Thayer School
From the Christmas Mailbag, we were pleased to learn that John Scoville CE'55 arrived home from Pakistan to be greeted by Liz, Jack, and little Susan Elliot, born October 11. John had been away for six months on a dam site investigation on the Indes River. On another card, Alan Terrill CE'55 reported that he has been enjoying his work at Boise, Idaho, with Morrison-Knudsen working on plans for underground missile sites. And another card from Ed TraylorCE'48 in Albuquerque informs us that he has been engaged in consulting practice with Jack Hanley CE'48 and Merit White '31. From Jamaica, Leslie Tenn-Lyn CE'59 reports that he is working for the Marley and Plant Construction Company as a site engineer on the construction of a large wharfside warehouse. Alex McPherson ME'47 reports that he has acquired a new title at Gustin Bacon Co.: Assistant to the President. Alan Jackson's TT'53 greeting from Geneva, bearing a photo of the Matterhorn, informs us in some detail about his daily hardships as follows: "Here in Geneva it's an easy and quick trip from a business meeting to the ski slopes. In the summer it's even easier. All offices close from noon to two o'clock. With the beach only a mile from my office, I get in my daily swim and a little water skiing besides. Even business is fun and each day more interesting. One week a visit to an Italian factory and the next to a French technical exposition. Later a conference with a German professor, and so on even to trips behind the Iron Curtain. Social life is just as varied with both real and phony people from many social strata; diplomats and royalty along with secretaries and salesmen."
The engagement of Dick Portland TT'59 and Miss Sue Hayden of Hazleton, Pa., has been announced. Sue is teaching music in the White Plains public schools and Dick is working at Kodak Park in Rochester.
We received recently an attractive brochure entitled "Dynamics" from Jim Kerley '44, president of Kerley Engineering, Inc., Washington. This publication describes the "Kerley Cable Isolation System" used to control noise, shock and vibration.
The beginning of the Engineering Science program at Thayer School has imposed a need for a new attitude toward the part that laboratory exercises play in education. The approach being used in ES 11, a course in the analysis of structural elements given to juniors, is that the lab work should reinforce theory given in class. Although the physical appearance of the testing lab on the ground floor of the School is unchanged, the work going on there is very different. The basic technique being used is the investigation of stress distribution by means of wire resistance strain gages, SR-4 gages as they are commonly called. This system of measurement is being employed in the investigation of a variety of structures and structural elements. The method of analysis of trusses is being verified by experimental investigation of a small, six-foot span, aluminum, Warren truss. Aluminum wide-flange sections allow the investigation of the behavior of beams in bending. Time is also spent on the experimental analysis of beams whose height is the same order of magnitude as the span and for which elementary bending theory does not apply. Column theory and arch analysis are also topics that are experimentally analyzed.
The lab is being equipped with those facilities necessary for precise investigation. Most experimental set-ups are capable of delivering results with errors of no more than one to two percent, so that proper correlation of theory and actual behavior can be obtained when it exists.
