University of Wisconsin Madison - Badger Yearbook (Madison, WI)

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17 and made available its knowledge and facilities to all the branches of government which had need of them. A vast amount of information was necessary to the War and Navy Departments and steps were taken at once to se-cure it. Many of the problems presented were solved inv mediately with the information available, while others of new and specialised character required the construction of special machinery and many special tests. For the carrying on of all this work, the personnel of the Laboratory was increased until on Armistice Day the force consisted of 458 workers. After the Armistice the staff was reduced to near its present strength of about two hundred. With wartime expansion, it was necessary to install equipment and conduct tests in other buildings belonging to the university. The Timber Mechanics Laboratory was quartered in a converted barracks more than a block from the main building. Likewise the glue, paint, and the silvicultural relations laboratories and the computing and photographic services were quartered in buildings equally remote from the main laboratory. The establishment of the Laboratory organization in one modern and satisfactory building, adequate both for the present research program and further expansion au-thorized by Congress, will materially assist this progress along essential problems of research accompanying the present stressed economic situation. It is apparent that the Forest Products Laboratory can do a great service in concentrating on the problems which will contribute most effectively to the mitigation of the present emer-gency. Its underlying purpose is to contribute to the economic use of our national resources from forests maintained to provide useful raw material. With this aid, profitable forest industries may be sustained and stabilized with their attendant public benefits, such as the employment of labor, contribution to taxes, support of prosperous communities, and a never-ending supply of useful commodities for the general public. The Forest Products Laboratory has an essential part to play in this scheme of things because such accomplishments and the extent and location of the forests that should lie maintained arc dependent upon adequate and satisfactory markets. These markets, in turn, in the light of the present competition, are fundamentally dependent upon the minimizing of costs and attainment of satisfaction and servicability from raw material to finished product, and developing new and more profitable uses and products is also a vital point in the marketing of wood. The results of the work of this Laboratory apparently are a benefit to the various industrial and commercial interests engaged in the production, manufacture, and distribution of forest products, but benefits likewise accrue to labor, the farmer, and the general public. In the new building shelter and adequate working space, the major objective of the construction, was combined with artistic architectural design. The building, so recently completed, is U-shaped, and 275 feet in length and over all breadth, and contains in its five stories and ground floor a total area of approximately 175,000 square feet of floor space. It is of modern design emphasizing “stepped back construction, vertical lines, and large areas of glass in the outer walls. Part of the exterior window design are long vertical fins accentuating the height and adding to the modernistic architectural effect of the building as a whole. Many of the spaces, which appear from the distance to be windows, are blinds of sheet metal which give the impression of window after window equally spaced. Symmetry is thus assured. Softwood trim with paint finish was used on the ground and working portions of the first floor, while the other floors are trimmed with representative American hardwoods. Due to the additional expense of installing wooden floors

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16 WOOD A systematic program to further the use of woods to the best advantages for such purposes as cannot be better fulfilled by other materials. THE largest and most complete establishment in the world devoted to research on wood, the United States Forest Products Laboratory, looms to the west, a massive mound of gleaming white and glistening gray dedicated to the furtherance of that prime product, wood, in all its forms. The story of scientific research is a thrilling chapter in America's history. Research has conferred on the people benefits untold in new materials and services, new appliances, new metals, alloys, and chemical compounds. Unfortunately, research in one basically important re source, wood, has not commanded the same degree of interest, so that wood has fallen behind in the intense competition of modern materials for markets, while sub' stitutes for wood have been enthusiastically exploited all along the line. Metal homes for the average citizen are actually among the many developments that are being promoted. Against the trend toward substitution, the Forest Products Laboratory opposes the full force of modern research to increase, not to diminish, the use of wood. Its working creed is that wood is not an old'fashioned or out-of-date material; that for many purposes it is the most satisfactory, serviceable, and far the most economical material available to the user; that for many uses in which it has lost place in fair and open competition with other materials, its properties can be modified and improved to make it more suitable; and that these objectives and the creation of new products and values from wood can be attained only through intensive scientific and technical research. History THE need for research in forest products was recog' nized in its earliest days by the Division of Forestry or as far back as the i88o's. This need became increasingly apparent as the exhaustion of the forests in the east advanced. Some study of the mechanical properties of the most important woods, their preservation, and kiln drying were begun at various universities where laboratory facilities were obtainable or buildings were available for the housing of testing equipment. As the research became wider in its scope, it became increasingly evident that greater facilities would have to be provided, and that centralization was essential to the success of the work. It was found impossible to rent suitable quarters with the small sum appropriated by the government. Therefore, a survey of the available and potential facilities of a number of universities was made by the Division of Forestry. Very generous offers were made by several schools but the offer of the University of Wisconsin, which included the erection of a suitable building and the furnishing of heat, light, and power for it, was accepted. The Laboratory was formally opened June 4, 1910, with a personnel of forty-five people drawn from the various lines of work under way elsewhere. General plans for the fundamental researches were effected by them, details of procedure worked out, and much of the special apparatus and machinery which was required for the preparation of the specimens and the carrying out of the tests was designed at the time. In the next five or six years there was little increase in appropriations and expansion consisted of a gradual broadening of the scope of the work and the establishment of satisfactory contacts with the principal forest-products industries. When the United States entered the war in the spring of 1917, the Laboratory staff numbered eighty-four persons; a mass of fundamental data on the properties of wood had been accumulated, and contact with the wood-using industries had been well established. Recognizing that wood would play a vital part in the conflict, the Laboratory immediately bent all its efforts to war work

