History of the Department of
Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
A communication from Professors DeVolson Wood and Stillman W. Robinson to the Regents in December, 1868, requested the establishment of a course in mechanical engineering and asked that a description of the program and of the requirements for the degree of mechanical engineer be inserted in the Catalogue. On motion of Regent Sill the request was granted (R.P., 1864-70, p. 312). This is the first mention of mechanical engineering at the University of Michigan.
For admission the student was required to pass the general examinations for entrance to the scientific course and freshman mathematics. In the sophomore year the schedule included French, Surveying and General Geometry, Descriptive Geometry, Calculus, English, and History. In the junior year French, Philosophy of History, Perspective Drawing, Calculus, Astronomy, Machine Drawing, and Kinematics were required. The senior year included Physics, Theory and Use of Instruments, Principles of Mechanism, Strength of Materials, Drawing, Theory of Frames, Geology, Metallurgy, Theory and Construction of Prime Movers, and Millwork and Machines. Instruction was also given in the theory of pattern making, molding and machine shop practice, plans, elevations, sections, and drawing of machinery.
Apparently, the venture was not entirely successful, for in the Regents’ Proceedings of June, 1870, it was resolved “that the degree of Mechanical Engineer…be and the same is hereby abolished, and the course of Civil Engineering be so extended as to include the main part of the course of Mechanical Engineering as heretofore prescribed.” This arrangement was continued for eleven years, with Wood teaching the courses in mechanical engineering until he resigned in 1872. The following quotation from his report of that year gives an interesting description of the methods he used in teaching:
In the course of these lectures I introduced a novel mode of instruction, in order to exercise [the]…inventive faculties [of the students]. I assigned to them a problem, the character of which I was certain they were not familiar with, and asked them to solve it, make a drawing to represent their idea, accompany it with a specification, and report it to me. As soon as all had solved it who were able to, I reviewed their solutions and criticized them before the class, indicating the valuable points as well as the objectionable features. The following may serve as an example: — After describing the construction and operation of the ordinary D valve, and showing particularly that in order to open a port so as to reverse the stroke of the piston, the valve, up to the point of opening the port, is moving in the opposite direction from the piston, I asked the class to invent such an arrangement of parts as that the valve would open the port correctly if it moved the same way as the piston. In this way nearly all the working parts of the steam engine were considered, and problems assigned which involved modifications. The problems were simple, and were intended as a means of instruction, and not as puzzles. In their solution they not only became familiar with what exists, but also learned other possible ways of accomplishing the same end, and in connection with the criticisms, learned why a particular combination was used. In a class of thirty there would often be fifteen or twenty different solutions; but sometimes there would not be more than five or six different ones. The Class also read all that part of Warren’s “Machine Construction Drawing” which pertained especially to the steam engine.
(R.P., 1870-76, p. 213.)
Mortimer Elwyn Cooley (U. S. Naval Academy ‘78e, M.E. hon. Michigan ‘85, LL.D. Michigan Agricultural College ‘07, Eng.D. Nebraska ‘11, Sc.D. Armour Institute of Technology ‘23), assistant engineer of the United States Navy, at the request of the Regents, was detailed to the University of Michigan as Professor of Steam Engineering and Iron Shipbuilding in August, 1881, to establish courses in mechanical engineering in the Department of Civil Engineering. In September, 1881, his title was established as Professor of Mechanical Engineering. This designation of title may be considered as the birth of the Department of Mechanical Engineering (R.P., 1881-86, p. 89).
Cooley’s first report to the Board of Regents as Professor of Mechanical Engineering follows:
At the close of this, my first year’s connection with the University of Michigan, I deem it fit and an appropriate time to submit to your honorable body a report on the year’s work, and on the future possibilities of the course in mechanical engineering … It was desired to establish in connection with the course in civil engineering a parallel course in mechanical engineering, which, with the reorganized course in mining engineering, would make a complete school of engineering. With this object in view the course in mechanical engineering was laid out as it now appears in the calendar. It was arranged so as to permit of development according to the demands of the students who might elect the work offered. It was not expected that it would be found necessary to give instruction in the advanced courses under two years at least, or until students should be regularly entered for the degree of mechanical engineer. When that time should have arrived, it was recognized that the proper amount of technical work necessary for the degree of mechanical engineer could not be given with the present teaching force in the Department of Engineering.
The opening of the school year disclosed a much greater demand for the courses offered than was anticipated. Even the advanced courses were in demand, those which it is not possible to give at present. The work was commenced under the most encouraging auspices, and has continued, even with the necessarily hasty and imperfect preparation of the subject matter of the courses, to attract favorable attention and considerable application on the part of the students.
The following is a list of the courses offered, with the number of students electing them during the past year:
1. Workshop Appliances and Processes, Pattern Making, Moulding and Founding. A 2-5 course [Cooley]
5 students.
2. Mechanical Laboratory work (not given this year) [Shop Practice in Forging (first given in 1885 by Taylor)].
3. Mechanical Laboratory work. A 2-5 course [Cooley]
5 [6?] students.
4. Machinery, Machine Construction and Drawing. A 3-5 course [Cooley and Dension]
5 students.
5. Mechanism and Machine Drawing. A 2-5 course [Denison]
10 students.
6. Machinery and Prime Movers. [Water Wheels and Steam Engines]. A 3-5 course [Cooley]
6 students.
7. Machine Design. A 3-5 course [Cooley and Denison]
1 student.
8. Thermodynamics (not given this year) [first given in 1882-3 Cooley].
9. Original Design, Estimates, Specifications, and Contracts. A 2-5 course [Cooley]
1 student.
10. Naval Architecture (not given this year).
11. Naval Architecture. A 2-5 course [Cooley]
1 student.
Total number of students
35
Courses 5 and 6 are identical with the courses of the same number in civil engineering, and the students taking them were mostly civil engineering students.
During the latter part of October the question of a mechanical laboratory was brought up for consideration. It was found that the $2,500 appropriated by the legislature for a mechanical laboratory in connection with the Department of Civil Engineering would revert to the State treasury on January 1, 1882, because that department was not ready to use it; and it was suggested that the money might be advantageously expended in erecting a building and equipping the same (as a mechanical laboratory) for the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Although at first it did not seem possible to expend so small a sum for so large a purpose and be able to secure any immediate and desirable results, by careful calculation it was found that certain definite results might be accomplished with benefit to a limited number of students; and it was decided that if a building could be erected leaving $1,000 out of that $2,500 for the purpose of machinery and tools, results justifying the expenditure of the whole sum might be expected. On that decision the building and fixtures as they now [1882] appear were erected …
Notwithstanding considerable delay experienced in receiving goods from the manufacturers, it was … possible to open the Mechanical Laboratory at the beginning of the second semester. Six students were permitted to take the course, the number being confined to those who the first semester had taken … theory of workshop practice. … The six who took the course were not confined to a prescribed course of work, as is contemplated for the future, but were engaged for a large share of the time in overhauling and erecting the machinery in the shop … The remainder of the time was devoted to grinding and putting in order the cutting tools, in performing some of the simpler operations at the work-bench, in preparing work for the iron lathe, in wood-turning, forging, brazing, and soldering, and in running the engine. One student working for the master’s degree was permitted to devote his entire time to the construction of an electric lamp with which to perform the experiments required by the subject of his thesis. Another student was permitted to devote a part of his time to the construction of a model of an automatic grain weigher to be used in mills and in grain elevators. The work of both of these gentlemen was creditable. Although broken and irregular the semester’s work in the Mechanical Laboratory has shown conclusively that there is a demand for such work among the students, and that it may be made a successful and profitable, as well as a popular, course among the many such at this University …
A great and growing necessity has long been felt for better educated mechanics and for more practical engineers; and it is generally recognized that this necessity can best be met by having in connection with our schools, laboratories or workshops, in which the practical nature of tools and materials can be studied at the same time with the theoretical. These laboratories, or workshops, should be open not only to the students of engineering and architecture, but also to those students whose time and circumstances permit [them] to take only special work.
