faculty conference room is equipped with a conference table and the
necessary chairs. Four of the classrooms will seat 30 students each, three
seat 27 each, and one larger room is arranged to seat 56. These eight rooms
are equipped with individual swivel chairs arranged with table tops on
pedestals in front of each row of chairs. The remaining large classroom is
equipped with 77 tablet-arm chairs arranged radially. All classrooms are furnished
with ample blackboards covering all available wall space, besides bulletin
board and special lecture desk. This floor is completed by two small
lavatories, one at each end of the office suite, reserved for use of the Faculty
and for ladies respectively.
The upper floor of this unit is devoted to the library and drawing rooms
for the Department. The library is directly above the offices and will constitute
a combined library and reading room. This handsome room is pleasingly
furnished in oak panels and trim, and is equipped with oak reading tables
and substantial chairs. Steel stacks house the present engineering library of
some 6,000 volumes, and adequate space is available for growth of the collection.
A librarian's office adjoins the library proper, and an additional office
for drawing instructors completes one end of the floor. At the opposite end
of the reading room are an office and a small room which contains the blueprinting
equipment for the Department, with a dark-room attached.
The remainder of this floor is assigned to drafting rooms, space being
available for something over 150 individual drawing tables and the accessory
files. For the present, 108 drawing tables are in place, 78 in one main
group for first-year students principally, with two smaller groups of 15 each
in partitioned rooms for more advanced classes. The drawing tables are
specially built and provide adjustable tilt tops 3 by 4 feet in area; each table
is equipped with two drawers, each drawer being supplied with individual
supplied for each table. The planned artificial illumination for the drawing
room is 30 foot-candles on the working surface. For the present the unoccupied
space, later to be equipped with additional drawing tables, will be used
as a temporary auditorium, using folding steel chairs, where the entire student
group may assemble for lectures and general meetings.
The Basement of the Central Unit
The basement floor of this unit is occupied in the front by one large
and four smaller storage rooms, the photostat and mimeograph room, and the
main locker-room and lavatory. More than 200 individual steel lockers,
supplied with combination, master-keyed padlocks, are installed here. The
sanitary arrangements of the lavatories are of the best modern type. The
inner section of this basement will be used by three experimental laboratories.
The largest is that for hydraulic testing. This laboratory has adequate headroom
and is provided with a built-in trench extending its entire length. Here
are assembled the various pumping units, high- and low-pressure, electrically
driven and controlled; apparatus for flow experiments; weirs, tanks, scales,
meters, etc., with the essential auxiliary apparatus necessary for successful
hydraulic testing of motors, pumps and systems.
A second laboratory on this floor is that for testing fuels and oils. This
is supplied with gas, water and electricity and in its equipment are calorimeters
for solid, liquid and gaseous fuels; electric-muffle furnace, electric
drying oven, sample grinder and crusher, pyknometers, balances, crucibles,
etc. Here also are found flash and chill testers, hydrometers, viscosimeters,
etc., used in determining the properties of oils. The third of these laboratories
is for concrete testing. It is completely equipped for making tests of cement,
cement aggregates, and concrete. It has tensile testers, compressometers of
several types, tools for shearing test, steaming oven for accelerated tests,
drying ovens with automatic temperature regulation, moist-air closets, sieves,
moulds, and the necessary small apparatus required in these tests.
The One-Story Wing—Building B
This wing is devoted mainly to three additional laboratories of experimental
engineering. One of these is to be used for road materials testing.
It is equipped with abrasive machine, ball mill, molding press for briquetting,
impact cementation tester, toughness tester, rock crusher and brick rattler,
compression tester, diamond core drill, diamond rock saw, grinding lap, Westphal
balance, specific gravity apparatus and sets of sieves. For bituminous
road materials there are a penetrometer, ductility machine, viscosimeters,
extractor, oil tester, pyknometers, flow plates, gas and electric hot plates, and
accessory apparatus for testing bituminous road binders.