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18 over the specified concrete floors, only a few of the office rooms can boast of that luxury. Future plans call for the installation of wood finish and floors in different rooms. The work of the Laboratory is divided into separate divisions, each division having an experienced man at its head, and the work is supervised by Carlisle P. Winslow, who, as director, is in charge of the entire Laboratory. Timber Mechanics A LARGE and important division of the Laboratory is the Section of Timber Mechanics. Of the lumber produced in the United States, sixty per cent is used in building construction, being equally divided between farm and urban residences, and industrial buildings. In this highly competitive field, it is essential that the accurate strength data of the wood be available. To meet the need for such data the Forest Products Laboratory has conducted tests since 1910, which now make available for publication, data on the strength, weight, and shrinkage of more than 160 native woods. Machines for testing timbers and framework up to a breaking load of one million pounds are being used to further this work. They are served by cranes in a testing gallery which accommodates pieces and panels as large as 30 feet high and 100 feet long. For working out the fundamental principles of box and crate construction there are special pieces of equipment, such as a vibrating table, and a 14 foot box-testing drum capable of testing boxes up to 1,500 pounds in weight and 4 feet in cube as well as performing standard compression and drop tests. These tests can be made at any degree of dryness or dampness by storing and testing the containers in a special moisture control room served by the machinery. Preservation of Wood SINCE wood is inflammable and subject to decay, a practical and economical method of preservation and fire proofing would greatly further its use. Some progress has been made in this line, but to further the work, a large timber preservation laboratory and a fireproofing laboratory are contained in the new building. Although it is believed impossible to make any wood completely fireproof, it can be treated so as to make it resistant under such temperatures as ordinarily cause fires. Efforts are now being made to find treatments that are cheap, non-corrosive to metals, non-leaching and otherwise not objectionable. In addition to the impregnation of the wood the Laboratory acts as headquarters for service records of over a million railroad tics and a large number of posts and poles, treated and untreated, thus undertaking the most conclusive and complete test of durability that is possible. The Wood Preservation Section has assisted in reducing the average annual tie replacements from 250 tics per mile of track to 1S0 per mile of track, thus saving railroads an estimated sum of $145,000 per day. This section has also grouped the woods with respect to painting qualities and is thus laying the groundwork for development of paints and coatings for wood. In this it is aided by new and adequate painting and finishing laboratories installed within the building. Timber Physics THE Section ofTimber Physics is concerned with the seasoning of wood, an extremely important factor in the use of wood, either structurally or as a finishing material. A large group of dry kilns equipped for close control of temperature, humidity, and air circulation help to solve many of the problems attendant to the seasoning of different species and types of wood. A cold storage chamber keeps the green logs and timber in unchanged condition for experimental work at any time. The aim of kiln-drying is to rapidly eliminate the surplus moisture which shrinking, swelling, and decay without the introduction of checks, warping, kiln stain, and other effects of badly tempered drying. One of the main obstacles to the proper control of moisture content in lumber has been the lack of means