(R.P., 1881-86, pp. 239-43.)
Plans for the Mechanical Engineering Laboratory were prepared by J. B. Davis, and construction was begun in December, 1881. The two-story building was just south of the “Clock Tower” of the later shops. It measured twenty-four by thirty-six feet and was of frame construction, with brick placed edgewise between the studding. The ground floor was divided into two rooms, the foundry at the east end with a small cupola sixteen inches in diameter and five feet high adjacent to the central brick chimney, and the forge shop, brass furnace, and engine room at the west. The foundry also included two flasks, other necessary foundry tools, and molding sand.
The shop contained the first steam equipment in the Mechanical Engineering Laboratory, a forge, anvil, tools, a brass furnace, and a four-horsepower vertical fire-box boiler and steam engine. The second floor was also divided into two rooms, one of which was occupied by the pattern shop and the other by the machine shop. The equipment consisted of a wood-turning lathe built by Cooley and members of his class, and an iron lathe, salvaged from the basement of University Hall and repaired by the students. The building was heated by an old-fashioned stove on the second floor next to the chimney. In cold weather it was found effective to melt ice in a pail of water on top of the stove in order to increase the humidity.
Because equipment was not available in this first building, much experimental work and testing were conducted under Cooley’s direction in various industrial plants of southern Michigan. At this time all the classwork in engineering was taught in six rooms in the South Wing of University Hall.
On July 18, 1883, it was resolved that Professor Cooley be paid four hundred dollars for his services, to date from October 1, 1882. It should be said in defense of the University that Cooley was also receiving a salary from the Navy. He must have been encouraged, however, because, on the same day, he requested that a carpenter shop, measuring thirty by seventy-five feet, standing on the site of the present West Physics Building and used by the contractors in the construction of the Library, together with the machinery, be given to the Department of Mechanical Engineering. The request was granted, and the shop, moved and attached to the laboratory, served as a wood shop. This addition contained a planer, saws, and a steam engine. The old four-horsepower engine was sold, and the newly acquired engine was used to provide power for the laboratory.
By this time Cooley had added the following courses: 8, Theory of Machine Construction, 1 hour; 9, Machine Design, 5 hours; 6, Machine Dynamics, 2 hours; 11, Steam Engineering (Steam Generators, Steam Pumping, and Hoisting Machinery), Practical Laboratory Work, 3 hours; 4a, Shop Practice (Iron Work), 3 hours; 12, Shop Practice in Foundry, 2 hours. With the exception of the two shop practice courses, which were taught by Taylor (see Production Engineering), Cooley taught all of these himself.
By March, 1884, conditions apparently had begun to improve because a drill press was purchased for $180, and later in the year a room suitable for recitations and for the storage of models was assigned to the Laboratory.
In 1885 the Regents authorized a new mechanical laboratory, and it was resolved:
That Professor M. E. Cooley be and hereby is appointed Superintendent of the proposed building for the Engineering Laboratory, and that he be required to give such portion of his time as will not interfere with his duties as Professor of Mechanical Engineering as will insure a faithful performance of the contract — and that he discharge such other duties as may be directed by the committee on Buildings and Grounds … this appointment shall commence from the first operations of the contractors on the grounds, and continue during the active processes of the several works, and … the compensation shall be at the rate of fifty dollars per month.
(R.P., 1881-86, p. 583.)
This structure now comprises the north part of the east wing of the West Engineering Annex. Built of brick, with an interior of slow-burning mill construction, the three stories and attic originally measured forty by eighty feet. The ground floor was occupied by the Mechanical Engineering Laboratory; the second floor housed the machine shop and the third floor the pattern and wood shops. The attic was used for the storage of patterns and wood. Equipment was acquired for this laboratory partly by purchase and partly by gifts from industries. The original two-story frame structure built in 1881-82 and containing the foundry and forge shop was removed.
Mechanical engineering continued to grow rapidly in importance. In 1891 the former Dental Building was acquired as additional classroom space. (The Clements Library now occupies this area.) The central or tower unit, which connected the two wings, contained tall mercury columns for calibrating pressure gages. In 1900 a twenty-foot extension was added to the laboratory (the south end of the east wing).
Cooley did most of the teaching himself until 1895. In 1904, after the death of Dean Charles E. Greene, Cooley was appointed Dean of the College. He held this position until his retirement in June, 1928, at the age of seventy-three.
Dean Cooley was a man of unusual and versatile personality, who envisaged large issues in complete perspective, yet never overlooked, and apparently never forgot, details. He possessed not only a keen intellect and the essential practicality of the engineer, but also a fine sense of humor. He was an especially good storyteller and a master of the art of influencing people. To him is due in large part the fine relationship which has always existed between students and faculty of the College.
Cooley established the first courses in shop practice, which were taken over in 1885-86 and developed by Professor Clarence George Taylor (Worcester Polytechnic Institute ‘81, M.E. ibid. ‘81, Michigan ‘02d) as Superintendent. He began the courses in naval architecture and mechanical engineering laboratory and introduced work in dynamics and design. After the Engineering Shops became a separate unit, he became Professor of Mechanical Practice in 1897, but resigned two years later to study dentistry. In one of the basic machine design courses in the early years a pamphlet written by Cooley, Dynamics of Reciprocating Parts of Engines, was used in conjunction with Unwin’s well-known Elements of Machine Design for text.
Assistant Professor Frank Caspar Wagner (M.A. ‘84, ‘85e [M.E.]) taught Laboratory, Dynamics of Machinery and Engines, Thermodynamics, and Steam Engineering from 1890 to 1896, when he left to teach at Rose Polytechnic Institute, of which he later became president.
In addition to the courses mentioned, the following were available in 1896: Principles of Mechanism (Denison), Design of Shop Machinery (Taylor), Theory of Machine Design (Cooley), Steam Engines (Allen), Design of General Machinery (Cooley), Machinery and Mill Work (Cooley), Design of Engines and Boilers (Cooley), Dynamics of Engines: Valve Gears (Cooley and Wagner), Heating and Ventilation (Cooley), Compressed Air Machinery and Refrigeration (Cooley and Wagner). The increased importance of quantitative creative work is evident in the emphasis on design of machinery rather than on mere descriptive study.
The south wing and center section of the West Engineering Building, now occupied by the main Mechanical Engineering Laboratory, which has an area of almost 15,000 square feet, were erected in 1904. The equipment in the laboratory from the time of its first occupancy in 1886 until it was moved to its present location consisted of a steam engine built by the students in 1887, an Erie steam engine acquired with the joiner shop and used until 1921, an E. P. Allis Corliss engine which at the time of its purchase about 1891-92 was supplied with steam from the University power plant, a Stirling boiler bought by Cooley in 1894 and used only for experimental purposes, a small surface condenser, a DeLaval turbogenerator, a Murray turbine, and a Mietz and Weiss oil engine acquired from an exhibit at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo in 1901.
There were also a Rider hot-air engine and a Fairbanks-Morse gas engine, loaned to the Laboratory in 1896 and used until 1936, an Olsen testing machine, and the Cooley indicator tester or pressure gage calibrator, built as the result of a test on the Ann Arbor Water Works pumping engine.
