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CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
DANIEL GUGGENHEIM AERONAUTICAL LABORATORY
The Daniel Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory has recently
been completed. Funds for its construction and for its operation
for a period of ten years have been provided through a gift of
about $350,000 from the Daniel Guggenheim Fund for the
Promotion of Aeronautics. The building is 160 feet long by
about 55 feet wide, and has five floors. The largest item of
equipment is a wind tunnel of the Gottingen closed circuit
type with a working section 10 feet in diameter. Provision is
made for using the working section either as an open or closed
type. A 750 horse-power, direct-current motor drives a 15-foot
propeller, and a wind velocity of much more than 200 miles
per hour has been produced. A complete set of aerodynamical
balances will permit testing and research work of all kinds to be
performed in the wind tunnel. At one end of the building a
room 50 by 20 feet and four stories high will house a large
testing machine capable of taking a specimen 30 feet long. In
the sub-basement is a water channel about 140 feet long with a
cross-section 10 by 10 feet, above which a light car will run,
attaining a speed of about 40 miles per hour. This equipment
will permit research to be conducted on seaplane hulls, pontoons,
ship models, and various surface phenomena. A group of compressed
air tanks capable of sustaining ten atmospheres pressure
will give a four-inch jet of air at approximately the velocity of
sound for a period of time long enough to allow accurate observations
to be made on bodies placed in the jet. On the first
floor are the observation room of the wind tunnel, a wood shop
large enough for the building of complete airplanes, and an
engine-testing laboratory with dynamometers and equipment for
the testing of small engines. On the second floor are a machine
shop and a group of six small laboratories for research on thE,
various physical problems connected with engine studies. The
third floor contains the balance room in which the wind tunnel
measuremcnts are made, a seminar room, library, drafting room,
auxiliary equipment room, and five offices.