Industrial Research 



57 



Research Department which had been estabhshcd bj' 

 Arthur D. Little, Inc., at Detroit in 1911. The hibora- 

 tories quickly outgrew the quarters assigned to them, 

 and in 1929 were moved into a new building. On 

 January 1, 1938, research was given the status of a full 

 division and is now the Research Laboratories Division, 

 General Motors Corporation, with C. F. Kettering as 

 general manager. 



The research workers in General Motors have con- 

 tributed to every product or study in which the cor- 

 poration has had an interest. The wide variety of the 

 problems engaging the attention of the staff and the 

 importance of its work to the automotive industry are 

 clearly indicated by such accomphshments as lacquer 

 finishes, ethyl gasoline, powdered metal oilless bear- 

 ings, two-cycle Diesel engines, static and dynamic 

 balancing machines, quick process malleable iron, two- 

 way hydraulic shock absorbers, hypoid gear lubricants, 

 and rubber bushings. 



Chrysler Corporation 



In 1924, when the public first viewed a Chrysler 

 automobile, the company's engineering research facUi- 

 ties consisted of a 3-room laboratory in a small wooden 

 buUding. Today the engineering and research division 

 with a staff of 55 technical workers and more than 

 1,000 other employees is housed in new, fully equipped 

 laboratories, in which on an average day 1,500 research 

 tests and projects are in progress, while on some days 

 the number reaches 2,500. Each project has a care- 

 fully defined objective, a detailed budget, and a dead- 

 line for its completion. These limitations are altered 

 only when the research is clearly proceeding toward a 

 desired end, for Chrysler engineering and research must 

 "pay oft" eventually in a better car or a lower cost of 

 manufacture." 



The company's engineering and research is subdivided 

 roughly into three divisions, (1) fundamental research, 

 which seeks new ways of designing a car and its parts, 

 (2) the analysis, testing, and control of materials, parts, 

 and processes involved in the production of the 

 next model, (3) the testing of the completed car and the 

 comparison of the results with those from similar tests 

 upon the carj of competitors. 



Work in the first category is concerned with projects 

 that point toward the automobile of the future. Engi- 

 neers test scale models in a wind tunnel in order to de- 

 termine the changes necessary in design to reduce the 

 resistance of an automobile to both head winds and 

 cross winds. From such studies the engineer learned 

 that a "typical sedan in 1932 could go backward with 

 about half the resistance with which it could go for- 

 ward." 



Physicists study the interplay of scores of vibrations 

 of varying intensities, durations, and wavelengths in 



order that engineers may be aided in designing the 

 complementary dampening equipment to this vibration 

 and in properly placing the dampening equipment relative 

 to the center of gravity. Chemists and metallurgists 

 seek new alloys, synthetic rubbers, and plastics that will 

 better meet the loads and stand the speeds of today's 

 high-compression motors. 



For years the physiology of the automobile driver has 

 engaged the attention of the company's research work- 

 ers in order that they may better understand the effects 

 of noise and vibrations on the human system. 



The second type of research in the company's labo- 

 ratories consists of subjecting to rigorous tests every 

 part of the automobile and every material from which 

 those parts are constructed. In the laboratory where 

 routine ferrous tests are made, for example, a single 

 bench is allotted to each of the basic elements in the 

 composition of steel, so that once a specimen piece has 

 been subjected to the various tests its content of carbon 

 and magnesimn and copper is accurately known. 

 From these exhaustive tests and analyses of parts and 

 materials, the company is able to write specifications for 

 better materials, new materials, and new parts. The 

 company's laboratories in a sense, therefore, serve a 

 host of industries that supply both the automotive 

 industry and the general public. 



Elaborate facihties are provided for the third type of 

 research — that of testing the finished car and comparing 

 it with the cars of other manufacturers. A variety of 

 machines reproduce in the laboratory all the road con- 

 ditions that a driver could possibly encomiter. In fact 

 these conditions can be greatly exaggerated, yet the 

 means of measuring the effects upon the car can be far 

 more accurate and detailed than any that can be 

 established for an actual test on the road. 



In the dynamometer building, tests can be run in a 

 completely dehumidified room with the temperature 

 at 45° F. below zero, or in a room where the temper- 

 ature is far above himian tolerance. Nevertheless a 

 final check upon the results obtained in the laboratory 

 is secured by sending fleets of cars to operate in every 

 part of the country under a variety of road conditions. 



By its application of science and scientific methods, 

 by its painstaking records of tests and analyses, the 

 company duphcates in a short time years of trial and 

 error effort; and, so far as human planning and fore- 

 sight can insure it, "seeks to determine its own tech- 

 nological destiny." 



Metals 



American Brass Company 



The American Brass Company included among its 

 member companies the Coe Brass Manufacturing 

 Company of Torrington, Conn. This fact is of im- 

 portance in a survey of the development of research 



