Rhode Island, University of

SUBJECT AREA: Mechanical, pneumatic and hydraulic engineering

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Joseph Rogers Brown was the eldest son of David Brown, who was modestly established as a maker of and dealer in clocks and watches. Joseph assisted his father during school vacations and at the age of 17 left to obtain training as a machinist. In 1829 he joined his father in the manufacture of tower clocks at Pawtucket, Rhode Island, and two years later went into business for himself in Pawtucket making lathes and small tools. In 1833 he rejoined his father in Providence, Rhode Island, as a partner in the manufacture of docks, watches and surveying and mathematical instruments. David Brown retired in 1841.

J.R.Brown invented and built in 1850 a linear dividing engine which was the first automatic machine for graduating rules in the United States. In 1851 he brought out the vernier calliper, the first application of a vernier scale in a workshop measuring tool. Lucian Sharpe was taken into partnership in 1853 and the firm became J.R.Brown \& Sharpe; in 1868 the firm was incorporated as the Brown \& Sharpe Manufacturing Company.

In 1855 Brown invented a precision gear-cutting machine to make clock gears. The firm obtained in 1861 a contract to make Wilcox \& Gibbs sewing machines and gave up the manufacture of clocks. At about this time F.W. Howe of the Providence Tool Company arranged for Brown \& Sharpe to make a turret lathe required for the manufacture of muskets. This was basically Howe's design, but Brown added a few features, and it was the first machine tool built for sale by the Brown \& Sharpe Company. It was followed in 1862 by the universal milling machine invented by Brown initially for making twist drills. Particularly for cutting gear teeth, Brown invented in 1864 a formed milling cutter which could be sharpened without changing its profile. In 1867 the need for an instrument for checking the thickness of sheet material became apparent, and in August of that year J.R.Brown and L.Sharpe visited the Paris Exhibition and saw a micrometer calliper invented by Jean Laurent Palmer in 1848. They recognized its possibilities and with a few developments marketed it as a convenient, hand-held measuring instrument. Grinding lathes were made by Brown \& Sharpe in the early 1860s, and from 1868 a universal grinding machine was developed, with the first one being completed in 1876. The patent for this machine was granted after Brown's sudden death while on holiday.

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SUBJECT AREA: Electricity, Electronics and information technology, Horology, Telecommunications

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After obtaining BSc and MSc degrees in physics at Brown University in 1896 and 1897, respectively, Cady went to Berlin, obtaining his PhD in 1900. Returning to the USA he initially worked for the US Coast and Geodetic Survey, but in 1902 he took up a post at the Wesleyan University, Connecticut, remaining as Professor of Physics from 1907 until his retirement in 1946. During the First World War he became interested in piezo-electricity as a result of attending a meeting on techniques for detecting submarines, and after the war he continued to work on the use of piezo-electricity as a transducer for generating sonar beams. In the process he discovered that piezo-electric materials, such as quartz, exhibited high-stability electrical resonance, and in 1921 he produced the first working piezo-electric resonator. This idea was subsequently taken up by George Washington Pierce and others, resulting in very stable oscillators and narrow-band filters that are widely used in the 1990s in radio communications, electronic clocks and watches.

Internationally known for his work, Cady retired from his professorship in 1946, but he continued to work for the US Navy. From 1951 to 1955 he was a consultant and research associate at the California Institute of Technology, after which he returned to Providence to continue research at Brown, filing his last patent (one of over fifty) at the age of 93 years.

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SUBJECT AREA: Steam and internal combustion engines

