Manawatu Evening Standard. WEDNESDAY, JULY 15, 1936. NATIONAL RESEARCH.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 201, 15 July 1936, Page 8

Manawatu Evening Standard. WEDNESDAY, JULY 15, 1936. NATIONAL RESEARCH.

A research department ,cannot always be taken as a mirror in whicn the activity ot a trade or business is reflected. Eor there is a tendency to put oil research and investigation programmes in good times, and to concentrate on them in the hope of finding fresh markets when trading conditions are difficult. The calls made on the National Physical Laboratory do, however, represent some measure of the state of industry, hounded at Teddington in 1900, the laboratory, which is, of course, a Government institution, under the administration of the Department ot Scientific and Industrial Research, has grown steadily, and now employs a staff of over six hundred engaged on a range of problems from the maintenance of the standards of measurements to such matters as research on dentists’ filling materials. T ie influence of the work done at Teddington would be diffieult even to estimate, but there is no doubt that the high level of accuracy reached in mass production work in England is very largely founded on the standardisation and testing of gauges which has been done in the laboratories. A tremendous amount of individual research work has been done at Teddington. Eor instance, the ship tanks of the William Eroude Laboratory give a splendid example of the immediate value of this branch of the institution to the shipbuilding and shipowning trades. In 1934 the report of the laboratory was able to claim a new record in the number of ship designs tested, but that record was easily surpassed in 1935, when no less than 73 ships were tested and 160 ship models 'were made to carry out the necessary tests. As a result effective improvements were made in 64 of the ships; in thirteen instances the improvement was equivalent to over 10 per. cent, on the fuel consumption, while in four examples it was equal to more than 20 per cent. Work in the compressed air tunnel lias proved that the speed of aeroplanes can be considerably increased, by making the wing' and body surfaces as smooth as possible, and the value of the potential improvement is shown by the fact that a roughness corresponding - to grains only four-thousands of an inch in size can produce an increase of about 30 per cent, in the resistance of the wing of a modern aeroplane when travelling at speeds of 200 to 300 miles an hour. The report of last year also tells of the development of a “floating” floor for flats to minimise the transmission of noise, and the work promises the design of a suitable floor and . ceiling combination at a cost which would enable builders to adopt it in flats which are to be let at low rentals. Experiments have been made with an electric barrage to guide eels into the parts of rivers where traps are installed.