During the first semester of 1904-5, this equipment was moved to the new Mechanical Engineering Laboratory, in the West Engineering Building. The forge shop was enlarged and moved to the ground floor of the east wing of the present Annex vacated by the Mechanical Laboratory, and the foundry was expanded to occupy the space relinquished by the forge shop. Additional equipment acquired later included boilers, stokers, superheaters, steam engines, Unaflow engines, air compressors, blowers, gas engines, particularly an Otto gas engine that is now a museum piece. A Brayton engine, acquired in 1912 through the efforts of J. E. Emswiler, for many years furnished power for a spice mill in the wholesale grocery house of the late Colonel Deane of Ann Arbor. The equipment also included oil engines and diesels, hot-air engines, and a refrigerating plant, acquired in 1910 from the Creamery Package Manufacturing Company of Chicago, stationary and portable electric motors and dynamometers, pumps, and steam injectors.
Professor Charles Simeon Denison (Vermont ‘70, C.E. ibid. ‘71, M.S. ibid. ‘74) taught Mechanism and Machine Drawing from 1881 until the time of his death in 1913, when it was abandoned. The mechanism course included valve gears from 1898 until 1908, when Valve Gears was offered separately by Bursley and others, particularly by Charles Horace Fessenden (Missouri ‘06e [M.E.], M.E. ibid. ‘08), who was appointed Instructor in 1908 and served as Professor from 1919 until his death in 1934. He developed a text, Valve Gears, in connection with this course, which was discontinued in 1915.
Sketching of Machine Details, first offered in 1905, became Machine Drawing in 1908. It was given by Bursley, C. Wilson, F. A. Mickle, and others until transferred to the Department of Mechanism and Engineering Drawing in 1922. Theory of Machine Movements (intended as a mechanism course) was instituted as a required course by Zowski in 1915 and abandoned in 1933.
Machine Design, introduced in 1881 by Cooley, was the first mechanical engineering design course. In 1883 he initiated Theory of Machine Construction to accompany the first course. This was soon followed by Design of Engines and Boilers and Design of Shop Machinery which was probably the forerunner of Machine Tool Design, introduced in 1897-98. Design of Hoisting Machinery was presented in the same year, and from that time until 1912 specialized machine design courses were known as Machine Design, with the content of the course indicated — Machine Design: Shop Machinery.
Design of Machine Details was introduced in 1909 to supplement the theory course; in 1912 the machine design course for electrical engineers was abandoned, and its content largely merged in the basic machine design course. Theory of Machine Design was the principal basic course from 1882, when Cooley and Denison taught it, until 1934, when Elements of Machine Design, introduced in 1915, was strengthened and became the basic course. Both the basic course and the advanced or second course are combination classroom and drawing courses consisting of two four-hour periods a week, the first hour being devoted to general instruction and the remaining three hours to drawing. Boston has been teaching Machine Tool Design since 1935. By 1940 two nonmachine elective design courses were on an equal footing with the machine design courses, Design of Power Plants and Design of Heating and Ventilating Systems.
In 1898 Allen initiated a heat engines course, Boilers, Steam Engines, and Denison gave Mechanism, Valve Gears, which has, with various changes in name and content, continued to be a part of the curriculum. Heat Engines, a separate course, was offered for the first time in 1913-14. Instructors since 1905 have included Anderson, Bursley, Emswiler, Keeler, Boston, Wilson, W. F. Verner, Fessenden, and Watson.
John Robins Allen (‘92e [M.E.], M.E. ‘96), who began teaching in 1897 as Instructor, became head of the department in 1904 and Professor in 1907. He resigned in 1917 to become dean of the Engineering College of the University of Minnesota. Allen was an interesting and inspiring teacher, tolerant in outlook and possessed of a wealth of personal and professional experience on which to draw. On leave of absence for the purpose in 1911-12 he established an engineering school at Robert College, Istanbul, Turkey. He was the author of a small book entitled Notes on Heating and Ventilation, one of the earliest American publications on this subject, and co-author (with J. A. Bursley) of Heat Engines, and (with J. H. Walker) of Heating and Ventilation.
Henry Clay Anderson (Kentucky ‘97e [M.E.]) came to Michigan as Instructor in 1899. After successive promotions he became Professor of Mechanical Engineering in 1912. He was head of the department from 1917 to 1937, when he became Dean of the College upon the resignation of Dean Sadler. He was a most effective teacher and was regarded with unusual affection and esteem by students and staff. He taught heat engines, the mechanical engineering laboratory courses, and thermodynamics.
Advances in technology and a corresponding demand for thermodynamics resulted in this subject’s first appearance as a regular part of the curriculum in 1905-6, although a course in thermodynamics had been offered occasionally before that time. Anderson gave the course at first, and he was followed by Emswiler, Fessenden, Keeler, Calhoon, and others.
After Moyer’s resignation in 1912 Emswiler was given general charge of the laboratory instruction. John Edward Emswiler (Ohio State ‘03e [M.E.]) came to the University as Instructor in 1906. He was appointed Professor in 1918 and was chairman of the department from 1937 until his death in 1940. Among other courses he also taught Design of Machine Details and Mechanical Engineering Laboratory. He is the author of Thermodynamics.
The two main laboratory courses in mechanical engineering were introduced in 1898. At first called Mechanics Laboratory, the name was later changed to the more accurate Mechanical Engineering Laboratory. The basic or first course contained some materials testing until 1910 and much calibration work until 1913, as the laboratory testing machinery was in the shop. They were given as Mechanical Engineering Laboratory first and second courses, and a fee of five dollars was required for each until 1920. An advanced course, first offered in 1909-10 by Moyer and Bursley, was called Research Work in the Mechanical Laboratory in the second semester.
Joseph Aldrich Bursley (‘99e [M.E.]), who was appointed Instructor in 1904, was promoted to Professor of Mechanical Engineering in 1917. When he became the first Dean of Students in the University in 1921, he continued to teach a section of Heat Engines, and he regularly attended staff meetings until his retirement in 1947.
James Ambrose Moyer (Lawrence Scientific School, Harvard ‘99, A.M. Harvard ‘04) was Assistant Professor from 1908 to 1912 and in charge of the Mechanical Engineering Laboratory in 1911-12. He resigned and later became head of the Massachusetts State Department of Education. He wrote Power Plant Testing while here.
When Hydraulics Laboratory, advanced course, was first offered by Zowski in 1912-13, the laboratory part of the course was dovetailed with Mechanical Engineering Laboratory, second course.
Stanislaus Jan Zowski (Polytechnicum Charlottenburg ‘05) was appointed Instructor in 1907. His special interest was in water turbine design, and an experimental low-head reaction turbine was built in the Engineering Shops from his designs. He was Professor of Mechanical Engineering from 1912 to 1922, when he returned to Warsaw.
Harold Rhys Lloyd (King William College [Isle of Man], ‘99, M.A. Cambridge ‘03) was appointed Instructor in 1912. He left for England in 1915, but returned as Assistant Professor in 1924 and became Associate Professor in 1936. He retired in 1950.
Hugh Edward Keeler (‘12e [E.E.], M.E. ‘31) became Instructor in Mechanical Engineering in 1917. He was promoted to Professor in 1933. He taught Heat Engines, Mechanical Engineering Laboratory, Advanced Mechanical Research, Thermodynamics, Design of Steam Generating Equipment, Heating and Ventilation, Air-conditioning Systems, Steam Turbines, Refrigeration, Diesel Power Plants, Automotive Electrical Equipment, and Engine Acceptance Testing.
