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Summer Session Kansan
Friday, July 17, 1964
Money Mounts to Further Engineering Research
Money for university engineering research is flowing into Kansas in steadily increasing amounts.
the support isn't coming as fast as some authorities believe it should ---Kansas needs far more new scientific and engineering knowledge.
But support for engineering teaching and research is on a healthy upswing. Almost $1½ million in such research has been attracted to the state in the past five years by the University of Kansas Center for Research in Engineering Science.
Some of it has led directly to area industrial development. Some has contributed to more basic engineering knowledge. But all of the research has been part of a threefold service to the state by the KU school of Engineering and Architecture.
TEACHING YOUNG engineers and architects is the first part of the schools' task. But equally important are consulting services to Kansas industry and the school's own growing research capability.
For instance, the internationally famous studies of low-temperature helium by Fred Kurata, professor of chemical engineering, contributed to the development of three new helium extraction plants in western Kansas.
Helium was first identified in natural gas at the University of Kansas in 1905, and KU long has been considered the home of helium research.
Kurata is completing the second of two $50,000-plus studies of the basic properties of low-temperature liquids for the National Science Foundation.
In one of the most active cooperative programs between the school and private industry, the Vendo Co. of Kansas City has given generously to support KU research.
THE VENDING machine company's confidence has paid off, both in practical results and in better educational opportunity at KU.
John N. Warfield, professor of electrical engineering, recently completed work on a magnetic memory unit which will enable Vendo's machines to make change for a
dollar bill. He also has done research on digital computer technology for the company. Vendo's research support has totaled more than $44,000 in the last three years.
Norris Nahman, professor of electrical engineering, employs students from high school as well as postdoctoral fellows to aid in studying high-speed electronic circuitry in a research project for the U. S. Army.
Students aren't the only ones who receive new challenges from KU engineering research. Sixteen engineers from Northern Natural Gas Co., a major Kansas pipeline firm, are taking turns living on the campus for a few weeks and studying electronic computers with Floyd W. Preston, associate professor of petroleum engineering. They hope to develop improved methods for computing pipeline flow rates and petroleum reservoir data.
Northern Natural Gas contributed $16,600 for the project, plus the time of its engineers. This is one of the largest single-company grants made to the Center for Research, Inc.
THE CENTER for Research is a clearinghouse for ideas--a unique enterprise in Kansas. It is a nonprofit corporation, associated with the University, which receives industry and government requests for research, proposes new research projects, and administers projects once they are underway.
One of the center's main purposes is to give outstanding engineers and scientists great freedom to think and work at their own pace and in their own way. By doing so, these investigators make the greatest possible contribution to knowledge.
Dean John S. McNown is the director of the Engineering Science Division of the center in addition to his duties as dean of the School of Engineering and Architecture. In five years the center has brought $1,380,000 worth of research to the University from original gifts of about $362,000 by firms and individuals. More than $315,000 of these original gifts remain in capital facilities which will contribute to further research.
Knowledge gained from the re-
London Remains the Paris Of Men's Wear Industry
LONDON — (UPI) — London, if you'll pardon the expression, is still the Paris of the men's wear industry.
American manufacturers occasionally poke fun at some of the advanced styling ideas introduced in London but in a year or two the better designs make their way across the Atlantic, especially in the field of suits, outer coats, shirts and shoes.
A CASE IN point is the popularity of the striped shirt which was the rage in London two years ago and now is one of the biggest sellers in America. Another is the slightly fitted hacking jacket with deep vents and slashed pockets which is being promoted in many U.S. stores for Fall.
D. A. ROBINSON, continental promotion manager for the National Wool Textile Export Corporation, reports the big European trend now is for a twist fabric in which two different colored yarns are twisted together to give variations in color.
There is a heavy emphasis on new fashion designs in British woolen textiles to meet the competition of lower priced textiles from Japan and to create a demand in countries with high tariffs.
with blue or red overchecks will be worn by bolder spirits.
"I COULDN'T think of anything more different than Italian or German tastes but in each case they like the gray effect from black and white, twist or checks, small stripes, checks or hounds tooth," he said. "Black and white is the single most outstanding thing on the continent both in business and sports wear."
Robinson reports a general leveling out of men's fashions in Europe, probably because of the Common Market influence, with Italians and Germans now dressing much alike and quite often reflecting London's Savile Row influence in styles.
ANTHONY HOLLAND of Holland and Sherry Ltd., London woolen merchants, reported a trend toward lighter shades and weights with colors introduced to brighten the lighter, grays.
