British Engineering Research Articles

Renaissance of the British engineer as managing director

Engineers must learn to promote themselves, and universities should teach commerce alongside engineering, if British engineers are to emulate their continental European counterparts by becoming managing directors. British engineers, have many of the skills required of a managing director of a wide range of businesses-not just those related to manufacturing. The renaissance of the general management engineer is long overdue. The author briefly discusses the attributes and abilities needed to become a managing director.

Hours and Wages in the Depression: British Engineering, 1926-1938

On their intensive margins, firms in the British engineering industry adjusted to the severe falls in demand during the 1930s Depression by cutting hours of work. This provided an important means of reducing labour input and marginal labour costs, through movements from overtime to short-time schedules. Nominal wages dropped relatively modestly while real wages continued to rise throughout the trough years of the recession. Empirical work is based on cell data from a panel of 28 local labour markets for the period 1926-38. The data dichotomise between skilled fitters and unskilled labourers and between time-rate and piece-rate workers. The findings have interesting implications for Phillips curve and wage curve studies.

World of Possibilities: Flexibility and Mass Production in Western Industrialization

Part I. The Modernity of Tradition: 1. Fashion as flexible production: the strategies of the Lyon silk merchants in the eighteenth century Carlo Poni 2. The fate of fabriques collectives in the industrial world: the silk industries of Lyon and London, 1800-1850 Alain Cottereau 3. The rise and decline of flexible production: the cutlery industry of Solingen since the eighteenth century Rudolf Boch 4. Manufacturing flexibility in nineteenth-century Switzerland: social and institutional foundations of decline and revival in calico printing and watchmaking Beatrice Veyrassat Part II. The Battle of the Systems: 5. Between flexibility and mass production: strategic ambiguity and selective adaptation in the British engineering industry, 1840-1914 Jonathan Zeitlin 6. The lost paradigm: an Italian metalworking empire between competing models of production, 1900-1920 Alain Dewerpe 7. 'Have a heart for the manufacturers!': production, distribution and the decline of American textile manufacturing Philip Scranton 8. The small-holder economy in Denmark: the exception as variation Peer Hull Kristensen and Charles Sabel Part III. The Resurgence of Flexible Production: 9. In search of flexibility: the Bologna metalworking industry, 1900-1992 Vittorio Capecchi 10. Local industry and actors' strategies: from combs to plastics oyonnax Jean Saglio 11. Producing producers: shippers, shipyards and the cooperative infrastructure of the Norwegian maritime complex since 1850 Hakon With Andersen Index.

H. Koga, The History on Industrial Relations in British Engineering Industry : Vol. I & Vol. II

H. Koga, The History on Industrial Relations in British Engineering Industry : Vol. I & Vol. II

Industrial innovation diffusion: the extent of use and disuse of process technologies in engineering

Summary This paper addresses two important issues in the study of industrial innovation diffusion: the extent of use of an innovation throughout the production process, and the disuse of innovations. Evidence for the spatial patterns of use and disuse from a longitudinal survey of British engineering establishments is presented. The extent of use of technology is not found to be spatially differentiated, but reinvestment in newer technologies may be more prevalent in the core regions of the country. Rejection of technology owing to unsuitability or problems in the adoption process is found to reflect establishment‐level rather than locational characteristics.

