Measures for Progress: A History of the National Bureau of Standards

HiGH POLYMERS AND BUILDING RESEARCH
$5 million a year. As Federal activity in this field was in danger of being
stopped through termination of the war agency which handled it, Dr. Condon
proposed that the Bureau assume direction over the major programs in
progress and, "as in the fields of mathematics and radio propagation," be-
come "the centralizing and coordinating agency" in rubber research for the
Government.138 Instead, the whole of the Federal research program was
curtailed as operations in its synthetic plants were cut back and a number of
the plants were put in standby status. Bureau research in rubber continued
as part of the investigation of high polymer substances.
The investigation centered on the constants and properties of the
high polymer compounds that are formed chemically in nature by the process
known as polymerization. Using X.ray diffraction, infrared spectroscopy,
and electron microscopy, along with standard chemical, opticai, and thermo-
dynamic techniques, the Bureau sought better knowledge of the fundamental
properties of both natural and synthetic polymers. On the basis of early
results, the Bureau explored the incorporation of rubber into sole leather to
improve wearing qualities, obtained new tire and tube evaluations, standard.
ized fading tests in textiles, and improved leather hides by impregnating
them with resins or rubber. Related studies were concerned with the nature
of adhesion in polymers, with adhesives among the synthetic resins, and the
use of resins in the fabrication of aircraft, housing, and containers.139
Research into the molecular dimensions of the polymers provided
the standards necessary for the utilization of Dextran as a blood-plasma
substitute and the control tests for its manufacture and maintenance in
storage.'4° For the Office of Rubber Reserve, important studies were made
in the degradation of rubbers and on the rheological (flow and deformation)
properties of various rubbers and rubber solutions.14' And in 1950, with
the procedures it had devised for measuring molecular weights by osmotic
pressure, viscosity, and light scattering (ultracentrifuge) techniques, the
Bureau started its standard sample program of high polymers.'42
When an examination of the high-polymer characteristics of paper
and paper materials offered no immediate solution to a filter problem, the
Bureau, with the cooperation of the Naval Research Laboratory, produced
from commercial "glass wool" a new kind of paper composed entirely of
glass fibers. Originally sought for use in gas mask filters, its excellent in-
* * * 1948 (Mar. 12, 1947), p. 322; NBS Annual Report 1947, p. xv.
" NBS Annual Report 1947, p. 209; Annual Report 1948, pp. 224—225.
NBS Report 1713 (Weissberg and Isbell, June 13, 1952). Although the current
availability of whole blood from donors reduced the necessity of Dextran except in an
emergency, 10 million pints were made and stored against that contingency.
NBS Annual Report 1951, p. 51; Annual Report 1952, p. 34; Annual Report 1953—54,
p. 51.
" See RP2257 (Weissberg, Simha, and Rothman, 1951).
479