EXPERIMENTAL ENGINEERING LABORATORIES
Road Materials Laboratory.—The apparatus for tests of non-bituminous
road materials includes a two-cylinder Deval abrasion machine, a ball
mill, a moulding press for briquettes of rock dust, a Page impact cementation
tester, a Page impact toughness tester, a rock crusher and a Purdue
brick rattler. This outfit the University owes to the generous aid of the
late Dr. Logan Waller Page. In addition, the Department has acquired a
40,000-pound compression tester, a diamond core drill, a diamond rock saw,
a grinding lap, a Westphal balance, specific gravity apparatus, and a complete
set of sieves. Useful researches in the road-building rocks and gravels
of Virginia, as well as the standard tests, are conducted each year by the
class in Civil Engineering.
The apparatus for tests of bituminous road materials includes the New
York Testing Laboratory penetrometer, the Kirschbaum ductility machine,
the Engler viscosimeter, the asphalt viscosimeter, the New York Testing
Laboratory extractor, the New York State Board of Health oil tester, Hubbard
pyknometers, asphalt flow plates, gas and electric hot plates, and the
accessory apparatus needed for research on bituminous road-binders.
Structural Materials Laboratory.—The Sinclair Laboratory for work
in testing structural materials was founded on the original donation of Mrs.
John Sinclair, of New York City, as a memorial to her late husband. The
collection has since been considerably enlarged. It contains a Riehle
100,000-pound machine, arranged for tensile, compressive, and transverse
tests, with an attachment for taking autographic diagrams; an Olsen
100,000-pound machine and fitted with a suspended ball compression block;
a 200,000-pound Olsen machine suitable for compressive tests and also
supplied with extension arms for making transverse tests of beams; an
Olsen torsion machine of 50,000 inch-pounds capacity; an Olsen impact-testing
machine of 100 foot-pounds capacity; a Ewing machine for
finding the modulus of elasticity; hand machines for testing rods and
wires under pull, and small specimens of timber and cast iron under transverse
loads. It is also equipped with accessory measuring instruments;
these include a Henning extensometer, an Olsen compressometer, and a
Ewing optical extensometer of great delicacy.
The laboratory is completely equipped for making tests of cement, cement
aggregates, and concrete. It contains a Fairbank's tensile tester of
1,000 pounds capacity; an Olsen steaming oven for accelerated tests; an
Olsen drying oven with automatic temperature regulation; moist air closets;
sieves for mechanical analysis; moulds for tension and compression
tests; and the required small apparatus.
Fuel and Oil Laboratory.—For the determination of the heating value
of coal, petroleum, etc., the laboratory has an Emerson bomb calorimeter.
For gas and liquid fuel calorimetry, a Junker calorimeter made by the
American Meter Co. is used. The equipment also includes a Braun gas
muffle furnace, a Brown high resistance pyrometer, balances, platinum
crucibles, etc. For investigating lubricants, the laboratory is equipped with
such apparatus as flash and chill point testers, hydrometers, viscosimeters,
etc., used in the determination of the physical properties of oil.
Hydraulics Laboratory.—The laboratory equipment for work in hydraulics
comprises a steel tank for weir experiments with interchangable
bronze notches; a hook gauge for measurement of surface levels; a standpipe
provided with a set of standard bronze orifices for experiments on efflux;
commercial pipe and elbows arranged for determining friction losses;
Gurley current meter; and the necessary scales, tanks, manometers, etc. It
also includes a pump which is piped to circulate water from a cement cistern
to a tank in the attic of the building.
Additional equipment of this laboratory is a motor driven centrifugal
pump with a capacity of 350 gallons per minute at 100 feet head, equipped
with a Venturi meter and the necessary piping, valves and gauges to provide
for complete performance tests on the pump. This unit also supplies
water at constant pressure for the other hydraulic tests.
Power Laboratory.—The laboratory is equipped to illustrate the theory
involved in Mechanical Engineering; to give practical instruction in the
handling of machinery; and to teach the fundamental methods of experimental
work. It contains a Ball high-speed engine; a De Laval turbine
with condensing and non-condensing nozzles, which is direct-connected to
a 20-kva. alternating-current generator; an Otto gasoline engine with a special
piston for alcohol; a White and Middleton 12 HP. Engine (gasoline
or illuminating gas); a Wheeler surface condenser to which the exhaust
from any of the steam units may be connected; a Sturtevant blower; an air
compressor; an A. B. C. Pitot tube; a steam pump; steam traps, etc. For
boiler tests, the boilers of the University Heating and Lighting Plant are
used.
The instrument room contains all necessary apparatus for carrying out
complete tests. Among this may be mentioned indicators, thermometers,
gauges, planimeters, with standards for their correction and calibration; two
types of Orsat apparatus; separating and throttling calorimeters, etc.