From, Obscurity to Enigma: The Work of Oliver Heaviside, 1872–1889 by Ido Yavetz

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 765 always “we found this” or “we did that.” Yet there is no sense of the communal work ofthe lab in these pages, and only in the faintest asides do we glimpse the all-night sprees that made the Edison labo­ ratory so unique and so productive. Faced with the enormity of their task, the editors of the Edison Papers have toned down their expectations; what began as the first full record of Edison’s life is now “a guide into the much fuller rec­ ord presented on microfilm” (p. xxviii). Will these twenty projected volumes enable us to rewrite Edison’s life story and show us new ways to understand his creativity, as was previously claimed? Volume three is too early to tell. Andre Millard Dr. Millard is professor of history at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and the author of Edison and the Business of Innovation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990). From, Obscurity to Enigma: The Work ofOliver Heaviside, 1872-1889. By Ido Yavetz. Basel and Boston, Mass.: Birkhauser Verlag, 1995. Pp. 334; figures, appendices, notes, bibliography, index. $89.00 (hard­ cover) . As the title of Yavetz’s book suggests, Oliver Heaviside is an enig­ matic figure. He is well known to us for three achievements. As an electrical engineer he first suggested the circuital condition that guarantees the distortionless transmission of messages in long-dis­ tance telephony. As a physicist, he not only reformulated Maxwell’s complicated formula into a few neat equations but proposed in 1902 the existence of an ionic layer (the so-called Heaviside-Kennelly layer) in the sky that made possible the transmission of electromag­ netic waves across the Atlantic. As a mathematician, he devised vec­ tor algebra and initiated operational calculus. These achievements in different fields were made by a man with no higher education in science or engineering. Heaviside is also a man of irony. Neither he nor the British Maxwellians nor the British electrical engineers developed his theory of distortionless transmission into a practical technology. (Michael Pupin and George Campbell in the United States first invented the practical loading coil that materialized Heaviside’s theory.) When Heaviside suggested the hypothesis of the ionic layer in 1902, he actually thought it less plausible than the hypothesis of the transmis­ sion of waves along the surface of the earth. His new mathematics was hardly understood by his contemporaries, including his Maxwel­ lian friends, and it rather made him more isolated from the scientific and engineering communities of his day. Yavetz explores in detail Heaviside’s major works between 1872 766 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE and 1889. Interesting in this story is how Heaviside moved between Maxwell’s field theory and the practical world of telegraphic and telephonic engineering. Heaviside started his career as a telegra­ phist in 1872 and worked mainly on linear circuit theory between 1872 and 1881. Working on this topic, he encountered the dynamic nature of electrical current, which led him to Maxwell’s electromag­ netic theory. From 1882 and 1885, he devoted himselfto reformulat­ ing Maxwell’s field theory by using a new mathematical tool, vector algebra. In 1885 he arrived at the radical conclusion that in a cur­ rent-carrying wire energy flows not inside the wire, but outside. This led him to a new field-theoretic understanding of the skin effect. In 1887-88, he was involved in a bitter debate with William H. Preece, a chief engineer of the Post Office, over the issue of the distor­ tionless cable. Yavetz suggests that Heaviside obtained the distor­ tionless condition by thinking concretely about the relationship be­ tween the parameters (such as resistance, capacitance, inductance, and leakance) involved in a transmission line in telegraphy and tele­ phony engineering, rather than by simply solving Maxwell’s field equations. Heaviside then presented his distortionless condition as a “royal road” by which engineers could be brought to the abstract realm of Maxwell’s field theory and electrodynamics. Heaviside was a mediator between Maxwell’s field theory and elec­ trical engineering. As a “teacher,” he wanted practical engineers to think of technological phenomena in terms of Maxwell’s dynamical fields. He also forced...

Fatigue failure of the de Havilland comet I

The de Havilland Comet I entered service in 1952, and became the first commercial airliner to be powered by jet engines. It was introduced as the flagship aircraft on the routes of the British Overseas Airways Corporation, and was hailed as a triumph of British engineering. However there were a number of accidents involving this aircraft, culminating, in 1954, in the loss of two aircraft in similar circumstances. These were Comet G-ALYP near Elba, and Comet G-ALYY near Naples. A Court of Inquiry was convened, and the task of discovering the cause of these accidents was given to the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough. The investigation explored a number of avenues, and finally gave structural failure of the pressure cabin brought about by fatigue as the cause of the accidents. The use of fracture mechanics methods not used in 1954 has enabled the analysis of these fatigue cracks to be made, and the initial defect size has been estimated to be approximately 100 μm in the case of G-ALYP. This is not incompatible with the manufacturing techniques of the time, and information regarding cracks in the cabin identified during manufacture.

Two-stroke or Turbine? The Aeronautical Research Committee and British Aero Engine Development in World War II