Sherzer gave courses in Hydraulics from 1920-21 until he retired in 1946. Allen Firman Sherzer (‘13e [M.E.]), who had been Teaching Assistant in the department from 1914 to 1916, returned as Assistant Professor in 1920, and in 1931 was promoted to Professor of Mechanical Engineering. He taught Pumping Machinery and Design and Hydraulic Turbines and Design in addition to the Hydraulic Laboratory course.
In the semester before the introduction of Hydraulics Laboratory, Zowski offered a course of the same name, with fewer credit hours, apparently the forerunner of the course charted the next semester. In 1929-30 a one-hour laboratory course was introduced by Axel Marin (‘22e [M.E.]) for students who did not have to take the first mechanical engineering laboratory course. Marin became Instructor in 1922 and Professor in 1945.
A co-operative arrangement with the Department of Chemical Engineering in 1919-20 made possible a one-hour chemical engineering course for mechanical engineers, which included fuel testing, gas analysis, and water treatment.
By 1937 the curriculum for the bachelor’s degree had grown to such an extent that it included fifty-four courses, with seventy-four hours of preparatory work, fifty hours of secondary and technical work, and sixteen hours of electives. The subjects offered were grouped under Machine Design, Heat and Power, Heat Engines, Thermodynamics, Power Plants and Hydraulic Machinery, Mechanical Engineering Laboratory courses, Steam Power Engineering, Internal Combustion Engineering, Automotive Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Heating and Ventilating, and Refrigeration and Air Conditioning. A five-year curriculum in mechanical and industrial engineering leading to the master’s degree in industrial engineering was first offered by the department in 1935. Specialized courses on diesel engines were offered for the first time in 1937 by Vincent, and in the second semester of 1938-39 a laboratory course in air conditioning was introduced. The first extension course in industrial air conditioning was given in Detroit in 1939-40. In this year arrangements were also made to offer an elective course in metallurgy for students in mechanical engineering. At about the same time the courses in internal combustion engineering were expanded, and arrangements were made for an Internal Combustion Engine Institute in the summer of 1940.
Hawley was made acting chairman of the department in 1939, and, after the death of Emswiler in 1940, he was appointed to the chairmanship. Ransom Smith Hawley (‘07e [E.E.], M.E. ‘15) came to the University of Michigan from the Colorado School of Mines in 1917. He became Professor of Mechanical Engineering in 1920 and served until his retirement in 1951. Professor Edward Thomas Vincent (London ‘21) succeeded as the chairman. Before coming to the University in 1936-37 he had been chief engineer for the Continental Motors Corporation in Detroit. Harry James Watson (Ohio State ‘15e [M.E.]), appointed Instructor in 1916 became Assistant Professor in 1921. Clarence Frank Kessler (‘19e [M.E.], M.S.E. ‘24) joined the staff as Instructor in 1920, becoming Associate Professor in 1943. Floyd Newton Calhoon (Louisiana State ‘16, M.S. Michigan ‘35), who became Instructor in 1923, was made Professor in 1952. Charles Willett Spooner, Jr. (M.E. Cornell ‘34, M.S. Michigan ‘35) was added to the staff as Instructor in 1936; he transferred to Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering in 1945.
In 1937-38, 419 students were enrolled in the department; in 1948-49, 1,219; and in the second semester of 1951-52, 309 in mechanical engineering and 98 in mechanical and industrial engineering. Facilities of the Engineering College were taxed to the utmost after World War II, and it was only by greatly increasing the number of students in each section that instruction could be carried on. From 1940 to 1942 Hawley conducted a study of the curriculum that led to the introduction of an orientation course at the sophomore level, and a revision of the mechanism and design courses.
In addition to the regular work of the department, special extension courses, special courses for military groups, and courses for training civilians as factory production inspectors were given. The full-length summer term was introduced in 1942. In 1943 the Army Specialized Training Program was begun, and the Navy program was set up. The A.S.T.P. was discontinued in April, 1944, but the Navy program did not terminate until more than a year later.
In the fall of 1947 a new program was adopted that increased the time devoted to thermodynamics and electrical engineering, broadened the requirements in technical applications courses, and decreased the time devoted to metal processing and surveying. A senior course in process equipment design was offered in the fall of 1945, and the industrial air-conditioning extension course was adapted to the regular program in the second semester of 1947-48. Additions to the senior level courses include Industrial Exhaust and Ventilation Laboratory, and Rocket Motors, first offered in the second semester of 1951-52.
Service courses in heating and air conditioning were also given for students in the College of Architecture and Design and in heat-power engineering for students in chemical and metallurgical engineering.
The manner of conducting laboratory work has changed greatly since 1882, when little equipment was available and the work was more or less impromptu. In addition to the regular instruction, among the many experiments carried on in the Mechanical Engineering Laboratory have been tests on steam radiators and investigations in heating and ventilation. Space for a heat laboratory was released when the Architecture Building was completed in 1927. This laboratory was used extensively by Fessenden and Keeler for radiator tests and by Emswiler and Keeler for work on heat transfer through glass windows. When Engineering Shops moved from the West Engineering Annex in 1923, additional laboratory space for special projects was acquired by the department.
Repair work for the Laboratory was done in the University Instrument Shop until about 1925. This shop is now called upon to build only special equipment that cannot be handled in the laboratory’s own repair shop, which was moved to its present location in 1910. Also serving the Laboratory are the instrument room and the tool room. The equipment includes more than one hundred and twenty pressure gages, thirty-five indicators, and temperature measuring instruments of all kinds.
The years immediately preceding 1937 saw no major additions to the equipment of the Mechanical Engineering Laboratory, but by 1940 a motor generator set had been acquired. When the “G.I.” students appeared on the campus, the department found itself seriously handicapped for want of satisfactory training equipment. Hawley worked with the War Surplus Procurement office of the University for improvements. The department added a Westinghouse air compressor, a diesel engine, a Cummins diesel engine generator unit, a 400-horsepower Midwest dynamometer, a Spencer turbo-compressor and motor drive, a twenty-ton refrigeration machine and condenser, high-pressure blowers, an arc welding machine, three machine lathes, a twenty-horsepower electric motor, and various small motors, tools, and instruments. About $90,000 was appropriated for the rehabilitation of the laboratory, which was accomplished in the years 1948-51. The following equipment was purchased: a complete General Electric educational power plant, a ten-horsepower dynamometer with switchboard, controls, and instruments; a 100-horsepower Ward Leonard unit with dynamometer, a 15 kw turbogenerator with instrumentation; equipment to complete the surplus Frigidaire refrigeration plant so that it comprised an educational air-conditioning unit of twenty tons; an industrial air-conditioning laboratory; silica gel dehumidifier unit; instruments for instruction and research work; a Joy fan; an American Blower Axivane fan; a set of Bus Duct electric supply equipment; a set of T-bolt rails to provide fit-all floor fastenings for equipment; and various items for the Automotive Laboratory. In addition, gifts included a Timken oil-fired heating boiler, a Vickers hydraulic drive test stand; a Timken oil-fired warm air furnace; two Continental gasoline engines, and an Aeroquip hydrauloscope.
As the number of students increased and technology expanded, new tests were added to the laboratory courses. When the United States entered World War I in 1917, additional changes were necessarily made in the manner of carrying on the laboratory work. The term plan was temporarily adopted but later abandoned. After the war the scope of the work was enlarged to include a wider range of tests for Mechanical Engineering 7 and 8 (17 and 18 in 1952), which have been the main laboratory courses.
