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. Wind tun
nel tests have been run on models
of train cars, tractor-trailer rigs,
housetop ventilators, off-shore oil
rigs, and several major buildings,
including Dallas’ Reunion Tower
and the Park West Tower now
under construction in Houston.
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