California Institute of Technology Cal Tech - Big T Yearbook (Pasadena, CA)

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ELECTRICAL ENGIXEERLXG DEPARTMENT Till- ' , popularity oi the electrical course is well shown liy the fact that one- third of the entire student hody is enrolled in electrical engineering. In times past both civil and mechanical engineering have had their days of ex- treme popularity. l)ut today with an ever increasing number of uses being found for electricity, electrical engineering is drawing the largest number of students. The new million volt laboratorj- is symbolical of this interest and growth in electricity, and it is hoped that the laboratory will be the means of still further impro ement and advance in the science of electricity. The million volt trans- former used in the High ' oltage Laboratory dilTers from standard transformers in that it is made uj) of four 250,000 volt units connected in series by means of a special connection known as the the cascade connection. This connection was originated by Professor R. Sorensen of the Institute and its invention made possible the first 1,000.000 volt system ever designed. Without this Cascade con- nection of Professor Sorensen ' s it is jjractically inniossible to get over a million ' olts, due to dilhculties of insulation and construction. ork in voltages of a million and o er is still in its infancy and there are a great many experiments being carried on in the High Tenson Laboratory by mem- bers of the graduate school, faculty, and some undergradutes of the Juice course. Among the most interesting of these exjieriments are the ones on insula- tors, high tension acuum switches, flash-o er, and the construction of a million volt voltmeter. Most of ll;e undergraduate wi)rk is carried on in the normal oltage labor- atory, to which it was found necessary to make an addition this last year, due to the increased number of men registering in the electrical course. The thesis work for the Senior Electricals consists of the design of various types of electrical machinery. The student is reciuired to make a comjilete design of a generator, motor, transformer or some other ec|ually comjilex piece of machinery, and the design must be correct not only in the theory ajjplied but also must be practical in its construction. Naturally, work of this type gi cs the man a great deal of valuable ex])eriencc that will stand him in good stead in his later professional career. tiveitty

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MECHANICAL EXGINEERLXG DEPARTMENT LIK1-; all otlicr phases of cngineeriiii;, mechanical engineering is becoming more comprehensive every year with the increased complexity of modern life. Consequently in their senior year the men taking up mechanical engineering are given the opportunity of performing many varied and interesting experiments and problems which bring out the essential features of the work in store for them and correlate all of the knowledge obtained in their first three years of college. One of the most interesting of these experiments is the testing of lubricating oils, in which the Kingman bearing machine is used to test the relative lubricating values of diiiferent oils at difTerert speeds and temperatures. That thi . tvpe of work is highly practical is shown by the fact that Professor Robert L. Daugherty of the Institute has just completed an eight months ' series of tests for the (loulds Manufacturing Comjiany of Seneca Falls. Xew ' ()rk. on the suliject of puni|)ing oil with centrifugal pumps. At the rei|uest of the (ioulds Conipan - Professor Daugherty conducted an iinestigation to determine the variation in the characteristics of a centrifugal pump in handling liquids of different viscosities and vapor pressures. In the tests which were conducted at the Union Oil Company ' s plant near Los Angeles, various liquids ranging in viscosity from water to cold residium or from the least viscous to the most viscous liquids which can be handled by this style of pump were tested. The primary object of the tests was to determine the head, cajiacity and efficiency of a centrifugal pum|) as a function of the viscosity of the lii|uid pumped and to also find the effect of the variation of the vacuum in each case. The results of these tests have been published b - the Goulds Company in pamphlet form and are a very important contribution to the science of me- chanical engineering in general and pump design in particular. In their last year, the Mechanicals are assigned special problems in machine design in place of a thesis or other phases of mechanical engineering. These problems are very conducive to originality and are likewise very instructive, as the student must make his design complete down to the most minute detail, and to do this he of course must be exceedingly familiar with the subject in hand. One of the problems chosen last year was the complete design of a five cylinder gas engine, while another problem was the design of a turbine driven locomotive. For this latter problem the student collected data from several big companies in the east and numerous data that had been published from experiments carried on in England and Norway. ' Hiese are but two of the many interesting thesis problems chosen by the seniors, problems that do much to gi e the embryo engineer a taste of what he may expect to meet w lu ii he leaves college and enters the world of industry. tifcnty-tzi ' O