Six students were enrolled in the first course given in the Mechanical Laboratory in 1882. In the first semester of 1920, there were 105 men in the first course and eighty-five in the second. In 1937 eighty-five students were enrolled in the first course and fifty-one in the second; in 1952, 166 were in the first course and 114 in the second.
Industrial Engineering
During a visit of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers to Germany in 1910, Professor Bursley made the acquaintance of the Gilbreths and other leaders in the field of what was then known as “scientific management.”
From 1913 to 1915 Bursley made a study of the applications of scientific management in manufacturing plants with the intention of introducing training in this field in the College of Engineering. A course was established in 1915 under the title Mechanical Engineering 35 — Scientific Shop Management. During World War I this instruction was expanded to include two courses in the preliminary training of officers for the Ordnance Department of the Army. This was the first work of the kind offered by an American college, and it formed the pattern for such instruction in other institutions.
In 1921, when Bursley became Dean of Students, Charles Burton Gordy (Pennsylvania ‘17, Ph.D. Michigan ‘29) was appointed Assistant Professor to carry on the instruction. Dean Cooley appointed a committee at this time to consider education in engineering administration. This committee reported favorably. A sequence of elective courses in engineering administration was to be given without interfering with any of the fundamental engineering subjects. A series of courses was suggested, and a budget of $14,500 was proposed. In October, 1921, the Dean appointed a committee consisting of Bursley, Airey, and Gordy to recommend a program of studies for work then known as production or industrial engineering. Airey was Superintendent of the shops until 1924, when he was succeeded by Boston. This committee recommended that “a separate department, to be known as the Department of Industrial Engineering, be established.” The proposed curriculum included five new courses in industrial engineering and eighteen hours of electives.
No action was taken on these recommendations until 1923-24, when E. E. Day, chairman of the Department of Economics, expressed an interest in combining work in economics and engineering in preparation for the field of production. In 1924 H. C. Anderson, chairman of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, appointed a committee consisting of Fessenden, Myron Louis Begeman (‘15e [M.E.], M.S.E. ‘22) and Gordy to combine suggestions made by Day with the reports of the two Cooley committees. This committee recommended that a five-year course in mechanical and industrial engineering be established, with a curriculum of 173 hours of work recommended, and the proposal was adopted in May, 1924. The degree of bachelor of science in engineering (industrial engineering) was first awarded in 1926 to William Alden Capen, who later became superintendent of the Keeler Brass Company in Grand Rapids.
By 1932 only fourteen students had been graduated, for a graduate of this program after five years of work received the same degree granted for four years of work in other curriculums. A new program was adopted by the Board of Regents in 1934, by which a bachelor’s degree in engineering (mechanical engineering) was awarded at the end of the fourth year, and, upon completion of a year in the Graduate School, a master’s degree in industrial engineering was granted.
No substantial change was made in industrial engineering until 1946, when the degree designation of bachelor of science in engineering (industrial-mechanical) was initiated. Thus, for the first time the term “industrial” was added to the degree awarded at the end of four years of work.
In 1950 the curriculum in industrial (mechanical) engineering was accredited by the Engineering Council for Professional Development, with the suggestion that greater provision be made for courses in the area of industrial engineering. In the following year the Board of Regents approved a program leading to the bachelor’s degree in engineering (industrial engineering), and in 1952 approved a change in name of the department to Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering. In the spring of 1952, 98 students were enrolled in the industrial engineering curriculum.
In addition to Professor Gordy as program adviser, Associate Professor Quentin C. Vines (Illinois ‘29e [E.E.], M.E. ibid. ‘50), Assistant Professor Wilbert Steffy (‘37e [Mech. Ind.]), and Instructor Edward Lupton Page (‘40e [M.E.], M.S.E. ‘53) taught the courses in 1952. In December, 1951, the titles of these men were changed from Mechanical to Industrial Engineering. Thus, Gordy became the first Professor of Industrial Engineering at the University.
The program in industrial engineering includes two options. Option A is concerned with the development of standards for operation and the analysis and comparison of results of actual operation with norms previously established. It includes the analysis of a product as to methods of manufacture, layout of facilities, materials handling, production and inventory control, quality control, production standards and motion study, job evaluation and incentive methods of wage payment, organization, and personnel practices and policies.
Option B is intended to meet the needs of those students primarily interested in the methods and operations of manufacture. It includes the development, operation, and control of such processes as casting, forging, rolling, die-casting, stamping, molding, machining, and such functions as production planning, factory layout, routing and methods of manufacture, jigs, fixture, tool, and die design, technical estimating, and inspection. The objective is to acquaint engineering students with principles and methods of fabricating materials. Boston is program adviser, and all of the special work is offered in the Production Engineering Department. The two options follow a common program for the first two years, but differ thereafter.
Automotive Laboratory
Automotive and internal combustion engineering courses. — The first automotive engineering courses were offered in the fall of 1913, although Gas Engines and Gas Producers had been taught since 1907, and Machine Design (Gas Engines) was offered in 1912. These courses were reorganized and renamed by Anton Friedrich Greiner (Dipl. Ing. Munich ‘09), who came to the University as Instructor in 1912 and served as Assistant Professor from 1913 until 1921, when he resigned to take up professional work. In 1913 thirty-seven students were enrolled in the first automotive course, Gasoline Automobiles, given by Walter Turner Fishleigh (‘02, ‘06e [C.E.]), and seventeen students in Automobile Testing, also taught by Fishleigh. He was transferred to the Department of Engineering Mechanics from the Drawing Department in 1912, appointed Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering in 1915, and Associate Professor of Automobile Engineering in 1916. To him is due the credit for the establishment of the automotive division of the Department of Mechanical Engineering. He resigned in 1919 to join the Ford Motor Company. In 1914 Fishleigh also initiated an automotive research course of which Lay took charge in 1919. Walter Edwin Lay (‘15e [M.E.]) was appointed Instructor in 1916, and became Professor in 1930. He has been responsible for the later development of the Automotive Laboratory. Charles Winfred Good (‘18e [M.E.]) was appointed Instructor in 1918 and was promoted to a professorship in 1943. He has divided his time between the department and Engineering Research.
A feature of the first laboratory course was a full day’s road test of a motor vehicle. It soon became the rule to photograph the test crew, thus producing a tangible record of both the student and the equipment, which consisted of a single cylinder Oldsmobile engine, a 1910 Krit, a 1907 air-cooled Franklin, and a 1911 Franklin engine.
The program was expanded to include Automobile Motor Theory and Design and Automobile Chassis Design in 1914, both taught by Fishleigh. Lay took over the first course from 1917 to 1921, and John Minert Nickelsen (Illinois ‘14e [M.E.]) succeeded him. He became Instructor in Drawing in 1916 and was made Professor of Mechanical Engineering in 1941. The work in automobile research was given by Lay in 1919 and by Nickelsen after 1920. Internal Combustion Engines and Gas Producers, introduced by Greiner in 1913, formed the main internal combustion engine course, with special topics as an advanced course. These courses and a design course initiated in the same year still provide the basic internal combustion engine instruction. After Greiner, Good took over the work with Lay, Vincent, and Schwartz succeeding him. Frank Leroy Schwartz (M.E. Lehigh ‘28, Ph.D. Michigan ‘40), who was appointed Assistant Professor in 1941, was advanced to Professor in 1949. Other instruction included a short course for highway engineers given by Lay from 1920 to 1927 and an automotive engineering seminar by Nickelsen. Aircraft Power Plants and a laboratory course were first given in 1934 by Lay and Kohler. Henry Lebrecht Kohler (Illinois ‘29, M.S. Yale ‘30, M.E. ibid. ‘31) joined the department as Instructor in 1931 and in 1933 was promoted to Assistant Professor. He resigned in 1946.