The Savile Row tailors also are emphasizing new textile designs. One, Louis Stanbury, reports red and blue blends popular for fall with the younger clients and says light brown
Graham Donald, senior partner of a Savile Row woolen firm, reports lighter weights and colors and said: "Designs, too, tend to be classical and simple of sma11 checks and stripes. The fashion for complicated designs has finished."
Also new from Savile Row was a "tonal suit" in three shades of gray. The jacket and trousers were both in double twill woolweave but the jacket was dark gray and the trousers medium gray. The double-breasted vest was in pearl gray twill.
search is important, but research serves other purposes, too.
THE INNOVATION most likely to catch on with Americans was from Chester Barrie—a completely natural shoulder suit. Ivy League styles have a minimum of padding, his had none at all. The suit had a slight body tracing.
Some other trends: Teenagers were wearing collarless jackets, Beatle style. Some shops reported increased interest in belted Norfolk jackets. Other shops reported new interest in Sherlock Holmes-style tweed capes with red lining.
"There's an excitement, a challenge, to a student who works with an experienced researcher," said Dean McNown. "It's a part of good teaching. The new ideas stir students' imaginations and inspire them to learn—to choose a career in that branch of engineering."
Some of the youngsters were wearing Eton type collars with their collarless jackets but the main emphasis on shirts was a very wide spread collar both in pastel colors and in medium dark tones, some with fly fronts, some with a rolling spread collar. In shoes there was a return to a squared off toe in many lines with teen-agers going in for what look like old-fashioned gaiters or brushed pigskin boots. Some shops showed go-to-hell hats which had a sharply upturned brim at the back and a rakih slant in front. And almost everyone showed James Bond type trenchcoats.
McKinney came to KU four years ago from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and immediately began building Kansas research in sanitary engineering.
ONE SUCH program is the civil engineering studies of Ross E. McKinney, professor of civil engineering.
Sanitary engineering, the building and maintenance of sewage plants, sounds like a mundane, unglamorous kind of engineering, but McKinney has some new ideas.
He set graduate students to work on a project involving oxygen-producing algae and their use in space capsules. Sanitary engineers use such algae in sewage treatment. The students are using their engineering knowledge to study an algae-oxygen system which may sustain the first manned flight to the moon.
There also are several student research projects involving more typical sanitary engineering. The department operates a pilot sewage plant near Kansas City, Kan.
ENGINEERING students and faculty researchers work together on
projects ranging from nuclear engineering to measuring the stresses on grain storage tanks; from satellite radar studies to undersea sound measurement.
Two of the newest major projects are by R. K. Moore, professor of electrical engineering, high-altitude radar studies and the study of floods in the major Kansas river valleys by Robert Smith, professor of civil engineering.
nology which now provides $100,000 annually. The programs helps young faculty members to develop research programs and is one of many areas where students get a chance to work on current engineering problems.
Construction of several new federal reservoirs has radically changed the flow rates of major Kansas streams. Smith's study, financed by a $12,250 grant from the Army Corps of Engineers, will measure the rainfall run-off in several areas and what effect this run-off will have on the storage capacities of reservoirs.
Moore has been working closely with the U.S. and Canadian governments in interpreting radar data from the Canadian satellite, "Alouette." From transmissions sent back by this satellite, scientists are getting one of the first high-altitude radar views of the earth's surface.
MOORE, a widely recognized authority on radar, is a consultant to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and is expected to do later radar studies of the moon's surface before the first manned landing there.
NASA also has shown its interest in KU engineering and science by renewing for the third consecutive year a grant for interdisciplinary studies in space science and tech-
A new Engineering Building occupied last year is the latest addition to what will be a complex of engineering-science facilities at the west edge of the KU campus.
Nearby is the Nuclear Reactor Center building, which includes the University's 10-kilowatt nuclear reactor, environmental health laboratories, and a radiation biophysics study center.
NOW ON the books of the Center for Research is a backlog of a half million dollars' worth of research to be done in the near future. If Kansas is to keep up in the race for industrial-scientific knowledge, however, this must be greatly increased.
"The center should grow to perhaps five times its present research commitment if it is to keep up with its long-range goals," said B. G. Barr, associate director. "This means we will need increased support from private firms and individuals as well as government agencies. We feel certain the center's research can return many times over the value of an original investment."
KU is striving for a balance between engineering research and engineering teaching.