Two-stroke or Turbine? The Aeronautical Research Committee and British Aero Engine Development in World War II ANDREW NAHUM All the ascendancy of the Hurricanes and Spit­ fires would have been fruitless but for this sys­ tem . . . which had been devised and built before the war. ... It had been shaped and refined in constant action, and all was now fused together into a most elaborate instrument of war, the like of which ex­ isted nowhere in the world. [Winston Churchill, The Second World War]1 During the 1930s, the growing apprehension in Britain about air attack began to provoke a shift in strategic thinking away from a purely retaliatory posture, which relied on a bomber force to counter the threat of bombers, toward a mixed strategy in which defensive interceptor fighters were to have a vital role. This new per­ ception stimulated an intensive program of research and develop­ ment in radar, in the control of fighters from the ground, and in aero engines. A connection between radar developments and a shift Mr. Nahum is senior curator of the National Aeronautical Collection at the Science Museum, London. He gratefully acknowledges the support of the museum in the conduct of this research, and thanks his colleagues Timothy Boon, Sir Neil Cossons, Dr. Robert Bud, and Dr. Alan Morton for many helpful comments. John Bagley, the author’s predecessor as curator of the aeronautical collection, provided a unique insight into the organization of government science from his time at the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE), Farnborough, and gave immense encourage­ ment for the undertaking of this work. Dr. David Edgerton at the Imperial College was generous with his comments. Finally, the author is grateful to the editor and referees of Technology and Culture for invaluable suggestions. ’Winston Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 2 (London, 1949), pp. 293-94. This is taken from a description of Churchill’s visit to the fighter control center at Northolt on September 15, 1940, the turning point ofthe Battle ofBritain. It conveys his instinctive appreciation of the way in which the functional integration of the British air defense system had created a pivotal strategic asset.© 1997 by the Society for the History of Technology. All rights reserved. 0040-165X/97/3802-0002$01.00 312 British Aero Engine Development 313 in policy in the mid-1930s to support jet engine development has previously been surmised.2 This study goes farther and establishes a direct linkage between early secret knowledge of radar and a wide range of British high-power aero engine work. The relationship between these programs casts light on contem­ porary planning for air defense and reveals a remarkably holistic approach to the pressing problem ofbomber interception. This gave rise to an integrated defense system which was, at that time, uniquely powerful and on which national survival in the Battle of Britain was to be critically dependent. There is a conventional stereotype of British defense science in this period. A lone inventor or “boffin,” committed, passionate, dis­ organized, inspirational, is pitted against the rigidity of officialdom (which is ultimately overcome). It is a scenario that has done great service to motion picture makers, for example in The Dam Busters, where the eccentric genius Barnes Wallis eventually sells his idea for a bouncing bomb to skeptical officials and Royal Air Force (RAF) officers.3 A more purposeful and technocratic vision of British defense re­ search can be found in the official histories of World War II or in a work such as Margaret Gowing’s Britain and Atomic Energy. More recently, there hasbeen an even stronger claim to characterize Britain as a “militant and industrial nation” with the contention that “the English state chose the aeroplane as its key strategic technology.”4 The account here differs from these models. It does not seek to locate the roots of British air defense uniquely in government or “the state,” nor in the insights of exceptionally inventive engineers. Rather, it portrays these roots as diffused to a remarkable extent through a both formal and informal network ofindividuals who, for the most part, were already in a social and professional relationship reaching back to World War I. Some were indeed government...

The Reception of Scientific Management by British Engineers, 1890–1914

While Britain never had a scientific management movement like that in America, historians have exaggerated the negative reaction of British engineers to the ideas of F. W. Taylor and other American proponents of business efficiency. A review of the leading British engineering journals in the early twentieth century reveals that Taylorism received a fair amount of attention, and much of it positive. By the beginning of the First World War, the majority of trade journals were echoing Taylor's demands for a new type of management. The misapprehension on behalf of historians stems from a number of factors: an overemphasis on articles published during years of labor agitation, such as 1911 and 1912; and, a failure to appreciate the different way in which scientific management was perceived in Britain. This fuller understanding of British responses to Taylor and his ideas helps to elucidate a chapter in the broader history of British economic performance and managerial methods in the twentieth century.

The Locomotives of the Saint-Étienne & Lyon Railway

During 1820s, Seguin brothers was a French firm well known for suspension bridges and steamboat navigation. In 1825, they started negotiations with French government for the construction of a railway line from the Saint-Etienne coal field to the Rhone Valley and The city of Lyon. During a long trip of 1825-26 in England and Scotland, they visited the famous first public railway of Stockton & Darlington and gathered much information about steam railway traction and locomotives as linked with railway line design. Their personal engineering and managerial background gave us a very good understanding of the British technological system for railways, and its tremendous potential for heavy transportation. Such understanding was not only a ‘copy’ by the way of buying materials, wagons, and locomotives, but also a critical reflection on the technical choices made by the British engineers. For example, they refused the common point of view of that time for the general design of a line, i. e., the primacy of fixed engines for inclined planes. This paper presents the development of locomotives of the Saint-Etinenne & Lyon railway (Le Chemin de fer entre Saint-Etienne et Lyon) form the viewpoint of its design, construction and first uses. Major points discussed include: 1) the two Stephenson's locomotives bought for this railway, 2) the first Seguin's French patent for the famous tubular boiler, 3) locomotive construction in Perrache, Lyon. This study highlights the originality of Marc Seguin's locomotives.

