TAYLOR MODEL BASIN—HOWARD 241 
long time required for laying the carriage tracks and for making other 
preparations, the principal activities were not transferred from the 
Navy Yard until November 1940. 
The original conception of this establishment, as indicated by the 
authorizing act, was that it should be constructed to investigate and 
determine the most suitable and desirable shapes and forms for naval 
vessels and to investigate other problems of ship design. Thus 
primarily the establishment was designed and equipped to carry out 
experimental work on the forms of ships’ hulls and to estimate the 
power required to drive them, with a secondary interest in other fea- 
tures of design. This original conception has almost been lost sight 
of in an expansion and growth far beyond the fields originally con- 
templated. The war has naturally been principally responsible for 
this great expansion. Under the heading of “underwater forms and 
propulsion” the work has expanded until it has come to cover the 
proper form or shape of almost any body which is propelled, towed, or 
projected on or through the water; while under the secondary heading 
of “other problems of ship design” the expansion has been so broad in 
the fields of structural strength, shock, vibration, underwater explo- 
sions and related subjects that the primary and secondary objects of 
the original establishment have almost changed places. 
The outstanding features of the Taylor Model Basin are its test 
facilities, which are unusual both as to types and as to size and capacity. 
For an understanding of the work undertaken a general description of 
the physical plant and these facilities is necessary. 
As a testing establishment the Taylor Model Basin was made large 
enough to house equipment which would accomplish each of the vari- 
ous types of research on models with the greatest degree of accuracy 
and reliability. 
Physically the establishment consists of three buildings: a main 
building 871 feet by 54 feet; lying parallel to it, a basin building 1,330 
feet long; and a wind-tunnel building. The main building houses in 
its central section the offices, drafting and computing rooms, record 
storage vaults, a library, a photographic laboratory, and a museum. 
The western section of the building contains the shops where wood 
and metal models, mechanical devices, instruments, dynamometers, 
and other special equipment are made. 
The eastern end of the main building constitutes the laboratory. 
In this laboratory are located the 12-inch and 24-inch variable-pressure 
water tunnels, 30,000-pound and 600,000-pound universal static-load 
testing machines, and a 150,000-pound alternating-load testing ma- 
chine, and other equipment. 
The basin building is unique in its appearance, because of its barrel- 
arch roof 1,188 feet long. Instead of a single large model basin like 
