		Volume 15, Number 2

"Civil and Environmental Engineering at MIT"
is published quarterly by the
Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Bldg. 1-383, 77 Mass. Ave., Cambridge, MA 02139

Editor: Debbie Levey
(617)253-7101
levey@mit.edu

Faculty and staff line up for their Benchmark photo at Camp Tech, summer 1949. Sitting: John Archer, Edmund Laubusch, John Biggs, Allan Gifford, Herman Shea, Joseph Sands (camp doctor), Phillip Simmons. Standing: Hank Paynter, Myle Holley, Keistutis Devenis, Harl Aldrich, Robert Whitman. John Babcock is included on the faculty list but is missing from the group shot. (Benchmark donated by Hiram Pearlman '52)

Reader's Notes

Thanks!

The Newsletter is grateful to Hiram Pearlman '52 for entrusting us with his 1949 Benchmark. Photos from the yearbook will be used in future issues.

Photos

"The young lady in the picture of the people around a stereoplotter is Virginia Jones," writes a top sleuth from the Class of '57. "She was hired as a stereoplotter for the Photogrammetry Lab. Her husband was a PhD candidate in philosophy at Harvard and I think later became a professor at William and Mary. I worked with Virginia and found her to be a good professional stereoplotter, and she and her husband became friends of ours."

Stephanie Sparvero '96 "had just returned home from the office, and was paging through the [latest] CEE Newsletter. First, I read that not enough young alumni write in to the Department, and then I turned the page to see a picture of myself teaching Charm School. Consider that enough for me to at least caption the picture: that is me, with my pal Dhaya Lakshminarayanan '96 (Urban Planning), instructing people on appropriate body language during IAP 1995.

"I have been working in New York City for about five years, first in consulting, and now in investment banking. When I was an undergrad, we had an especially enthusiastic group in the department, and our ASCE chapter held numerous events, including a series of talks on the Central Artery project and lunch tables for all of Course 1 to mingle. I am sad to hear that the department is having problems attracting undergraduate students. I always felt that my education was not only interesting, but important. And even though I will most likely never engineer, I still remember so many of the fluids concepts that I found so enlightening. Anything from the gust of air from the subway (movement at the boundary layer) to walking along the East River (Langmuir interactions) can remind me that I used to work on Navier-Stokes equations, rather than net present value."

On the opposite end of the MIT spectrum from lecturing at Charm School, in 1995 Stephanie successfully campaigned for the annual honor of UMOC (Ugliest Manifestation on Campus, a charity fund-raiser in which contestants vie for votes through grotesque costumes and outrageous behavior). "That still remains one of my most notable MIT achievements."

Recognizing himself and two others in the 1948 Camp Tech Benchmark photo, Michael Celentano '50 sent in an update from Myrtle Beach, SC. "I haven't gotten over the nostalgic trip back to MIT for my 50th class reunion last June. It was great seeing so many of our classmates and meeting with Dept. head Rafael Bras and at least 12 to 15 fellow CEs at a Dept. reception.

"Ellen and I will celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary next month. We spend January to March in South Carolina out of the snow and on the golf course."

Also in the photo is Fred Radcliffe '51,"my fraternity brother (Phi Kappa Theta), who had a contracting business in southern Connecticut. He and I hitchhiked back to Boston after camp was over."

Standing next to Radcliffe in the top row of the picture is William Flye '50, "my senior thesis partner. We did a pretty good job of redesigning a major intersection in Boston's suburbs and I still feel it helped me to graduate. While I was at Engineering OCS at Ft. Belvoir in early 1952, Bill was an instructor type and we met briefly during a class. The big question is what happened to Bill--no more word over the years, and the Alumni Office lists him as unknown whereabouts.

"The surveying session was great. I was a member of the Camp Tech baseball team thrown together in a hurry and allowed to play a game with the local town team. I don't recall other team members but we won a game because of a 'secret weapon.' A critical run was scored as our base runner (a young instructor) rounded second base." His shorts slipped, creating a temporary episode of indecent exposure, "and so distracted the defense that an error was made and a run scored. Good thing we were playing on our own field."