Much of the test equipment for the Automotive Laboratory was built in the small laboratory shop. Instruments were improved and adapted to laboratory needs. The greater part of the operating equipment, vehicle engines and other components, has been most generously furnished by the automotive industry. Only special research equipment and instruments have been purchased or built. By 1937 operating equipment consisted of motor vehicles, engines, transmissions, axles, superchargers, carburetors, mufflers, and, in fact, all of the major units which are used on aircraft, motor vehicles, tractors, and some marine applications of internal combustion engine power. Testing equipment included electric dynamometers, water brakes, air meters, fuel meters, tachometers, potentiometers, and all the small instruments needed in determining power, speed, temperatures, pressures, and air, fuel, oil, and water flow. Automotive engines and parts, including a 1913 Ford T and a Hudson 6-54 were used for instruction; many of these pieces are now in the automotive museum. Aircraft power-plant equipment included everything from a 1919 Liberty engine to a Wright Cyclone and Pratt and Whitney Hornets.
When the United States entered World War I the University offered its facilities and staff for training Army personnel. The first group of four detachments of enlisted men arrived in April, 1918, for an eight-week course in automotive engine repair. A total of one thousand and eighty-one men were trained in the succeeding six months. Old vehicles and equipment were purchased and borrowed. Temporary buildings with some 6,000 square feet of floor space were constructed, and a teaching staff was recruited from the faculty of the College and from trade schools, factories, and garages.
In 1919, shortly after the Armistice, the laboratory equipment was moved to one of the temporary wooden buildings, which had a floor area of 10,800 square feet. Here began the research that formed the basis for limiting the grades on federal aid highways in Michigan. In 1922, when the space occupied by this building was needed for the new Physics Building, the laboratory was moved to a hastily constructed lean-to shed, which had an area of 3,200 square feet, on the west side of the foundry. Shortly afterward, additional space was acquired in the old shops until 11,000 square feet were in use for classrooms and laboratories.
In 1933 the laboratory was raided by a mob of seventy-five law students who broke down the doors and captured a graduate student who was just completing an endurance test on some piston rings. This seemed to establish the nuisance value of an automotive laboratory situated in a flimsy wooden building on the campus. A fire destroyed the south half of the wooden lean-to shed in 1937 and ruined much of the equipment. The shed was quickly rebuilt, however, and the equipment replaced.
An aircraft engine test house was set up at the Ann Arbor airport in 1936 and equipped with a reaction test stand built by the laboratory shops.
When World War II began, the laboratory facilities and staff services were again offered for training personnel engaged in the war effort. Civilian aircraft engine inspectors were trained in the laboratory. All enlisted men in mechanical engineering were required to take a classroom and a laboratory course in automotive engineering. While revising the content of these courses, it was learned that the University had not only the best program of automotive laboratory instruction, but also by far the most complete laboratory facilities of any of the colleges engaged in the education of enlisted men. In the spring of 1946 Vincent offered the first course in Gas Turbines.
In 1948, for the first time, a course in internal combustion engines was required for mechanical engineering students. A limited sum was made available for the purchase of additional equipment including a small dynamometer, two C.F.R. variable compression research engines, two high-speed pressure indicators, and a city bus. A gas turbine test cell was constructed.
Research Work
Research work on automobile and other internal combustion engines has been carried on in the department since 1913. Early work was restricted for the most part to the automobile, although a project on the engine, consisting of a heat balance study, was initiated in 1915. The results are still quoted as the most complete available on that type of engine. Work was also begun on a study of car resistance, and the various aspects of this problem have been studied more or less continuously since.
The laboratory was one of the first to present comprehensive data based on actual experiments showing the advantages of streamlining. The wind tunnel model built about 1930 had some of the best features of the present streamlined cars. An outgrowth of this resistance work was a co-operative study made with the State Highway Department to determine which of the grades in new construction were more economical, considered from the standpoint of balancing the cost of construction against the operation cost of cars and trucks in climbing the grades.
The laboratory has co-operated with manufacturers and has studied almost all car and engine parts either with a view to improving them or to checking the improvements being attempted by the manufacturer. The engines worked on have varied from small single-cylinder ones for marine work, household equipment, and farm-lighting to twelve-cylinder airplane engines. Pistons, rings, pins, connecting rods, and crank shafts have been improved. Valve mechanisms, carburetors, manifold systems, and combustion chambers have been studied. Experimental work has been done on ignition and injection systems for both diesel and Otto cycle engines, bearings, lubricants, and fuels and their effect on engine parts and engine operation.
Extensive work has been completed on chassis parts, hydraulic transmissions, universal joints, propeller shafts, rear axles, brakes and brake linings, wheel types, springs, shackle bearings, front axles, and steering gears. Studies have been made of car performance, riding comfort, including the development of the Universal Test Seat and Universal Driver’s Compartment, car safety, and car noise, particularly mufflers.
Production Engineering
The Mechanical Laboratory shop course was first given in the second semester of 1881-82 as part of the work in mechanical engineering. The number of students in the course was confined to those who had taken theory of Workshop Practice during the first semester, and only six were permitted to enroll.
The first shop course, limited to six hours a week was taught by Cooley, and consisted of forge, machine, and pattern work. The work was continued in this manner for years. In 1883 the Regents authorized Cooley to employ, “under the direction of the President, such temporary skilled assistance as [might] be necessary in the Mechanical Laboratory, at an expense not to exceed $12 a week” (R.P., 1881-86, p. 307). Robert Winslow was engaged on these terms as Instructor in Foundry, and Clarence Taylor became Assistant in the Mechanical Laboratory. Winslow held his position until his death in 1905. The Regents voted in 1886 to change Taylor’s title to Superintendent of Shops in the Engineering Laboratory. This is the first time the title appears, for Cooley had been in charge of the work as Professor of Mechanical Engineering.
In 1897 Taylor was appointed Professor of Mechanical Practice. He was succeeded in 1899 by William Lincoln Miggett (‘99e [M.E.], M.E. ‘04), who was appointed Superintendent of Engineering Shops.
The instructors (known as foremen) in the various laboratories in 1888-89 were Robert Winslow, Foundry; John M. Smoots, Machine Shop; and Horace Purfield, Wood Shop.
A four-hour course in shop work was required of all first-year engineering students in 1905. Second-year students in mechanical engineering were required to take either course 2, Pattern-making and Foundry, or course 3, Machine Shop, both four-hour courses. From 1900, with the advent of modern high-speed steels, great interest was shown in metal cutting problems, and enrollment in shop practice courses increased.
It was decided in 1920-21 to change the plan of instruction from that of manual training to the teaching of principles related to modern industrial practice. From 1919 to 1922 Professor John Airey (London ‘10), of the Department of Engineering Mechanics, served as Acting Superintendent of Engineering Shops. He was appointed to the position upon Miggett’s resignation and served as Director until 1924. Woodworking 1, given continuously since 1882, was discontinued at that time as a required subject for first-year engineering students because it was felt that satisfactory instruction in this subject could be obtained in the high schools.