The British Engineering Press during the Second Industrial Revolution: Responses to Corporate Capitalism

This work presents a controlled sampling of texts which might, through further research, provide the basis for a broad theoretical investigation of the cultural response of British managers, engineers and entrepreneurs to the so-called second industrial revolution in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Also, the texts are organized by theme, as a preliminary effort to establish an empirical critique of prevailing historiographical interpretations of the content and influence of Britain's business culture with respect to competitive pressures from abroad.

Engineering careers and technology transfer: Japanese companies in the UK

This article examines two issues: first how Japanese companies recruit, train and utilise engineers in their UK transplants; secondly, how technology transfer between British and Japanese engineers is affected by career structures. It draws on questionnaire responses from 88 companies and interviews at a small number of sites.

THE EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF REINFORCED CONCRETE SHELLS.

Keywords SOUTHAMPTON UNIVERSITY CONCRETE ; REINFORCED ; SHELLS ; DEVELOPMENT ; EARLY ; HISTORY ; SYSTEMS ; STRUCTURAL ; SPACES ; ENCLOSURE ; NON TENSILE ; RESISTANT ; MATERIALS ; TENSILE ; COMPRESSIVE ; STRENGTH ; THIN ; ROOFS ; STRESS ; MEMBRANES ; HYPERBOLIC ; PARABOLOIDS ; EDGES ; BEAMS ; DOMES ; CYLINDRICAL ; BUILDINGS ; STRUCTURES ... Show All

THE DEVELOPMENT OF CONCRETE BRIDGES IN THE BRITISH ISLES PRIOR TO 1940.

This paper traces the use of concrete for bridges in the British Isles from its 19th century origins to the outbreak of the Second World War. It describes the introduction of reinforced concrete bridges by specialist firms in the early 20th century, and some of the more notable bridges designed in the inter-war period, when British engineers established a reputation independent of imported systems. The most important bridge types are identified, and provision for movement and considerations of appearance are discussed. The development of standard bridge loadings is traced, and the performance of some of the early bridges is outlined. The paper also comments on the economic background, and contrasts progress in the British Isles with that overseas. (A)

Job satisfaction and organizational continuance commitment: a two-wave panel study

The temporal relationship between job satisfaction and organizational continuance commitment over 13 months was examined in 295 professional employees of a British engineering company using LISREL with latent variables analysis. The cross-lagged path coefficients in the LISREL models were not significantly positive, suggesting that the relationship between these two variables was spurious and due to error variance. Test–retest coefficients for both variables were moderately positive, showing that the relative ranking of individuals on these variables was fairly stable over time.

Job satisfaction and organizational continuance commitment: a two‐wave panel study

The temporal relationship between job satisfaction and organizational continuance commitment over 13 months was examined in 295 professional employees of a British engineering company using LISREL with latent variables analysis. The cross-lagged path coefficients in the LISREL models were not significantly positive, suggesting that the relationship between these two variables was spurious and due to error variance. Test–retest coefficients for both variables were moderately positive, showing that the relative ranking of individuals on these variables was fairly stable over time.

Resonant ultrasound spectroscopy for materials studies and non-destructive testing

Abstract The use of mechanical resonances to test properties of materials is older than the industrial revolution. Early documented cases of British railroad engineers tapping the wheels of a train and using the sound to detect cracks perhaps marks the first real use of resonances to test the integrity of high-performance alloys. Attempts were made in the following years to understand the resonances of solids mathematically, based on shape and composition. But Nobel Laureate Lord Rayleigh best summarized the state of affairs in 1894, stating ‘the problem has, for the most part, resisted attack’. More recently, modern computers and electronics have enabled Anderson and co-workers, with their work on minerals, and our work at Los Alamos on new materials and manufactured components, to advance the use of resonances to a precision non-destructive testing tool that makes anisotropic modulus measurements, defect detection and geometry error detection routine. The result is that resonances can achieve the highest absolute accuracy for any routine dynamic modulus measurement technique, can be used on the smallest samples, and can also enable detection of errors in certain classes of precision manufactured components faster and more accurately than any other technique.

Short-term performance pressures on British and Scandinavian firms: Case studies

A hypothesis is set out to account for the poor innovative performance of British engineering industries by contrast both with their rivals in other advanced countries, and with the British ‘chemistry-based’ industries. Engineering product innovation demands a high degree of interfunctional and external interaction, and offers low visibility. Corporate history and national culture have made it difficult to achieve the former - without decentralisation - and to cope with the latter - particularly after decentralisation. In both respects Sweden is better placed. Chemistry-based industries (particularly pharmaceuticals) have had less need for such interaction, and naturally tend to offer higher visibility - which the UK firms improved by avoiding diversification. It is explained how this hypothesis was developed through case studies of four British engineering multinationals with Scandinavian subsidiaries, two Swedish engineering firms, a British pharmaceuticals company, and a British glass multinational with a Scandinavian subsidiary.

