 | The University of Virginia record April 15, 1936 |  |
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 | |