University of Virginia Library

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; a compressometer for concrete specimens; tools for shearing tests
of concrete; 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 interchangeable bronze
notches; a hook gauge for measurement of surface levels; a stand-pipe 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); two Liberty aeroplane motors; a Wheeler surface condenser to which
the exhaust from any of the steam units may be connected; a Sturtevant
engine and 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. A new Unaflow Engine of recent design is to be installed
in time for the work of session 1929-30.

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.