Forge Shop, devoted largely to manual training in the working of steel, had undergone little change until 1915, when the instruction was broadened to include the basic properties of iron and steel and the effect of heat treatment. The use of the scleroscope and the pyrometer was introduced, and an acetylene welding outfit was added during that year. The work, confined chiefly to forge working and forge welding of wrought iron and steel, was required of all first-year students.
In 1920, through an appropriation of $1,100, a chemical control laboratory was set up in connection with the Foundry Laboratory. An advanced Foundry Practice course dealt with melting practice in the cupola and other furnaces, molding and core practice, and with compositions and properties of cast metals. From 1922 to 1947 the instruction in the Foundry Practice courses was under the supervision of John Grennan, who was appointed Instructor for this purpose. Jig and Fixture Design 7, required of students in the five-year mechanical and industrial engineering program, was introduced in 1921. Foundry Costs and Organization was developed about 1922 for students desiring employment in foundries.
Foundry (Shop 3), given for years in combination with Pattern Making (Shop 6), was made a separate four-hour course in 1920 and for the first time was under the supervision of a technical graduate, Harry Linn Campbell (‘14e [Ch.E.], M.S. ‘21), who was appointed Assistant Professor of Metallurgical Engineering in the same year to work on the technical and metallurgical improvement of the forge and foundry courses. In 1925 he was transferred to the Department of Engineering Shops, and in 1927 he became Associate Professor. He resigned in 1936 to accept an industrial position. The course then included metal castings, their design, selection, properties, and production, and all castings produced in the course, such as grate bars for clinker crushers in the Power Plant, manhole covers, and rollers for steampipes in the tunnels, were utilized by the University. The nature of the work was such, however, that each student spent too much time in doing a simple job which had little educational value.
Orlan William Boston (‘14e [M.E.], M.E. ‘26) was appointed Assistant Professor of Machine Shop Practice in 1921. The following year he was made Acting Director of Engineering Shops during Airey’s leave of absence, and in 1925 he became Director. In 1927 Boston was made Professor of Shop Practice and Director of the Engineering Shops, and in 1934 his title was changed to Professor of Metal Processing and chairman of the Department of Metal Processing. In 1936 he was appointed Custodian of the Gaging and Measuring Laboratory of the Detroit Ordnance District, which was then installed at the University.
Machine Shop 4, a laboratory course dealing chiefly with the use of simple machine tools, was required of students in mechanical and electrical engineering, but was dropped from the electrical engineering curriculum in 1922. When Airey was made Acting Superintendent of the Engineering Shops in 1919, he urged the revision of the course to cover the subject of management (see Industrial Engineering). As a result, a manufacturing operation was set up, and thousands of tools were produced.
The idea of producing small tools in quantities was abandoned about 1924, and a new policy was adopted in the teaching of machine shop practice. The major manufacturing operations of the metalworking industries were studied in the classroom and used or demonstrated, as far as facilities and time permitted, in the laboratory.
Although removal of the entire shop equipment to the East Engineering Building in 1923 did not immediately increase the floor space available for the shop laboratories and offices, the new arrangement greatly improved operating conditions, and much new equipment was added. Brick sheds were constructed above the Wind Tunnel for the storage of raw materials. During the summer of 1933 the court was excavated, and the storage bins were put underground.
Equipment was installed to provide facilities for an elective course in woodworking. The content was adapted to the need of the individual student. Some students designed and made furniture; others made patterns and parts to be cast. From 1924 to 1932 the Woodworking Laboratory was used in connection with the dental shop course. After 1930 it was also used for making structural parts, such as airplane wings and ribs, and for tests in laboratory work in Materials of Aircraft Construction, introduced by Boston, but crowded out about 1936, although not officially dropped until 1951.
William Allen Spindler (‘29e [Ch.E.], M.S. ‘33) was engaged as Instructor in Engineering Shops in 1930. He assumed charge of the courses in the working, heat treating, and welding of steel upon Campbell’s resignation, and Assistant Professor Eugene Jesse Ash (Heidelberg College ‘25, M.S. Ohio State ‘27) was given charge of the work in cast metals and foundry until he resigned in 1941. In 1931-32 Metal Working and Treating (Shop 2) was elected simultaneously with the first general chemical engineering course. The lectures dealt with the elementary metallurgy of iron and steel, in order to give the student a better understanding of the theory and principles applied in the laboratory.
By 1935-36 enrollment in the Department of Metal Processing was far beyond the normal capacity. Crowded sections were taught every half-day during the week and Engineering Materials was given two nights a week.
A new course known as Measuring and Gaging, was introduced by Boston in 1936-37 to make the equipment of the new Gaging and Measuring Laboratory, together with a study of the principles of dimensional quality control, available to interested students.
The foundry, originally planned for sections of fifteen students, accommodated sections of forty to forty-five, although the equipment had not been changed since its installation in 1923. Parts Processing was introduced by Boston in 1945.
Lester Vern Colwell (‘35e [M.E.], M.S. ‘39), appointed Instructor in Metal Processing in 1937 to assist in teaching Machine Shop, was promoted to a professorship in 1951. William Wayne Gilbert (Colorado ‘31e [M.E.], Sc.D. Michigan ‘35) was appointed Instructor in 1934 and became Professor of Metal Processing in 1950. He has taught Machine Shop and Machinability, which, when introduced by Boston, was the first course of this kind in the country. Robert Abernethy Smith (‘34e [Ch.E.], M.S. ‘39) was appointed Instructor in Metal Processing in 1936 to assist Professor Spindler in teaching metalworking, heat treating, and welding. He resigned in 1939 to develop a metallurgical laboratory for Sears, Roebuck, and Company. William Calvin Truckenmiller (‘39e [Met.E. and Ch.E.], M.S.E. ‘44) was appointed Instructor in Metal Processing in 1941 and became Associate Professor of Production Engineering in 1949. Victor Julien Gauthier (Wayne ‘36e [Ch.E.], M.S. Michigan ‘43) was appointed Instructor in 1942. He was promoted to Assistant Professor to teach courses in metallurgy in 1946 and resigned in 1947 to accept a position at New York University. Robert E. McKee (Bowling Green State ‘35, A.M. Michigan ‘47) was put in charge of the Machine Tool Laboratory and was promoted to Associate Professor in 1951.
High enrollment in the department continued during 1942-43. Fourteen courses, eleven of which were for graduate as well as undergraduate students, were offered. Equipment during this period was used extensively by engineering students and by engineering aides and ordnance materiel and aircraft inspectors of the Army. Metal working and treating subjects were under the general supervision of Truckenmiller. Spindler was in charge of foundry work, and the machine tool and tool engineering work was divided among Boston, Gilbert, and Colwell. Boston served as educational supervisor and organized the staff, courses, and equipment. H. W. Miller served as administrative supervisor.
Training for the Detroit Ordnance District was continued during the entire year. Similar courses for the Air Corps in Aircraft Materials Inspection Training were begun in November, 1942; these were forty-eight-hour week classroom courses, the first sections of which ran for twelve weeks; subsequent sections ran for ten weeks to conform with the beginning and ending of the inspection courses. As these courses dealt primarily with metal processing equipment and subject matter, all members of the staff were in constant demand. Several members were required to supervise and teach twelve to twenty-four hours a week in addition to their regular University work. Gradually, men were recruited from outside, until eleven full-time instructors were engaged in this work.
The departments of Drawing, Mathematics, Engineering Mechanics, Chemical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Civil Engineering contributed generously by loaning instructors to carry a part of the teaching load. By 1943, in these three courses, 1,140 certificates of completion had been granted.
Boston gave a series of lectures in 1943-44 to students in the Judge Advocate General’s School of the University on machine tools and accessories involved in the subject of contract termination.
