APPOINTMENT AT UNIVERSITY

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25738, 25 February 1949, Page 8

APPOINTMENT AT UNIVERSITY

ATOMIC RESEARCH ENGINEER WORK ON AUTOMATIC CONTROL DEVICES Mr N. B. Manssen. from the British Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell, has taken up an appointment as senior engineer in the industrial development department of Canterbury University College, where he graduated before the war. After a short spell with a Wellington electrical engineering firm, he served with the 2nd N.Z.E.F. in the Pacific, before joining the radio development laboratory of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, in Wellington, in 1941. In 1945 he was seconded tj the British “tube-alloy project,” now the Ministry of Supply Directorate of Atomic Energy, being posted to Chalk river. Ontario, for the construction of the project on the Ottawa river. There

he was responsible for the installation and working of the electrical control equipment in the heavy-water pile and associated processes. When this work was completed. Mr Manssen moved to Harwell, working first on the design and construction of automatic experimental equipment connected with the low-energy graphite pile. More recently he has been working with Dr. G. E. Dalton, the New Zealand Rhodes scholar, on a new development of atomic research. “The control work associated with atomic energy research involves a considerable amount of electric and elec-' tronic equipment, especially instrumentation. Without such equipment it would be impossible to maintain any effective measure of control, over the processes being used,” Mr Manssen said yesterday. Value of Automatic Control “It is most noticeable in Canada and the United States that firms have made extensive use of commerciallyavailable control equipment for checking their manufacturing processes and products. British firms are manufacturing- some suitable control equipment for industry and deliveries are the only check to their more widespread installation. “The modern industrialist has realised that close control over plant processes will give increased output, greater uniformity, and less waste,” Mr Manssen continued. “Until recently, plant operators relied on observing a condition in their process and making corrective adjustment by hand, The tendency now is to make auxiliary apparatus interpret the measurement and adjust accordingly. Reliability of apparatus is very important, and some marketed equipment represents a very high standard. “Automatic control of a process has simplified continuous working as distinct from batch working, and designers are striving to incorporate continuous processes to reduce plant size and increase output,” Mr Manssen added. The Canterbury College industrial development department will have the design and improvement of such devices among its work.