The second laboratory in this wing is the power laboratory. Here are
found the units for steam and gas power testing; steam boiler, steam engines,
turbines, gas engines, condensers, air compressor, and auxiliary equipment
such as indicators, thermometers, gages, planimeters, standards for their
calibration and correction, Orsat apparatus, calorimeters, etc. In addition to
available for student tests.
Also in this group is the structural materials laboratory. Here are placed
standard machines for tensile, compressive and transverse tests of both metals
and wood; torsion machine, impact testing machine, fatigue test machine,
scleroscope, wire testing machines; extensometers, compressometers and tools
for shearing tests of metals and timber. On a mezzanine are an office and an
apparatus room. An office for the instructing staff in surveying is located in
this wing, and directly connecting with it is the instrument room for surveying
classes. This equipment includes compasses, transits and levels of various
makes, hand levels and clinometers, plane tables, sextant, leveling rods, telemeter
rods, signal poles, chains, tapes, pins and so on. For hydraulic surveys
there are hook gage and current meter. The facilities of this wing also include
a locker room and lavatory easily accessible.
The Two-Story Wing—Building C
The ground floor of the two-story wing is devoted entirely to the electrical
engineering laboratories. The main room will be used for dynamo-machine
testing and has the building power plant at one end. The electrical
supply is at present secured from the Public Service Company, and the needs
of laboratories and building are taken through transformers and motor-generator
sets. The dynamo laboratory is well supplied with test units of
moderate size, of various makes, and of the general types usual in service,
both direct and alternating current. All tests units are direct-driven, and all
connections are made by universal plug and receptacle connections with flexible
cords. Individual control panels are placed at convenient points throughout
the laboratory, and their supply is by conduit embedded in the floor structure.
Brakes are furnished for each motor unit, and a complete supply of instruments
is at hand for all tests. Transformers of various types, induction regulators,
control resistances, inductances and capacitances are included in this
equipment. Mercury arc rectifiers, arc welding sets and numerous other units
supply additional test service. Oscillographs, single and multiple, make possible
a wide variety of tests of transient phenomena. An office for the laboratory
instructor, and a large instrument room, adjoin the machine laboratory.
As a part of the electrical supply system, there is the transformer room,
which houses also the main circuit breakers and voltage regulators. A storage
battery room is closely adjacent, and a dark-room for photographic developing
is included.
Moreover, there are three additional laboratories in the electrical division.
One of these is the standardizing laboratory, which is supplied with the usual
electrical standards necessary for testing and calibrating portable test instruments.
Here are included also several instruments of high-precision type,
such as potentiometers, double bridges, galvanometers, permeameters, etc.
A second small laboratory is for illumination tests of various kinds. This is
equipped with photometers, illuminometers and several types of foot-candle
meters. A third unit in this suite will be used for communication and power
transmission testing, with electronic testing being developed. Its equipment
includes an artificial transmission line, test oscillator, bridge, vacuum tube
in this particular field of electrical testing. This floor is completed by a
medium-sized locker room and lavatory adjacent to the main electrical laboratory,
and a janitors' room.
The upper story of this wing is for chemical and mechanical engineering.
A large laboratory is being developed for aeronautical testing. Here are
found aeroplanes, aeroplane engines and auxiliary apparatus, and a wind tunnel
of moderate proportions. An office and a storeroom adjoin this laboratory,
and a locker and lavatory are placed for use on this level. A repair shop
will provide facilities for repairing apparatus and for building experimental
equipment. This shop communicates with the lower level by freight elevator,
which will be installed later, the complete shaft only having been built. A
separate tool-room adjoins the repair shop. A wood shop is equipped with
the usual motor-driven wood-working machinery. A second shop provides
a variety of machine tools. Instead of actual shop practice, however, it will
be the policy here to use this machinery to familiarize the student with principles
of machine design as well as to introduce him to both possibilities and
limitations of such equipment in production. One unit in this division will
allow the student to become acquainted with various phases of metallography.
