Donations: Your Dollars at Work

Prof. Beavers, Richard De Leo and Rich Hatfield at
a recognition reception in June.

Richard V. and Shirley J. De Leo made a major donation to the department for an endowed scholarship program in Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics. Richard received his B.S. in 1946 and his M.S. in 1948, both in Aerospace Engineering. He was a project scientist for the University of Minnesota Rosemount Laboratories (see special section, below) from 1947-1957. From 1957 to 1988, he was a research engineer and vice president for aeronautical research at Rosemount Inc/Emerson Electric.

Donations: You Can Make a Difference:

Donations can be made anytime during the year and sent to the University of Minnesota Foundation, 1300 S. 2nd St., Ste. 200, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455. Just designate the fund you wish to support. Checks should be made payable to the University of Minnesota. The funds to which you can contribute are as follows:

AEM Program Support: Used as the main source of discretionary funds to support all funds. Fund No. 3739

Aeronautical Class of 1943 Wind Tunnel Fund: Created by the Class of 1943 to defray costs of a new wind tunnel and instrumentation. Fund No. 3585

The Chester Gaskell Aeronautical Engineering Scholarship Fund: Used for undergraduate scholarships for outstanding first-year aerospace students. Fund No. 2898

The John D. Akerman Memorial Fund: Supports the Akerman Professor of Design of our year-long capstone senior design course. Fund No. 3191

The AEM Laboratory Equipment Fund: Used to purchase instructional and research equipment. Fund No. 2500

The AEM Excellence Fund: Used to sponsor lectureships by distinguished individuals in aerospace engineering and mechanics. Please note that this fund also supports the Sethna Lecture. Fund No. 2281

The B.J. Lazan Fund: Supports activities that promote faculty/student interactions and educational activities.

If you would like information about estabilishing a Unitrust with the University of Minnesota Foundation, contact Richard Hatfield, Director of Development and External relations, at 1-800-587-3884, and 1-612-624-5537.

We were able to award three scholarships to incoming freshman from funds in the AEM Program Support, Erick Swanson, Benjamin Wagner, and Chad Martin.

This year the AEM Laboratory Equipment fund was used to purchase a variety of equipment. We purchased two Pentium based machines to supplement the computers in our main computer lab. These run Linux as their operating system and are fully integrated with the other Unix workstations in the department. In addition, fiber optic cabling was installed to connect the student computer lab to the new ATM based department network. Also purchased were a 2.6 GB magento-optical storage device and additional storage space for our newly purchased instructional file server. These are used to supplement the online storage available to our students, both in our departmental network and in the IT provided student labs.

Amounts:

2 Pentium 166Mhz workstations $7,744

Fiber optic cabling $1,070

Server disk upgrades $1,807

Magneto-optical drive $ 733

Aeronautical class of 1943 Wind Tunnel Fund

Improvements continue to be made on the department's 100 horsepower closed return wind tunnel. The prop and pitch control assembly was completely overhauled a few years ago, and we installed a flow conditioning section consiting of honeycomb and screens to improve flow in the test section. This year we are having two test sections fabricated by Engineering Laboratory Design in Lake City, MN. The test sections will be removable, one will be instrumented with a force balance, for measuring lift and drag. The other will have a 3-axis traverse that can be computer controlled to take flow measurements at prescribed points in the flowstream.

The current motor is fifty years old, and there is currently no method to control the motor's speed. Tunnel speed is controlled by changing the pitch of the prop, with the motor always running at full speed. A new motor which will incorporate a frequency inverter that would allow the motor speed to be varied is needed. This will reduce noise, and improve flow quality at lower tunnel speeds. This conversion will cost around $25,000.

Vanes in the diffusers are needed to help reduce separation at faster tunnel speeds and further improve flow quality in the test section. It would cost around $500,000.00 to replace the tunnel, so it is a wise investment to maintain and improve it.

A Look Back: The Rosemount Laboratories

On March 18, 1948, University of Minnesota President J. L. Morrill placed the University's seal to the deed of a piece of property near Rosemount, Minnesota which in subsequent years was to become known as one of the finest aeronautical research laboratories in the country. This official act concluded 2 years of active negotiations between the U.S. Government and University of Minnesota officials. John D. Akerman played a major role in obtaining this piece of property previously known as the Gopher Ordinance Works. At the time of the transfer, the property totalled 8,000 acres and the materials had a scrap value of nearly $10 million. There were 55 miles of roads, 26 miles of railroad tracks, close to 200 buildings, a fully equipped hospital, 25 staff homes, shops of all kinds, a steam plant, sewage plant, etc.

Several wind tunnels were built on this property, along with other related aeronautical research facilities. These tunnels had the capability to operate from the transsonic range into the hypersonic.

Over the years, this facility has held major research contracts with most of the aerospace companies and the military services. The RAL operation was staffed primarily by Faculty members from the Aeronautical Engineering Department and their students. This staff and the facilities were very active in the late 1940s and through the 1950s, often doing nearly a million dollars in research during a given year. Today Rosemount is essentially closed, though some local companies use parts of the property and from time to time the University of Minnesota has some special need for its facilities.

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