WALTER J. Mt1RP€IY, EDITOR
Standards Bearers of equipment is being talked about quite Swill mean bit in industry these days. It is an excellent idea and much in saving of equipment costs, in down time,
that will help, we urge you to address the Commander, San Francisco Xaval Shipyard, Attention : Design Division, Code 24232, San Francisco 24, Calif.
TANDARDIZATION
H
and in labor. I&EC has commended these studies on the editorial page and in feature articles and columns, and will continue to be outspokenly in favor of standardization. Some other standard bearers for standardization-and we have called them all standards bearers-are laboring just as faithfully, but largely unsung. They will never be able to say .‘Look, we have saved so many thousands of dollars per year in a certain plant,” but in their own way they are conti ibuting and will contribute to easier and improved understanding of matters technical. TYho are these standards bearers? The many committees of individuals who have been norking on standard symbols. standard nomenclature, standard abbi eviations, and simplified diawings. Some of these committees hare been under the aegis of the American Standards Association; some have heen directly sponsored by individual technical societies. The AIChE has had a committee on standard symbols and nomenclature trying to work out standard symbols for equipinent used in the chemical process industries. A good bit of \I ork has been done and is in progress to the end of stand: i d nomenclature in engineering fields. We have just seen the fourth and complete report of the American Standards Issoviation Committee Y1/2, sponsored by the ASME, on recommended abbreviations for use in text of all publications in the physical sciences. A long, tedious, and thoughtful job has been done, with the idea that the abbreviations must be understood by the least experienced reader who may have to understand the contents of a pa~%iculararticle and interpret the abbreviations used. The committee hopes that it is on the home stretch. Siiiiplification of engineering dra\T ing practices is an area closely related to standardization of symbols. One of the results of simplification will be a reduction in labor requirements by increasing the personal effectiveness of certain terliiiical people. The Kavy Bureau of Ships has started a project to simplify the practices used to graphically delineate ships and ship components. Because of the extiemely broad terliiiical spread of ship components, the Buieau of Ships feels that this project mill be of interest to the entire engineering pi ofession, and has approached the engineering and soni~‘scientific societies for aid in developing information to be used in this program. BuShips wants to know the organizations and people in chemical engineering who have written articles and developed systems and techniques covering simplified or functional drafting. The project has been assigned to the San Francisco Naval Shipyard for detailed development. If you have done work or have ideas August 1955
Plastics Remind
Us
I&EC’s July issue had already gone on the Iliess n e were both disappointed and elated to bee an announcenient of the new super lighta eight “pneumatic bricks” developed by A. C. Richardson of the University of Illinois architecture department and Major George McCauley of the Air Force. Our disappointment mas that we could not call attention to this new idea as an accompaniment to the 76-page feature on plastics as materials of construction; elation of course because of one more excellent example of lioir chemistry and chemical engineering are deeper and deeper penetrating into the fabric of our everyday living. The Richardson-McCauley bricks are triangular plastic pillons about 3 feet long and 4 inches wide, with only 2 pounds of air pressure required to keep them firm. They ran be built into almost any kind of arch-shaped structure, :tnd can have interconnecting valves for inflating an entire unit-but the valves are so made that any brick which springs a leak is isolated from the rest when the air pressure drops below a certain minimum. The developers believe that the bricks can be used to provide temporary housing protection for military uses, can be built into dome shaped gi eenhouse-like structures over fields and gardens, and might w e n be used to cover ball parks! Every so often we in the chemical industry need to stop and remind ourselves just how much we, as an industry, and :is individuals, are more and more responsible for the basic materials which are enabling others to create these unusuaI contributions to the comfort of today’s living. We are becoming so accustomed to plastics, for instance, that many of us tend to forget their origin. Even those who are engaged in research, development, and manufacture in plants making plastics materials are apt, because of the narrow areas of specialization of many of them, to lose sight of their importance as an integral piece of the whole jigsaw puzzle. It is not only good to get these achievements before the public-it is good that vie get a chance to read some of the lay stories in the ne\\ spapers ourselves. $t another school of architecture-that of the University of 1Iichigan-a Goodrich resin material is under test for home plastic pipe use. I n a full-scale model for low-cost school construction, the pipe is laid underground and used for cold water plumbing lines. If it works, we may see plastic pipe adapted to some building and home plumbing needs. Lower costs and increased high temperature resistance will surely be required for wide application, but the chemical engineer-architect team will no doubt suing it.
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FrER
INDUSTRIAL AND ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
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