To the Editor: In your April article on tire pressure measurement ("Pumped Up"), you wrote that one way to seal a pressure-sensing module "is to pot it with a fluid, such as silicone..." This substance is a liquid and I earnestly suggest that you avoid the word "fluid" unless you also mean to include the gas phase. There is enormous confusion over the use of the word "fluid" and it leads to very muddy thinking.

Eschew obfuscation. Be specific.

Demise
Has Been Exag- gerated
Frank W. Paul
Seneca, S.C.

To the Editor: Your cover title ("Future Shock") and lead article ("The End of the M.E.?" by Peter Huber and Mark Mills) in the May 2005 issue suggest the demise of mechanical engineering.

The editor should have been more careful in his review of this lead story and not sensationalized this issue.

Electrical and mechanical engineering disciplines have cooperated for many years. It seems to me that the Huber-Mills examples reflect the use of numerous machines, devices, and interfaces that have established this cooperation for the benefit of humankind. Energy and structures remain the foundations of mechanical engineering, with electromechanical systems providing a very strong technical bond linking the two disciplines.

Editor's note: The writer, now retired, was the McQueen Quattlebaum Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Clemson University.

To the Editor: Anyone who thinks the convergence of electrical and mechanical disciplines is the end has failed to understand what mechanical engineering really encompasses. That electronics replace systems traditionally deemed mechanical does not diminish the ME discipline, but rather promotes it.

The next time you feel an electrical or electronic innovation is going to replace mechanical engineering, ask yourself the question if the innovation requires materials or manufacturing to exist. If the answer is yes, then the need for mechanical engineering continues even in the absence of a purely mechanical solution.

As long as physics continues to exist, so will mechanical engineers—if for nothing else than to give possibilities to the other engineering disciplines.

To the Editor: As an avid Florida runner, I read with interest the letter in your April issue from Henry Grills regarding the difference between running on asphalt and concrete. I too have heard this bit of folklore and often wondered exactly the same thing as Henry.

Consider the hardness of the asphalt on a hot day in Florida. If one were to apply even a modest load, over a very short time the asphalt would yield locally because it is a composite held together by a viscous liquid. By comparison concrete would not yield. So the question is whether the human body can actually feel the difference. I can tell you from personal experience that the human foot can feel the thickness of the painted line on the road after being sensitized by a sufficiently long run (in my case, 20-plus miles).

In addition to concrete being harder, it is always poured in slabs so one must deal with the inevitable steps. If it is a concrete sidewalk, you also have to contend with the transitions between the street and the sidewalk. I say, if it was meant to be run on, they would have called it a siderun.

To the Editor: As an engineer who began in the nuclear industry in 1955, staying in it for over 30 years, I am hopeful Romney Duffey's article in the June issue of Power & Energy will help produce a revival of that technology. But, he didn't seem to consider that in the United States the key to such a plan lies with public sentiment.

The U.S. public is quite concerned about waste disposal, disbelieving government assertions that there is a technique that is safe for over 20,000 years. They don't trust utilities that determine when and where nuclear power plants should be built. Also, they are concerned about a technology in which every new plant has a different engineering design, leading to schedule and cost inflation.

There are remedies for these problems, as other countries have found. For example, fuel reprocessing is absolutely necessary, even if there were sufficient uranium around. Fixed power plant designs have also shown great success in other countries such as France.

These and other issues must be studied on a broad level to convince the American public of the good sense to begin nuclear power again.

To the Editor: Your article "Lighting the Countryside" (June) by John Varrasi brought back memories of that period.

In the late 1930s and early 1940s, rural electricity was just coming to many of the rural communities in Ohio. I was working part-time, while going to Ohio State University, at Montgomery Ward in the hardware and farm store department. Some farms relied on a 32-volt windmill generator/lead-acid battery system to power electric lights and radios. Ward supplied most of the parts for the system.

As noted in the article, in the late '30s, 75 percent of all nationwide electric power generation was controlled by 16 holding companies, which were averse to running unprofitable lines to the rural farm communities. To break this monopoly, President Roosevelt first moved to regulate the private utilities and, in 1935, created the Rural Electrification Agency.

Influential mechanical engineer Morris J. Cooke was the first head of the REA. Over the objections of the power industry and conservative members of Congress, rural electrification forged ahead. By the mid-1950s, nearly all farms had electric service.

The efforts of Morris Cooke, the REA, and their backers brought electric power to the rural homestead.

Under the Bush administration, deregulation of the public utilities has proceeded, with the advent once again of huge power broker industries. What goes around comes around. As someone once said, "If we ignore the past, we are doomed to repeat it."

To the Editor: I was thrilled to see in the March issue of Engineering Management an accurate 3-D model of Aurel Vlaicu's No. 2 airplane built in 1911. My disappointment came shortly after, when no reference to this Romanian early pilot and airplane constructor was made in the accompanying "Improv Engineering" article.

Above: This illustration by UGS Corp. shows a 1911 airplane developed by a Romanian flier. Below: Vlaicu at the controls.

Aurel Vlaicu (1882-1913) was a mechanical engineer and inventor educated in Budapest and Munich. From 1909 to 1913, he built three original, arrow-shaped airplanes, with flight control planes in front, two coaxial propellers, NACA-like ring around the engine, and independent suspension tricycle landing gear with brakes. In August 1912, Vlaicu won several prizes at the Aspern Air Meeting near Vienna. He died while attempting to cross the Carpathian mountains in flight on Sept. 13, 1913.

What is remarkable about his engineering work is that he perfected the design of his flying machines on scale models. The successful demonstrations with two rubber band-powered models in front of a number of Romanian government officials brought him financial support to build his first real airplane in the fall of 1909 in Bucharest.

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