The Use and Equipment of Engineering Laboratories

THE INSTITUTION 08 CIVIL ENGINEERS. SESSION 1886-87.-PART 11. SECT.I.-MINUTES OF PROCEEDIKGS. 21 December, 1886. EDWARD WOODS, President, in theChair. (Paper No. 2204.) “ TheUse and Equipment of Engineering Laboratories.” By ALEXANDERBLACKIE WILLIAM KENNEDY, M. INST.C.E. SOONafter the Author was appointed to his present position at University College, he had an opportunity of describing in public‘ a scheme to the carrying out of which he then looked forward. He wished twgive to engineering students at thecollege or other institution at which they were being educated, a certain practical training. He believed that it was essential for a young engineer toobtain his practical training, inthe ordinary senseof the expression, in a workshop. But the practical trainingof a workshop is incomplete even on its own ground, and there appeared to be -plenty of room for practical teaching suchas might fairly fall within the scope of a scientific institution, and which should at the same time supplement and complete workshop experience withoutover- lapping it. In an ordinary pupilage a young engineer does not have much opportunity of studying such things as the physical properties of the iron and steel which he has todeal with, nor the strength of those materials, nor the efficiency of the machines he uses, nor the relativeeconomy of the different types of engines, nor the evaporativepower of boilers. Thesethings, however, are only types of many fithers about which it is essential, not only that he should know something, but that he should form some definite working opinion. But they are all matters very closely Introductory Address delivered to the Faculties of Arts and Laws and of Science at UniversityCollege, London, October 5, 1875. See Journal of the Society of Arts, October 22, 1875 ; and ‘6 Engineering,” vol. xx. pp. 284 and 315. [THE INST. C.E. POL.LXXXVIII.] n Downloaded by [ Columbia University] on [15/09/16]. Copyright © ICE Publishing, all rights reserved. 2 KENNEDY ON ENGINEERING LABORATORIES. [Minutes of analogous to those already treated in laboratory work in physics and chemistry. They involvesimply themaking of accurate measurements in the branches of physical science most closely related to engineering. Noreover they are useful to the student not onlyfor their ownsakes, but also as teaching the artof making experiments-or it maybe simply called theart of accurate measuring-in matters relating to engineeringscience. They are, to awonderful extent, suited to set the student free from the thraldom of the engineering pocket-book (making every man his own Molesworth,” as it has been put), by helping himto determine for himself, or at least to see practically how other people have determined,all the principal engineering constants, from the tenacity of wrought-iron to the calorific value of coal, or the dis- charge-coefficient of an orifice. Further, a healthy scepticism of uncritical generalisations, or of uninvestigated facts, is fostered by nothing so surely asby a personal and practicalknowledge of what accurate experiments really are, From all these and other con- siderations it appeared to the Author that the kind of practical work which has been alluded to could be nowhere better given than atthose educational institutions which endeavouredto teach young engineers the scientific basis of their profession, and fol- lowing up this idea he gare in some detail, on the occasion to which hehas alluded, a description of the functionand work of an engineeringlaboratory. Shortly afterwards the scheme was brought before a number of theleading engineers of the country, including the present Presidentsof the Institutions both of the Civil and Mechanical Engineers, and many Past-Presidents of these and the sister societies, and these gentlemen expressed thoroughapproval of it. Materiallyhelped forward bythis concurrence of professional opinion, the scheme was finally carried into actual practice in 1878. The idea was apparently one well adapted to the time1-probably it occurred to many people more or less simultaneously-for within a few years other laboratories on the same plan began to be established, and now there are in this country, either at work or in process of erection, no less than nine which may claim to be fairly well furnished, as well as some smaller ones. Indeed it seemsalmost to berecognized already thatan engineeringlaboratory is an essential part of every institution training engineering students.2 l Only a few weeks, for instance, after the Author’s University College lecture, Professor Thurston gave a parallel lecture in New York in reference tn the laboratory which he hoped to establish at the Stevens Institute. (Journal ofthe Franklin Institute,Dec. 1875.) * The Author has confined himself in this Paper to the engineeringlaboratory Downloaded by [ Columbia University] on [15/09/16]. Copyright © ICE Publishing, all rights reserved. Proceedings.] KENNEDY ON ENGINEERING LABORATORIES. 