Goodyear Dedicates Research Laboratory

Goodyear's new research laboratory. Completion o f the building was delayed b y a tornado which r ipped off the roof and caused other damage

Λ N E W laboratory, one of the finest in ~^^ the world devoted to rubber re­search, was dedicated late in June a t Akron, Ohio, by the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. The opening of the labora­tory was celebrated with a, three-day dedication program which entailed a symposium o n rubber problems and the announcement of several n e w technical developments. Built and equipped at a cost of SI,325,000, the new facilities give t o the Goodyear scientists some of the finest and most complete equipment ever assembled for rubber investigations.

As though signaling the developments t o come from th i s laboratory, the com­pany announced and demonstrated five new technically important items. First of these was a supersonic sound machine which is used to detect flaws in tires for retreading which, x-rays cannot show; second was the announcement of Plioflex, a vinyl-vinylidiene chloride copolymer which is serving as a rubber substitute; the third development, removed from the field of chemistry, concerns a new radio static neutralizes which wil l eliminate static due t o atmospheric or man-made machines; fourth was a new process d e ­veloped jointly with t h e Chrysler Corp. for joining together structural members with a new adhesive, stronger bonds re ­sulting than are obtainable with welding

By F. J. V A N ANTWERPEN Associate Editor

o r riveting; andl lastly Resinfoam, a n e w plastic insulation material.

Cycleweld Process The currently outstanding deve lop­

ment was the Cycleweld process a n d little was permitted said b y Army offi­cials. The composition of the material was n o t revealed but it is a plastic c e ­ment. T h e Cycleweld is sprayed o r painted on w o o d or metal and t h e t w o treated surfaces are pressed together under heat and pressure. T h i s causes tfaie films t o adhere, probably through poly­merization, and the resulting bond is con­siderably stronger than joints made fc»y conventional methods.

Cycleweld is a thick, v iscous , black solution and it i s set by temperatures of 325° F - I t i s a l s o used to bond synthet ic rubber to m e t a l s and plastics.

In t h e case o f metal-to-metal bond, t n e cement has b e e n developed in t h e form of a film or t a p e . I t is merely necessaxy t o place th is t a p e between t h e parts to î>e bonded toge ther and apply hea t a n d pressure.

Tests of stremgth show n o t on ly t h a t the bond is stronger than -the riveted or

welded joint, b u t that; the wood or metal g ive way before the Cycleweld Sieam.

T h e process o f bonding m e t a l to naetal lends itself particularly to the production of l ight sheet alloy parts such as small parts made from aluminum o r magné­s ium.

Stat ic Eliminator

Spectacular, too, w a s the static elimina­tor developed by Goodyear through their interest in blimps and other air­craft and proper radio reception. The demonstration given to t f ie press repre­sentatives consisted of impinging apon the antenna of a conventional radio re­ceiver a spark from a co i l wïiïch gave stat ic currents several thousand times as powerful a s the normal radio signal. The resulting stat ic was deafening. When the eliminator was connected, however, the distortion caused by the spark was barely audible. T h e details are again voider secrecy, b u t the allowable information was as follows:

T h e neutralizer makes use of ssmail electronic tubes in such a way that "they are automatically adjusted to each zradio signal, whether weak or strong. T h e y serve to discriminate between stat ic and the desired signal and automatically con­trol the a m o u n t of s ta t i c energy \*rhich can pass through the radio.

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A detect ion control circuit eliminates s tat ic which is louder than the incoming signal, even in cases where the static is s o loud aa to obliterate t h e incoming signal entirely under ordinary circumstances.

I n tests a t the Goodyear company, the device eliminated extreme static of high recurrent pulse frequency such as that caused by t h e ignition system of an air­plane engine or an electric razor.

I n one tes t , a 25,000 volt spark from the ignition s y s t e m of an engine was pro­jected directly upon the antenna of a re­ceiving set. The neutralizer eliminated this so effectively that it was possible t o tune in a short-wave radio program from Europe.

I n addition; the neutralizer also gets rid of s ta t i c that is on the same frequency as the incoming signal. This is done b y means of a circuit which uses the energy of t h e static t o build up an electronic cur­rent of opposite electrical sign. This cur­rent then neutralizes the static so that i t has no effect upon the signal.

T h e device is expected to improve the performance of radar and find immediate application b y the armed forces in fighter planes, warships, and tanks.

Supersonic Tire Tester T h e other device to come from Good­

year physics research was the supersonic tire tester. This was developed t o sup­plement x-rays in the inspection of tires for retreading. Often tires have ply sepa­rations and a short t ime after retreading the tire fails, causing a waste of rubber. X-rays ? because of their nature, do not reveal such defects .