The equipment here includes an electric heat-treating furnace, polishers,
microscopes, hardness tester, and varied samples of metal and alloys. The
remainder of this section will be devoted to a unit-process laboratory for the
work in Chemical Engineering. This laboratory is now being planned and
will be partially installed during the coming year. Representative units required
for an approved laboratory course in this subject will be rapidly put into
operation.
It may be noted that the major technical instruction in chemical, civil,
electrical and mechanical engineering is cared for in this new building group.
In addition to the technical instruction, all mathematics and English for the
engineering students will be given in Thornton Hall. Physics, chemistry,
modern language and certain other humanities will continue to be given in
the College of Arts and Sciences.
With the facilities made available in Thornton Hall, many restrictions of
space under which instruction has been carried on hitherto will be removed.
The rigid disciplines of the theoretical courses which have ever been a part
of the instruction here will hereafter be supplemented by the advantages of adequate
space and equipment for both students and faculty.
The Power House is a single story building 130 by 60 feet, in which
is housed the University heating plant. The equipment includes two 310
horsepower Heine water tube boilers, equipped with single retort stokers
of the underfeed type, supplied by the Combustion Engineering Corporation,
two Babcock and Wilcox boilers (Stirling type) fitted with underfeed twin-retort
Detroit stokers, two steam and two electrically driven circulating
pumps, low pressure heaters, etc. Provision has been made for the future
installation of two steam turbine generator sets for the supply of electric
current to the University buildings. The entire plant is available for instructional
purposes.
Plants available for inspection both locally and elsewhere throughout the
State include the Bremo Bluff and other generating stations of the Virginia
Public Service Company, numerous chemical plants, the Langley Memorial
Aeronautical Laboratory, Hampton, the Newport News Shipyard, the Norfolk
Navy Yard, the Rothwell Cold Storage and Ice Company's plants in
Charlottesville and Waynesboro, the Norfolk and Western Railway shops and
the works of the Virginia Bridge and Iron Company at Roanoke, the Charlottesville
Woolen Mills, etc. Visits of several days' duration are organized to
distant points and are made to coincide, if possible, with some event of more
than usual interest, such as the launching of a cruiser at the Newport News
Shipyard, the visit of an airplane carrier to Hampton Roads or the sea trials
of a passenger liner.
The Geological Museum is 120 by 50 feet. It is a three-story building.
The main floor is devoted to the very extensive geological collection of specimens,
charts, relief maps, and so on. The gallery above contains an equally
good collection of minerals and numerous models of typical crystallographic
forms. The upper floor contains the lecture-rooms and the laboratories of
Economic Geology. In the basement are stored subsidiary collections and
new material accumulated in more recent geological surveys.
The Rouss Physical Laboratory faces the old Mechanical Laboratory on
the opposite side of the Lawn, and has almost the same proportions, namely
180 by 70 feet. The main floor contains the lecture-room, the professors'
offices, and a laboratory for experimental research, and the storeroom for
the very large collection of apparatus used in the lectures. On the ground
floor is the storage battery room, a well-equipped shop for the repair and
manufacture of apparatus, and smaller rooms for the work of graduate students.
The laboratory for experimental physics is in the basement of the old
Mechanical Laboratory.
The Cobb Chemical Laboratory was opened for use in September, 1917
In this fire-proof structure all the work in Chemistry is assembled. The floor
area provided is about 45,000 square feet. The lecture-rooms seat classes of
300, 75 and 25 students. The laboratories assigned to General Chemistry, Organic
Chemistry, Qualitative Analysis, Quantitative Analysis and Physical
Chemistry contain 110, 60, 40, 30, and 20 desks. Altogether by dividing
classes into sections, 600 students may be accommodated. Smaller private
laboratories are provided for research workers. Large stock rooms communicating
by elevators with the several floors contain ample stores of chemical
supplies. The 5,000 volumes of books and bound sets of journals constituting
the Departmental Library of Chemistry are so housed as to be accessible
to both teachers and students.
| The University of Virginia record April 15, 1936 | |