Although Allan Gwynne '51 & '55 had to work during the summer of 1948 and attended Camp Tech the following year, he recognized Larry Kuszmaul '51 standing in the back row fifth from the right, next to Charlie Miller, and Walt Davis in the second row up from the bottom, second from the right.

Third from right, second row from the bottom, was E. Neil Helmers '48, who spent an enjoyable four weeks at Camp Tech that summer.

Rockefeller differential analyzer. "I worked on this project from 1939 to 1941," says Robert Plunkett '39 & '48 (ScD, Mech Eng). "I had had a difference of opinion with Prof. Charles Spofford in my senior year in CE. My mentor, Prof. Bud Wilbur, advised me that my future in Structural Design did not look very bright and suggested that I change majors, so I registered in graduate school in Mechanical Engineering but needed a RA to support myself. Bud arranged that with Prof. Sam Caldwell in Electrical Engineering.
"I first worked on the old Bush Differential Analyzer (BDA), a purely mechanical device with six integrators, and then on the design of the Rockefeller Differential Analyzer (RDA), so-called because of the source of the money. The RDA had twenty integrators and the design was exactly the same as the BDA except that the parts were connected by angle detectors, servomotors and wires instead of shafts. The wires were connected by crossbar telephone switches donated by Western Electric in New Jersey.
"That picture in the Autumn 2000 newsletter must have been taken in late 1942 or early 1943, after the RDA was first in service. The switches are in the right rear of the photo, the integrators in the center racks and the outputs of the shaft positions were printed by the IBM electric typewriters in the front. I was responsible for this part of the RDA. The typewriters were operated by electric solenoids attached by wires to the keys. The shaft positions were read by cams for the units, tens and hundreds and by an optical mask and light sensitive electronic triodes triggered by Edgerton flash lamps for the tenths and hundredths of a turn. The whole business was good to five significant figures.

"Being the only nonelectrical engineer on board, I was asked to size the air conditioning unit to dissipate the heat from all the tubes, resistors and motors. They thought I would take inventory and multiply by the heat generated per unit. Instead, I recalled thermodynamics, took the size of the incoming transformer, and told Prof. Caldwell that the RDA would do no useful work. He was unhappy until I gave the technical definition. I was made an Instructor in Mechanical Engineering in the fall of 1941 and left the project before it was finished but I know it was in operation in the fall of 1945 when I came back from the Army."

Based on long personal experience with the Rockefeller Differential Analyzer, Prof. Emeritus Hank Paynter '44, '45, '51 provided an extremely detailed history of the instrument, complete with copious illustrations, in a speech delivered to the 1989 American Control Conference, held in Pittsburgh. The very interesting reprint, "The Differential Analyzer as an Active Mathematical Instrument: Control Applied to Mechanism and Circuitry," gives a history of mechanical calculators stretching far back into the 19th century. Lord Kelvin (Sir William Thomson) and his older brother had constructed a series of "ingenious mathematical engines for the purpose of tidal harmonic analysis and synthesis. But Kelvin did not construct a differential analyzer, not for lack of precision machining in his time, but rather because, like Charles Babbage before him, he failed to appreciate the value of isolation between components through use of power amplifiers. It was precisely this essential contribution of the Bush team which assured 30 years of analog supremacy in scientific and engineering computation, terminated only by the ultimate impact of integrated circuitry and user-oriented software upon digital computing."

A number of mechanical differential analyzers were in use in the 1930s and early 1940s. Paynter describes the three Mecanno (British erector set equivalent) DAs used in England for feasibility studies. "Nearly every part came from the set except for the plate glass surfaces clipped to the integrator disks. What was most surprising was the consistent 1-2% accuracy obtainable even with such rudimentary devices." (John Wilbur Jr. '50 remembers that his father, John Wilbur '26 appropriated his erector set parts when working out the details of the 1936 Wilbur Simultaneous Calculator.)