I n operation of the supersonic device the tire is hung o n two rollers in such a w a y tha t the bottom portion of the tire passes through a shallow tank of water. Sound waves of supersonic frequency are generated in this tank of water b y the vibration of a nickel rod. This rod is

Dr. L. B. Sebrell, manager of research and new products, was deluged with ques­tions at the dedication press conference.

set in vibration by means of a high fre­quency electric current which passes through a coil of wire surrounding the rod.

The vibrations so generated are picked up b y a microphone which is mounted so as t o be a lways inside the portion of the tire which is immersed in the water. The microphone in turn operates a relay box equipped with a red and green light.

A s long as the tire is solid, the super­sonic vibrations pass through with full intensity to the microphone and the green light stays lit. However, if there is separation in the tire, the supersonic waves do not pass through with full in­tensity as they are reflected back b y the air gap. This causes the green light to be extinguished and the red light to glow. In this way the operator of the machine is able to determine whether or not the tire is suitable for retreading and in ad­dition knows the location of the defect.

Plastic Foam Plastic Foam is Goodyear'"s wartime

replacement for Airfoam, spoage rubber insulator widely used by thie aircraft manufacturers a s a wing filler. The shortage of natural latex maJces i t im­possible to continue t h e irtanufacture of the sponge rubber and a subst i tute has been worked out by t b e Goodyear chem­ists.

The production steps i n making the resins are a s follows: the resin, a urea formaldehyde, i s mixed with a foaming agent, a condensing agen-t, and water. The mixture passes to a, reactor, or foaming unit, where it is frothed, presum­ably b y mixing and air incorporation. The frothy mixture i s then s e t by heat and dried i n a further operation by high-frequency radio drying. Tl ie Plastic Foam is then c u t into blocks ajnd, where greater rigidity i s needed, imtpregnated. Alone the Plastic Foam is not very strong. Reinforced with fabric the plain type product is sufficiently strong for handling, but i s somewhat susceptible t o shock. The resilience o f t l ie impreg­nated type is increased and fragility de­creased by adding a flexible substance.

Plastic Foam i s now beixig -turned out i n limited quantities for Arnxy airplane insulation. It i s highly resistant t o the transfer of heat and i s in addition non­flammable and waterproof. It weighs 0.65 pound per cubic foot and is l ighter than balsa, Airfoam, o r any other known insulation.

Plioflex

The new Goodyear rubber substitute, Plioflex, owes i t s importance -to the fact that i t can be vulcanized lilce rubber-I n this respect i t thereby becomes su­perior to many o f the plastics now used i n rubber replacement. Most of the plastic rubber substitutes are thermo-

i e f f . G i lber t J. C- Andresin demonstrates the static eliminator Right. Goodyear's supersonic t i re tester is demonstrated by W . E. developed as an a id to airplane radio reception. I t has possi- Morris of the research laboratory. This device, supplementing x-rays and bilities in improving radar and radio transmission of pictures, visual inspection, wil l determine t h e suitability of a tire for retreading.

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Goodyear's home of the future. Postwar may see homes such as shown here, produced by assembly line methods. Less than 2 tons, they may easily be loaded on trucks or fiat cars. The sides, for moving, will b e telescoped to the interior, makins a packas<e about 8 feet wide and about 27 feet long. Cost, it is thought, will be not more than $ 2 0 0 0 .

plastic and are more liable to be affected by temperature changes. Plioflex will not have this drawback, and in produc­tion the plastic, which is a vinyl-vinyli-dene chloride mixture, is mixed with compounding agents and processed in the same equipment used in rubber manu­facture. Tensile strength of Plioflex can be improved 100 to 200 per cent by vul­canization. Goodyear expects the new plastic to come into general use for molded automotive parts, shoe heels and soles, impregnated fabrics, and specially designed engineering parts. Though re­search has only begun on Plioflex, one type has already been developed which has excellent flex properties and with­stands chilling to —50° F. without be­coming brittle.

Versatile Goodyear

Goodyear's interest in a static elimina­tor and supersonic tire tester may seem unusual to everyone except those con­nected with the Goodyear organization. All phases and problems of the transporta­tion industry, no matter how remote, are grist for their mill and some, such as light-weight mass-produced houses, give promise of even greater diversification to come. Always interested in research, Goodyear has increased its appropriation for carrying on such work with regularity— having in the past 10 years stepped it up some 200 per cent.

Interest in a cheap movable house stems from the belief of Goodyear officials that the average man in the postwar pe­riod will want to tie his house to transporta­tion and not to land. They visualize Americans shopping for homes in the same way they buy automobiles and paying for them on the installment plan.

At the laboratory, Goodyear had on display one of its homes of the future and at the Goodyear Aircraft factory at Litchfield Park, Ariz., several other homes are being lived in by factor^ per­sonnel. Production of the homes, it i s ex­pected, will be based on assembly line

methods, probably in plants now building warplanes.

