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.
