ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING LABORATORY.
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 R. Crane, of Chicago, Ill., a friend of
the university. During 1912, still further substantial additions were made,
consisting of measuring instruments, auxiliary control apparatus, and more
particularly a steam-turbine driven three-phase alternating current generator
with exciter and control switchboard.
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 with all
necessary starting and controlling devices, a single-phase repulsion motor,
a two-phase induction motor, two three-phase induction motors, several
pairs of constant voltage transformers, a constant current transformer,
frequency meters, 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 by the students in squads or groups
of two or three and 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 can not prove to be other than beneficial in the later work when the
engineer must rely to a great extent upon his own ingenuity.