3 In thematter of engineering laboratories as a branch of technical education, it may fairly be claimed that England has taken the lead, instead of being, as she is so often supposed to be in such matters, in therear. For the excellent laboratories of the Continent‘ are based upon an altogether different leading idea. They stand for the most part in more or less close relationship to technical schools, and are under thecontrol of one of the professors. But their appliances areessentially devoted to purposes of experiment and original research by the professor himself. Engineering atudents see demonstrations carried on by him, but only excep- tionally make any experiments themselves. This arrangement has, of course, the great advantage from the scientific point of view, that it leaves the professor much more time and opportunity for scientific research than he could otherwise have. In the case of several of the chief continental laboratories the already published results of their researches have been of the greatestpossible value? Where the mainobject, the very raison d’itre of the laboratory and proper, as distinguished from the laboratory of practical mechanics, which is essentially a specialized part of a physical laboratory. On the side of electrical engineering a laboratory of electrical technology may well stand side by side with the engineering laboratory herespoken of. Appendix 111. * The most important results hitherto published have been those of Professor Bauschinger, of Munich, who has issued, since 1871, his “Mlttheilungen aus demMechanisch-technischen Laboratorium der K. polytechqischenSchule in Munchen.” (Munich, Theodor Ackermann.) The results of experiments in the Prussianroyal testing establishments have beenpublished, since 1883, in a quarterly journal entitled “Mittheilungena. d. Koniglichen technischen Versuchs- anstalten zu Berlin.” (Berlin, Julius Springer), edited by Dr. Wedding. Pro- fessorTetmajer, of Zurich, has also published,since 1884, three volumes of “Mittheilungen der -Anstalt zur Prufung von Baumaterialen am eidg. Poly- technikum in Zurich.” (Zurich, Meyer and Zeller.) Professor Jenny, of Vienna, published in 1878 the first “ Abtheilmg ” (containing a very large number of experiments and a detailed description of apparatus) of ‘‘ Festigkeits-Versuche U. d. dabei vermendeten Maschinen U. Apparate a. d. K. K. technischen Hoch- schulein Wien.”(Vienna, Car1 Gerold’sSohn.) An immensenumber of Bauschinger’s experiments, and some of Jenny’s, will also be found in <‘Die Eigenschaften von Eisen U. Stahl” (7th “Supplement band” of the Organ f. d. Fortschritte d. Eisenbahnwesens), (Wiesbaden, C. W. Kreidel, 1880.) Professor Beleluhsky has published lately, underthe title“Bfeohanisches Laboratoriumdes Wegebau-Ingenieur-Instituts,” a large number of results of experiments carried out by him atSt. Petersburg. Professor Gollner has published detailed drawings af his ”testing-machine and apparatus, with a great number of experimental results, under the title ‘‘ Die Festigkeits-Probirmaschine der K. K. deutschen technischen Hochschule in Prag ” (Prag, EM), a reproduction of his contri- butions to L‘ Technische Blitter ” since 1877. Many of Professor Tresca’e original experiments-tests of’air and gas-engines, &.-are described in the Annales du Conservatoire Imperial des Arts et Metiers. Paris, 1861 to 1873. B2 Downloaded by [ Columbia University] on [15/09/16]. Copyright © ICE Publishing, all rights reserved. 4 RENNEDY ON ENGINEERING LABORATORIES. [nfinutes of its apparatus, is to give to students the opportunity of experi- menting for themselves, it is unavoidable that purposes of pure research should make way for those of education. Having adopted this particular idea as to the function of the laboratory, its draw- backs must be accepted as well as its advantages. Students can only in exceptional circumstances make original investigations 01’ researches ; in theordinary course of events their experimentshere, as in all other laboratories, do not give new results but simply emphasize old results on new men. It should also be mentioned that with scarcely an exception the continental laboratories are restricted absolutely to experimental work in relation to the strength and elasticity of materials. The laboratories of Professor Schroter at Nunichand of Professor Dwelshauvers-Dery at Liege seem to be the only ones in connection with any of the continental schools in which systematic experimental work connected with the steam-engineis carried on, and in thesethe students are expected to experiment themselves. In

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