Used secretly during World War II, the Rockefeller DA had 18 integrators available, three times the number in the first model and four more than in the next largest machine then in use. Its improved precision delivered overall accuracy better than one part in a thousand and a typical solution time of 15 minutes. Paynter calls it "perhaps the most accurate large-scale analog computer ever constructed."

Who is this student, who was probably at Parsons Lab within the last five years? (Photo: Tony Rinaldo)

General

Roseanna Neupauer '91 (SM) completed her PhD in hydrology at New Mexico Tech in November '01, and has taken a new position as an assistant professor of civil engineering at the Univ. of Virginia, Charlottesville.

With a burgeoning industry of hog factory farming in North Carolina, critics have raised alarms about water pollution, odors, and downstream fish kills. Prof. Ross McKinney '49 & '51 (SM & ScD, Sanitary Engineering) is working with engineers "on the development of a permeable cover to be used over anaerobic hog lagoons. Next, I am going to look for microorganisms living in the cover. The engineers hope that there will be sufficient microorganisms living in the cover to remove the methane and ammonia given off as gases from the decomposing manure. It is an interesting concept."

Having recently sold a technical publishing business, David Weisberg '59 & '61 has started a project to document the early years of computer-based engineering design with particular emphasis on civil engineering applications.

"I have been involved in this area nearly my entire professional career going back to 1958 when I was one of a handful of student assistants working on some of the earliest civil engineering applications at the MIT Photogrammetry Lab under Prof. Charlie Miller. I worked for Prof. Miller for four years and had been in touch with him until just a few years before his recent death.

"I have a fair amount of material covering the period while I worked in the Photogrammetry Lab but could use help in tracking down reports or published papers covering the period from 1961 until the mid-1970s." Does anyone have any leads? If so, please send them to levey@mit.edu .

The Chicago Transit Authority has joined the MIT Center for Transportation Studies to commence an 18-month Joint Research Collaboration. Jeffrey Sriver '95 (SM) of the CTA explains, "Under this program, MIT masters students will be performing thesis research related to various aspects of CTA operations, design, decision-support, and policy issues. We intend for the research program to become an ongoing effort, and to also help CTA to attract top talent from MIT to join our organization full time upon graduation! So far it's off to a quick start, and has been keeping me very busy, as I am the project manager on the CTA side. Prof. Nigel Wilson is in charge of the program on MIT's side."

In an unsolicited bit of praise, the newsletter editor visited Chicago briefly in February, traveled everywhere by CTA buses, and found the service fast, convenient, and incredibly cheap considering the long distances involved. Some of the downtown routes passed many buildings of great historical and engineering significance, leading the editor to repeatedly point and squeal, "Oh! That's a building that Hansen, Holley & Biggs worked on!" or "That's the Auditorium Building! Look how it has massive masonry foundations since it didn't have a reinforced steel core!" Accompanying family members gazed in the distance to disassociate themselves from this embarrassing public outburst.

Looking at the article about the House of the Future, Harold Glenzel '51 (old Course 17, Building Engineering and Construction) elaborates, "My friend and Course 17 classmate Bob Whittier '51, now retired from Monsanto Chemical Co. and living in Hamilton MA, was Monsanto's project manager. He worked very closely with MIT and Prof. Albert Dietz in putting that project together for the World's Fair."

Now in his fourth year of the Microbiology PhD program at Univ. of Washington, Christopher Marx '97 (1-A & Biology) is working on his thesis in the lab of Prof. Mary Lidstrom. His project "looks at the fundamental physiological processes that allow bacteria to grow on methanol and/or methane - a lifestyle that involves oxidizing single-carbon growth substrates to formaldehyde as a central intermediate. Number one amongst the many extracurricular advantages of having chosen to live in Seattle is that I have met the woman for whom I, on September 29th of this year, shall become her loving husband. Maria Larson is a musician/artist and spends her days repairing band instruments at a small business."