During 1945-46 the Army donated to the department several hundred thousand dollars worth of equipment. The staff worked through vacations and even during the summer, doing everything possible to install the valuable tools. Many pieces of equipment were for use in mass production. These machines were moved in, cleaned, and painted by the staff at a total expense of $1,500 in addition to the regular annual appropriation for current account. All machine tools were installed and ready for use by the fall of 1947. Many instruments and gages and inspection equipment owned by the Armed Services, in the Detroit Ordnance District Gage Laboratory, were consigned to the University. It is estimated that machines and tools with a book value in excess of $1,000,000 were so obtained by the department.
Leslie E. Wagner (‘27ed, M.A. ‘36) was appointed Assistant Professor in the fall of 1946 to develop courses in welding. Frank Walter Sowa (‘46e [Ch.E.], M.S.E. ‘48) was appointed Instructor in 1946 and promoted to Assistant Professor in 1950. William Telfer was granted sick leave in 1946, and became Instructor Emeritus in Metal Processing in June, 1951. Telfer had served the University continuously since 1911 except for a short period during World War I. Harold James Holmes (‘46e [M.E.], M.S.E. ‘49) was appointed Instructor in 1946. He became Assistant Professor in 1949 and resigned during the following year to accept a position with the Ford Motor Company.
Franklin Bruce Rote (‘38e [Met.E.], Ph.D. ‘44), who had several years’ experience with the Wyman-Gordon Company, was appointed Assistant Professor in the departments of Metal Processing and Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering in 1946, to serve half time in each, to co-ordinate the work in foundry and metallurgical engineering. He directed the foundry work and developed an active program of research. He became Associate Professor in 1949 and resigned in 1951. He was succeeded by Richard A. Flinn (City College of New York ‘36e [Ch.E.], Sc.D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology ‘41) in both departments in 1951. Professor Flinn had been assistant chief metallurgist for the American Brakeshoe Company.
Gerald Albert Conger (Oklahoma ‘44e [Ch.E.], M.S.E. Michigan ‘49) and Walter Bertram Pierce were appointed Instructors in 1947, when John Grennan retired. Conger resigned in 1952, and Kenneth Frederick Packer (‘49e [Met.E.], M.S.E. ‘52), Instructor since 1951, was transferred to foundry work. With the co-operation of other units of the College and of industry Rote and Flinn successfully introduced the principles of sound metallurgy into the foundry.
In 1948, $14,000 was made available from funds of the Engineering Research Institute to install in the Foundry Laboratory a $25,000 induction melting furnace of four units that had been purchased for $700 from the War Assets Administration.
The Foundry Education Foundation of the American Foundrymen’s Society in the spring of 1951 requested the University to establish an informal co-operative arrangement with their industry. This was promptly approved by the Regents, and the University was added to an already large list of schools having this agreement. Scholarships to the extent of $2,500 were made available, and a new student section of the society was organized and presented with a charter in February, 1952, at which time, the student membership numbered seventy. The Foundry Education Foundation co-operated with Professor Flinn in the study of the foundry layout, which was greatly improved by the addition of new equipment in 1952.
In 1948 the time devoted to Metal Processing 4, Machine Shop and Metal Processing 3, and Foundry by the mechanical engineers was cut from four to two hours. These courses were prerequisites to any additional courses in metal processing and were taken as electives or by graduate students. For several years prior to 1951, graduate students transferring from other schools and interested in the work given in metal processing had studied for the degree of master of science in engineering (industrial engineering) in the departments of Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering and Engineering Mechanics. This unsatisfactory arrangement led to a recommendation that the Metal Processing Department be designated as the Department of Production Engineering and that a separate bachelor of science degree in production engineering be granted. This recommendation was presented in the spring of 1951 at about the same time that a revised curriculum in mechanical-industrial engineering and a program in materials engineering were proposed. The result was the establishment of the curriculum in industrial engineering with the two options (see Industrial Engineering). Option B in production, with Professor Boston as adviser, provided the opportunity desired for those students interested in this field.
The name of the department and the staff titles were changed from Metal Processing to Production Engineering. Boston was also made Professor of Mechanical Engineering to co-ordinate the work in production and mechanical design.
With the removal of departmental barriers and the better co-operation of the staffs of the various departments assured, industrial and production engineering has an opportunity to flourish at Michigan. This is the culmination of a task Dean Cooley assigned to Boston when he came to Michigan in 1921: to develop courses co-ordinating the work in design, metallurgy, and production.
Gaging and Measuring Laboratory
The establishment at the University of Michigan of the Gaging and Measuring Laboratory by the Army Ordnance Department as a part of the Detroit District Ordnance Office was approved by the Regents in February, 1936, with Professor Boston, as Custodian, having immediate supervision. In the event of a national emergency, however, the direction of the laboratory will come under the supervision of the officer in charge of the Detroit District Ordnance Office.
The laboratory, installed in Room 2311 of the East Engineering Building, is used for the instruction of ordnance reserve officers during the summer, ordnance students of the R.O.T.C. unit, students of the University, and to render service to industry.
The equipment owned by the War Department was removed during World War II and returned to the University in 1948. At that time a classroom in the East Engineering Building was converted into a second gage laboratory, and an air-conditioning unit was installed so that the room could be used for precision measurements at controlled temperature and humidity. This laboratory, together with the original room housing the gage equipment owned by the University, offers complete facilities for precision measurement and the checking of gages as well as for instruction in this work.
University Instrument Shop
In 1900, $550 was appropriated by the administration for the purchase of a new lathe and other tools to be installed in a small shop within the Engineering Shops proper. Ralph H. Miller was appointed as Mechanician in charge; on his resignation in 1910, he was succeeded by John H. Stevenson. For almost twenty years instruments, largely special apparatus for University departments, were made in this small shop at cost.
In 1919, $12,000 was appropriated for a Central Shop, which was established in conjunction with the Engineering Shops with the shop superintendent in charge. A revolving fund of $2,000 was provided for its operation. Although there were only three men on the staff at that time, within a few months the number was increased to nine. A committee was appointed to supervise the administration of the new shop, which furnished mechanical service including the making and repairing of instruments and apparatus.
Later, plans were made to make the Central Shop a part of the Buildings and Grounds Department, but they did not materialize, and when the various divisions of Engineering Shops were moved to the new East Engineering Building the Central Shop, because of its close relation, was moved adjacent to them. In 1924 the name was changed to Instrument Shop.
With $20,000 appropriated by the Regents in 1930 for remodeling and equipment, the Instrument Shop was brought to a high state of efficiency. At that time it was renamed the University Instrument Shop and continued, under the supervision of Boston, as a separate unit.
Orlan W. Boston
Edward T. Vincent
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Announcement, College of Engineering (title varies), Univ. Mich., 1895-1952.
Calendar, Univ. Mich., 1870-1914.
Catalogue …, Univ. Mich., 1914-23.
Catalogue and General Register, Univ. Mich., 1923-27.
Cooley, Mortimer E.Scientific Blacksmith. Ann Arbor: Univ. Mich., 1947.
General Register, Univ. Mich., 1927-1952.
President’s Report, Univ. Mich., 1870-1952.
Proceedings of the Board of Regents …, 1864-1952.
Shaw, Wilfred B.The University of Michigan. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Howe, 1920.
Special Announcement, College of Engineering, Univ. Mich., 1914-52.
The University of Michigan, an encyclopedic survey ... Wilfred B. Shaw, editor, Volume III, Part VII, pp. 1257-1277.