Innovation and survival amongst mature establishments in the mechanical engineering industry

The role of innovation in influencing business performance and survival is widely accepted, but there is only limited evidence identifying any direct relationships between them. This paper uses data from a cohort study of mature British mechanical engineering establishments to investigate locational, technological and other characteristics of establishments surviving during two time periods: 1981–1986 and 1987–1992. The study is concerned with all causes of non-survival, whether attributable to business failure or to corporate decision-making. The analysis makes use of a mix of bivariate and multivariate techniques to assess influences on the survival or non-survival of the establishments. The results support previous research concerning the role of such factors as establishment size and industry sector, but contradict conventional wisdom concerning such factors as age, suggesting in particular that the relationship between age and survival applies to new start-ups, but not to mature establishments. Some evidence for locational variation in closure rates, particularly during the most recent recession, is presented. The role of technological innovation is found to be equivocal. The effects of process innovation appear to be limited, but there are suggestions that investment in research and development and design-related technologies have been related to the survival prospects of the establishments in the cohort in recent years. Some of the shortcomings of the measures of innovation available and the approach adopted are discussed.

Technology Museums in the United Kingdom

TECHNOLOGY MUSEUMS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM ALEXANDER HAYWARD A wide range of museums and related organizations preserve and present Britain’s technological heritage. It is not possible here to men­ tion all of them, let alone to give each the attention it might merit. Instead, I will examine in some detail those undertakings that illus­ trate various approaches to museum provision and operation. The largest museum in Britain concerned with technological mate­ rial is the National Museum of Science and Industry, consisting of the Science Museum in London and its outstations: the National Mu­ seum of Photography, Film, and Television in Bradford and the Na­ tional Railway Museum in York. The Science Museum was founded in 1857, and because of its long history has been able to amass large collections relating to power technology, transport, communications, and manufacturing, all of which combine to serve as a prime taxo­ nomic record of industrialization in the United Kingdom.1 Recent collecting has concentrated on significant post-1960 material. To­ gether with gallery updates and redisplays, new permanent galleries, and “Technology Futures” exhibits, this is improving the representa­ tion of modern science, technology, and medicine throughout the museum. The National Museum of Science and Industry is classified as a “national” museum. Such museums by definition receive the bulk of their funding from central government and hold collections of na­ tional and international significance. Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, unlike England, have museums of their “national” cultures: the National Museums of Scotland in Edinburgh, the National Mu­ seum of Wales in Cardiff, and the Ulster Museum in Belfast. They do not specialize in the areas of science, technology, and medicine on the same scale as the National Museum of Science and Industry but do consider them as part of the whole range of subjects that constitute Mr. Hayward is external affairs coordinator for the Science Museum. He is cur­ rently researching the British airplane engine industry during World War I. 'For an overview of the history of the National Museum of Science and Industry and its key exhibits, see N. Cossons, ed., Making of the Modem World (London, 1992).© 1996 by the Society for the History of Technology. All rights reserved. 0040-165X/96/3701-0006$01.00 138 Technology Museums in the United Kingdom 139 natural and human history. In addition, the national museums in Scotland and Wales incorporate smaller museums that focus on vari­ ous aspects of technology, such as the Museum of Flight at North Berwick, and the Welsh Industrial and Maritime Museum in Cardiff. In Northern Ireland, the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum at Holywood is concerned with the transport heritage of the province. England does have other “national” museums whose collections relate to the history of technology. These include the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Imperial War Museum, and the National Mari­ time Museum in London, and the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds. Their holdings reflect some of the variety of applications of technology and present it within interestingly different contexts such as art and design, and military and economic history. There are many other museums organized on a regional or local basis that complement the national collections of science and technol­ ogy. The funding of all these museums is quite involved. Those funded by local government tend to be long established, generalist in approach (although sometimes with branch museums of technol­ ogy), and based in towns or cities. The majority of recently established museums focus on a particular site or subject area and are often constituted as independent educational charitable trusts. These aim to generate as much of their own income as possible. The best have adopted innovative and entrepreneurial methods of operation that have helped enliven the museum scene generally. Nonetheless, these independent museums are frequently supported to a considerable extent by local and central government grant aid. Major technology collections are located in historic manufacturing centers such as Manchester, Newcastle, Birmingham, Bristol, Glas­ gow, and Leeds. The Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester had its origins in the late 1960s, when objects demonstrating the industrial history of northwest England were assembled in a museum on the campus of the University of Manchester Institute of Science...