The Awards section of the Comings and Goings column commends Lucio Soibelman '98 (PhD) for receiving an NSF Career award. He adds more details about his work at Illinois Institute of Technology: "At IIT I created a research group called CKDD (Construction Knowledge Discovery and Dissemination Group). The idea behind the CKDD Group is that the construction industry is seeing an explosive growth in its capabilities to both generate and collect data. Advances in scientific data collection such as the introduction of bar codes for almost all commercial products, new sensors technologies, laser scanning technologies, stereo imaging technologies, wireless computing, and advances in data storage technology such as faster, higher capacity, and cheaper storage devices, better database management systems, and data warehousing technology, have allowed us to transform this enormous amount of data into a computerized database system.

"A construction project produces a great amount of data on subjects such as labor productivity, materials, equipment, cost estimating, scheduling of activity duration, and so on. As the construction industry is adapting the new computer technologies in terms of hardware and software, computerized construction data are becoming more and more available. However, most of the data in a construction project are used only for communication purposes and stored in a file or a database without being analyzed.

"The main objectives of the CKDD group are: 1) develop improved methods using advanced statistics, data mining, image reasoning, and text mining to obtain novel knowledge from construction data, developing model building templates and wizards to guide novice construction knowledge model builders through the process of creating models based on their own data; and 2) improve access to past construction management experience and knowledge by practitioners and students. I am the CKDD group Head and this coming September we will have seven PhD students, four masters and several undergraduates working with us."

This year, over 180,000 women in the United States will be diagnosed with breast cancer, and over 40,000 will die. Aimee Fitzpatrick '01 (MEng) will participate in the Avon Breast Cancer 3-Day walk to help raise money to fight the disease. "I'll be walking 60 miles from Fitchburg to Boston with more than 2,500 other courageous people to raise awareness and to raise money for breast cancer research and treatment. That's roughly 10 hours of walking, three days in a row!" She is actively seeking pledges for her goal and invites anyone interested in helping out to go to http://www.breastcancer3day.org/, and follow instructions for making donations in her name (be sure to include walker number 1759).

Arts

MIT's peripatetic stage star, Sara Jo Elice '01, will be appearing in the campus show, "Trivial Pursuits," from April 19 to 21. She has also started a new a cappella group on campus called "The Resonance of MIT," which will perform on May 11. In recent years, a capella groups have enjoyed great popularity on campuses around the country, leading to the formation of many groups, concerts, and inter-campus competitions. MIT's annual Bad Taste concert by the Choralleries attracts mobs of students who stand patiently in line for hours in the Infinite Corridor to hear the group sing and practice equal opportunity insults.

Just about everything has changed in the few years since this CEE frolic. All these students have probably graduated (send in updates!), the large tree in back has been cut down, and the lush grass is now a huge muddy pit with cement on the bottom level as the site gradually becomes the new sports and fitness center.

Sports

On February 25, Sandi Lin '03 earned a silver medal at the 2001 CRASH B World Indoor Rowing Championships, held in Boston. Around 1800 athletes from around the world competed in 22 divisions by age and weight. Perhaps some looked impatiently at the frozen, snow-covered Charles and worried about possible delays in spring training.

Fans of competitive badminton had a rare opportunity to see high level matches at the 2001 Boston Open Badminton Tournament, held at Dupont Gym from March 16 to 18. Jui Shan Yong, MEng student, helped organize the tournament which has been hosted at MIT since 1998. He explains, "With over 180 players from 20 states and four countries, the Boston Open has established itself as one of the largest badminton tournament staged in the US. Featuring some of the top US players, substantial prize money and a solid reputation built over the last four years, the tournament promises a weekend of excellent badminton, full of drama and excitement. As the richest annual badminton tournament in the country behind the US Open, the Boston Open is attracting an increasingly higher quality and international caliber of player."