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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 21, 1981)
THE BATTALION MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1981 Page 3 Local Health Center treats ills from head to toe By STEPHEN M. WARD Battalion Reporter Most students know it as the “Quack Shack,” but do they know that the A.P. Beutel Health Cen ter treats just about everything from colds to broken legs? The most common injury on the Texas A&M University cam pus, Health Center Director Dr. Claude B. Goswick said, is in fected blisters. Many students are not used to the size of the campus and the class-to-class walking dis tances. To compound the problem of blisters, students often wear in appropriate walking shoes. Other common health prob lems, Goswick said, are sports in juries, upper respiratory infec tions (colds, sore throats and coughs), and gastro- intestinal problems (stomach aches). Students need to use a little common sense in staying healthy, he said. Accidents will happen in spite of all efforts to prevent them, but sometimes students take un- neccesary chances. Goswick used the example of students who jog on campus at night. “It never fails that we get quite a few (students) jogging other than on jogging trails, who step into a pot hole and sprain an ankle,” he said. Although the Health Center is treating several students who have colds and other upper respir atory infections right now, Gos wick said, the real flu season com es after Christmas break. Colds and viruses always seem to come in epidemics because there are so many people closely associated < with each other, he said. Goswick said students can ask for a flu vaccine, but the effective ness of the vaccine depends on what flu virus infected the area the year before. Since different flu viruses can affect different areas each year, there’s no guarantee that the correct vaccine for that particular virus will be used. As a; result, only past viruses are pre vented, he said. Goswick said the seven full time doctors treat about 350 to 400 students a day, which means stu dents will normally have to wait from one to two hours to see a doctor. n'ted roll ie effet# shot from inside the Texas A&M University wind tunnel f real pMows the historic propeller — taken from the B-29 bomber Staff photo by Greg Gammon that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima — and the rotating circular pad where models are placed for testing. ing stii(i| nionfoi nd onln 'es itsellJ — es anilS Bests airplanes, buildings Aggies, Now You Have A Choice! Boot-Military Outfits Events Seniors Portraits Weddings Wind tunnel aids research iW. Bosque, i|_ By TERRY DURAN eiiatC Hi Battalion Staff ith cm* Cr0SS street fr° rn the pas- jligei terminal at Easterwood hr 1 stui*p 0r ^ an odd-looking structure d prop 1 -'containing Texas A&M Universi- typwind tunnel does some of the ■intry’s top aerospace research. ■ Begun in 1951 with an open- Blccl arrangement that drew out- fle air through the test section Bthen dumped it outside again, B present wind tunnel system iBpels air through a closed re- ■ Bngular steel-shelled loop more Bn 150 feet long. The entire tun- Eel is about 400 feet long. ■ An aluminum airplane prop- ■er draws air through a 7-by-10 hottest section, where the model tojbe tested faces into the air- I Beam, connected to a myriad of Bssure sensors. The pylon "pially supporting the model is iched to a massive beam ba- Jce, part of the system measur- I the forces on the model. ■)ran W. Nicks, head of the Wnd tunnel facility, said the ba- pci is “very accurate” and would ibably cost $1.5 to $2 million, if |ught today. The current ba- ice system was installed in 1957. 1‘This is one place where we the other universities,” Nicks Slid. “A&M is very fortunate to Bve gotten this (beam balance) Ben it didn’t cost nearly as puch. he propeller, nearly 12 feet in Sameter and powered by a 1,250 |.p. electric motor, is from the ■nola Gay — the B-29 that Bopped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima at the |,tlos( of World War II. The prop eller was donated by the U.S. Air IForce in the early 1950s. TThis facility does research for Jdustry as if it were a commercial Inture, as well as University and y.iJademic research,” Nicks said. JjJJBCost to industry for use of the Jnd tunnel facilities runs about »170an hour, but Nicks said that is like ijjConsidered inexpensive. ; tooiliB Industry is benefitted by hav- j-usfi ;ing the facilities to do meaningful irork for them and getting gradu al files that know what the business is 1 wut,” he said. “The University raefits by having real-world problems brought in here so our professors and students can be in volved. Nicks said non-classroom re search is generally handled one of three ways: — the company concerned fur nishes the model and the en gineers supervise the testing, with Texas A&M personnel doing the legwork — the model is built by Texas A&M facilities, and tests run by wind tunnel personnel — tests are run by a Texas A&M faculty member working on a grant from industry. Nicks said Texas A&M also be nefits financially because a full time staff could not be afforded without income from industrial re search. There are five permanent staff members working at the wind tunnel, and from five to 10 part- time student positions, Nicks said. The tunnel is also used for aerospace engineering class ex perimentation, like the Aero 405 class that designed, built and tested a forward-swept wing de sign. “This kind of practical ex perimentation,” Nicks said, “is very good education. It’s going to help A&M attract aero students — the word gets around when you have something like this.” Nicks, who took over in Sep tember 1980 as research engineer, is responsible for the wind tun nel’s operations to the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station. He is head of the aerospace en gineering department. Nicks for merly was head of NASA’s Lang ley Research Center in Hampton, Va. Since Nicks’ arrival, the facili ties have been upgraded, includ ing new instrumentation and a computer to compile data that once had to be compiled by hand. Nicks said “from five to 20 times as much work” can be done with the more efficient set-up, as well as getting more meaningful results. The last year has seen major corporations testing designs for new turboprop business aircraft, as well as testing of modifications to designs now flying. The tunnel also did testing for NASA’s Orbiter space shuttle in the 1970s. Additional testing on a system to protect the heat absorbing tiles on the shuttle’s belly before launch is scheduled for early 1982. An auxiliary high pressure air system — surplus from NASA — is scheduled to be operational by January 1982. The system will be used for jet and rocket model test ing by simulating thrust provided by the aircraft’s engines. “As far as I know, this will make us the only university facility in the country to have a high press ure system,” Nicks said. “It’s a fairly extensive increase in capac ity for a university tunnel. ” The system will be especially useful in testing VSTOL (Vertical and Short Take-Off and Landing) models and those with thrust- augmented lift, where thrust from the engine acting on a lifting sur face increases the upward tenden cies of the aircraft. Nicks said the purchase of the high pressure system was a special deal made by the Texas A&M Sys tem Board of Regents, but other recent improvements were funded by industrial use of the tunnel. The high pressure system will also give the University the capa bility to run another, smaller tun nel capable of supersonic testing. Airplane models aren’t the only things tested, though. 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