Rink Research

With the long-awaited artifical ice plant in the Davis Rink now installed, and ready for November practice, Coach Eddie Jeremiah's players and hockey fans are looking forward to the dedication game, with Harvard on December 4. For the first time they have no fear that a sudden warm spell will result in the contest's being put off.

The usefulness of the new rink, converted to artificial ice at a cost of approximately $110,000, actually began several weeks ago, when thermocouples supplied by the U.S. Army Engineers were buried at varying levels, down to nine feet, to record sub-ground-level temperatures. The thermocouples, which are electrical temperature measuring devices, are used in determining what happens to material below the freezing zone. Two sets of nine thermocouples were buried, one every foot, in the soil beneath the rink's ten miles of refrigeration piping.

While Coach Jeremiah will be dealing with matters confined more exclusively to the rink's surface, Prof. Trevor Lloyd of the Geography Department and Richard W. Olmsted '32, Business Manager for Plant and Operations, are responsible for checking and forwarding the sub-ground level temperatures to Army Engineers. Such findings as these are of special value in the construction of Arctic landing fields, highway pavements, and other engineering problems in the Far North.