54 



National Resources PlanniTig Board 



being scjucczcd oul ciilirely by ibe pressure of service 

 work. Under the existing organization the research 

 laboratory keeps as free from development and service 

 work as it possibly can by turning over to the other 

 laboratories as much of that work as they are prepared 

 to take. 



Toda}' the total personnel of the research laboratory 

 numbers 290. Thirty-four chemists, 17 physicists, 26 

 engineers, and 10 metallurgists are at work seeking 

 both new knowledge and a better application of that 

 already at hand. 



Westinghouse Electric Company 



Westinghouse Electric Company research started, in 

 an unorganized way, with the formation of the company 

 in 1886, and many technical developments took place 

 between that date and 1902 (or 1903) when a research 

 department was established by C. E. Skinner. Since 

 the company then had no central laboratory, experi- 

 mental work continued to be conducted in laboratories 

 scattered throughout the East Pittsljurgh Works. In 

 1916, however, a separate research building was con- 

 structed, and staffed with research scientists drawn 

 from universities, from inthistiy, and from their own 

 laboratories in East Pittsburgh. To a considerable 

 extent these men were occupied with fundamental ami 

 long-range problems, while the mi-n in the older 

 laboratories worked u])on more immediate problems. 



After the separate research building was completed, 



the lamp company research was housed there until 

 it became evident that this work could best be carried 

 on nearer the lamp works. For the past 20 years, 

 therefore, lamp research has been a separate activity 

 at Bloomfield, N. J., under the direction of Dr. II. C. 

 Kentschler. 



With the facilities provided by the new building 

 and with the demands created by America's entry into 

 the war, research expanded rapidly. The company 

 was immediately involved in problems intimately con- 

 nected with the military and naval needs of the country. 



Many major developments in the electrical industry 

 have come largely or entirely as a result of Westing- 

 house research. George Westinghouse himself was a 

 pioneer in the generation, transi)ortation, and distri- 

 bution of alternating current. Machine-wound coils 

 and laminated cores for transformei-s; air ventilated 

 and oil filled transformers; the polyphase induction 

 motor, invented by Nicola Tesla; the slotted armature 

 for direct-current machines; the Scott transformer; and 

 the synchronous contlenser; these are some of the im- 

 provements contributed by research workers and engi- 

 neers in Westinghouse. Micarta, a laminated plastic 

 inateiial widely used in the electrical industry for 

 many years, originally consisted of paper and shellac, 

 l)ul men in the company's laboratory found that sj-n- 

 thetic resins could be advantageously substituted for 

 the shellac. Mr. C E. Skinner, the first director of 

 research at Westinghouse, was one of the first to make 



Figure 8. — Library, Research and Development Laboratories, Bakelite Corporation, Bloomfield, New Jersey. (Unit of Union Carbide 



and Carbon Corporation) 



