Government Sponsors Research
Page 28
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
THROUGH the Department of I Scientific and Industrial Research, the Government is setting up a special organization to carry out scientific research in mechanical engineering, the main object being to anticipate the needs of industry and Government Departments.
Eventually the cost will be up to £350,000 annually, but it will take some years to attain this, because of the difficulty in obtaining suitably qualified staff and proper buildings. It is intended to supplement research carried out in other organizations in the country and work will mainly be confined to 'fundamental problems underlying all all mechanical engineering.
For a time much of the work will be carried out at the National Physical Laboratory, and the remainder will be arranged for at Universities and other institutions. The director will be Dr. G. A, Hankins, D.Sc., M.I.C.E., M.I.Mech.E., superintendent of the Engineering Division of the National Physical Laboratory. He will be assisted by a strong board under the chairmanship-of Dr. H. L. Guy, C.B.E., M.I.C.E., M.I.Mech.E., F.R.S.
The importance of the work is emphasized by the fact that the Central Register of the M.O.L. schedules 93 separate activities in mechanical engineering compared with 57 in electrical and 21 in civil, whilst there are about 60,000 mechanical engineers in the country who are eligible for entry in this register.
There is already a considerable amount of mechanical engineering research in progress, but there are gaps, such as research in connection with hydraulit machinery, heat transfer and exchange problems and apparatus, applied thermodynamics, and in kine,matics and mechanisms. In connection with properties ot materials, these will be ascertained also 'at high temperatures, and particular' attention paid to "creep," and there will also 6'e investigation into supersonic speeds and the behaviour of lubricants. In such matters as plastic deformation, practice has gone ahead of theory.
Any information obtained will be available early to British concerns and, later, to the world.
The research workers will be mainly engineer-scientists, but will also include, physicists and mathematicians.
The staff will eventually consist of, roughly, 100 scientists and 600 others. Probably vacation courses will be arranged for scientists from Universities, but the object is not to instruct them but to learn from them.