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Corliss's father was a physician and surgeon. The son was educated at Greenwich, New York, but while he showed an aptitude for mathematics and mechanics he first of all became a storekeeper and then clerk, bookkeeper, salesperson and official measurer and inspector of the cloth produced at W.Mowbray \& Son. He went to the Castleton Academy, Vermont, for three years and at the age of 21 returned to a store of his own in Greenwich. Complaints about stitching in the boots he sold led him to patent a sewing machine. He approached Fairbanks, Bancroft \& Co., Providence, Rhode Island, machine and steam engine builders, about producing his machine, but they agreed to take him on as a draughtsman providing he abandoned it. Corliss moved to Providence with his family and soon revolutionized the design and construction of steam engines. Although he started working out ideas for his engine in 1846 and completed one in 1848 for the Providence Dyeing, Bleaching and Calendering Company, it was not until March 1849 that he obtained a patent. By that time he had joined John Barstow and E.J.Nightingale to form a new company, Corliss Nightingale \& Co., to build his design of steam-engines. He used paired valves, two inlet and two exhaust, placed on opposite sides of the cylinder, which gave good thermal properties in the flow of steam. His wrist-plate operating mechanism gave quick opening and his trip mechanism allowed the governor to regulate the closure of the inlet valve, giving maximum expansion for any load. It has been claimed that Corliss should rank equally with James Watt in the development of the steam-engine. The new company bought land in Providence for a factory which was completed in 1856 when the Corliss Engine Company was incorporated. Corliss directed the business activities as well as technical improvements. He took out further patents modifying his valve gear in 1851, 1852, 1859, 1867, 1875, 1880. The business grew until well over 1,000 workers were employed. The cylindrical oscillating valve normally associated with the Corliss engine did not make its appearance until 1850 and was included in the 1859 patent. The impressive beam engine designed for the 1876 Centennial Exhibition by E. Reynolds was the product of Corliss's works. Corliss also patented gear-cutting machines, boilers, condensing apparatus and a pumping engine for waterworks. While having little interest in politics, he represented North Providence in the General Assembly of Rhode Island between 1868 and 1870.

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1) Компьютерная техника: User Related Information

2) Техника: unresolved item

3) Метеорология: University Research Institute

4) Сокращение: University Research Initiative, University of Rhode Island, upper respiratory infection, upper respiratory tract infection

5) Вычислительная техника: Universal Resource Identifier (WWW, RFC 1630), uniform resource identifier

6) Фирменный знак: United Resources, Inc.

7) Сетевые технологии: Universal Resource Identifier

8) Интернет: универсальный индикатор ресурсов

9) Расширение файла: List of Uniform Resource Identifiers

10) Майкрософт: универсальный код ресурса (URI)

11) NYSE. United Rentals, Inc.

SUBJECT AREA: Public utilities, Steam and internal combustion engines

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Edwin Reynolds grew up at a time when formal engineering education in America was almost unavailable, but through his genius and his experience working under such masters as G.H. Corliss and William Wright, he developed into one of the best mechanical engineers in the country. When he was Plant Superintendent for the Corliss Steam Engine Company, he built the giant Corliss valve steam engine displayed at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition. In July 1877 he left the Corliss Steam Engine Company to join Edward Allis at his Reliance Works, although he was offered a lower salary. In 1861 Allis had moved his business to the Menomonee Valley, where he had the largest foundry in the area. Immediately on his arrival with Allis, Reynolds began desig-ning and building the "Reliance-Corliss" engine, which becamea symbol of simplicity, economy and reliability. By early 1878 the new engine was so successful that the firm had a six-month backlog of orders. In 1888 he built the first triple-expansion waterworks-pumping engine in the United States for the city of Milwaukee, and in the same year he patented a new design of blowing engine for blast furnaces. He followed this in March 1892 with the first steam engine sets coupled directly to electric generators when Allis-Chalmers contracted to build two Corliss cross-compound engines for the Narragansett Light Company of Providence, Rhode Island. In 1893, one of the impressive attractions at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago was the 3,000 hp (2,200 kW) quadruple-expansion Reynolds-Corliss engine designed by Reynolds, who continued to make significant improvements and gained worldwide recognition of his outstanding achievements in engine building.

Reynolds was asked to go to New York in 1898 for consultation about some high-horsepower engines for the Manhattan transport system. There, 225 railway locomotives were to be replaced by electric trains, which would be supplied from one generating station producing 60,000 hp (45,000 kW). Reynolds sketched out his ideas for 10,000 hp (7,500 kW) engines while on the train. Because space was limited, he suggested a four-cylinder design with two horizontal-high-pressure cylinders and two vertical, low-pressure ones. One cylinder of each type was placed on each side of the flywheel generator, which with cranks at 135° gave an exceptionally smooth-running compact engine known as the "Manhattan". A further nine similar engines that were superheated and generated three-phase current were supplied in 1902 to the New York Interborough Rapid Transit Company. These were the largest reciprocating steam engines built for use on land, and a few smaller ones with a similar layout were installed in British textile mills.

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