Plans call for a home weighing less than 2 tons, and costing not more than §2,000.

The Goodyear homes when sold will b e complete for an average family of four, with two bedrooms, one containing a double bed, and the other two bunks; also a dresser and other facilities.

A combination living and dining room, a single refrigerating and range unit and sink; bay windows with storage space in addition to the bedroom closets, and a lavatory with a running-water basin, toilet, and combination tub-shorcrer will complete the home.

A s the homes are transported from one location to another, the bay windows and bays occupied by the bunks will be slid in toward the center, providing an over-all width of not more than the 8 feefc which is the limit for most highways.

The lengths, 27 feet, will be constant whether the homes are at their living locations or in transport, while the widths of the homes in the living locations, and with the bay windows and bunk bays ex­tended, will be 14 feet.

Each home will be constructed of ply­wood with an exterior sheeting o f some light metal such as Monel as a surface for the plywood. Insulation by mea-ns of a cotton-light synthetic resin between the plywood and interior wallboards will be slightly over 2 inches, the equivalent in heat and cold resistance to about IS inches of brick construction.

Salvage potentialities of this type of house used for emergency homes for de­fense workers are greater than the present emergency housing facilities which must be torn down within a short t ime after the war ends. These houses may be re­sold in their entirety for use as cottages along a lake front, in the mountains, or for housing of tenants on a farm or ranch.

The wide range of Goodyear interests goes all the way back to 1900, when P. W. Litchfield, present chairman of the board, joined the 2-year-old organization as

production manager. The company was at that time making horseshoe pads, bi­cycle tires, and carriage tires. The auto­mobile, then in its infancy, captured Litchfield's imagination and he immedi­ately began to develop an automobile tire. His first step was to set up a design room, equipped with a drawing board— the forerunner of the present research and development department.

Between the years 1900 and 1935, Good­year turned out 250,000,000 pneumatic tires for motor vehicles—and this was to be expected, for it was a tire company. But further than that have been extra­curricular activities which now has Good­year building Navy blimps, Corsair air­planes, tank and antitank guns, bomber wings, life-rafts, shoe heels and soles, bag­ging powder, and making self-sealing fuel tanks, and a half dozen other things that have nothing at all to do with the conven­tional conception of a tire maker's business.

Most far-fetched activity of all is the raising of beef cattle. This venture began 26 years ago with a Goodyear decision to produce its own long-staple Egyptian cot­ton, then cut off by German submarine activity in World War I. A piece of prop­erty in Arizona was chosen, now Litchfield Park, on which to raise the cotton, but soil conditions were such that crop rota­tion became a necessity.

To restore nitrogen, alfalfa was grown, but because of freight rates this crop could not be sold. The next step was simple— beef and dairy cattle were imported to do away with the alfalfa. Thus a tire com­pany finds itself combating not only rub­ber shortages by producing synthetic rub­ber, but food shortages as well through the raising of cattle.

Goodyear has four cotton mills in the South, three in Georgia, one in Alabama. Their production, normally slated for automotive use, is now devoted to war products.

At a special plant in Akron, Goodyear is currently turning out the FG-1 airplane, the speedy, Vought "Corsair". This is a Navy plane, the first in that service to use a 2,000 h. p. motor. Construction of this plant began February 1942, and one year later the first plane rolled off the assembly line. The Corsair has a speed in the 400 miles per hour class, and a service ceiling of 35,000 feet.

To the Goodyear empire, blimps are no novelty. Chairman of the board Litch­field has long been the friend of the lighter-than-air machines. At Akron is a massive hangar, and during the depression days of men's faith in blimps, it was a center of research for these craft. Today, Navy bhmps, in substantial numbers, are being turned out of the Akron installations.

The company has converted to numer­ous other war activities. Machines which in peacetime turned out varied sizes and shapes of steel tire molds have been con­verted to exclusive use to build housings for transmissions in Navy ships and turret

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rings for heavy Army tanks. The com­pany subsidiary, Goodyear Aircraft Corp., which manages "the air activities now em­ploys about 31,000 persons. It produces in addition to t b e Corsair: wings and tail surfaces for medium bombers; tail surfaces for torpedo planes; outer-wing panels; floats and flight decks for flying boats; wings and tail surfaces for pursuit ships and scout bombers; U-boat-hunting K-ships; blimps for coastal patrol; and many other aircraft products vital to the needs of a nation at war.

Well known t o the chemical fraternity are Pliofilm, Airf oam, Pliolite, Chemigum, and Captax—all products of Goodyear chemical interests.

Captax was developed in 1920 by L·. B. Sebrell, present manager of the Research and N e w Products Division.

Early in the present century, there was a widespread search for rubber accelerators t o speed the rate of vulcanization. One of the most successful to come into use was a heterogeneous mixture made by distilling thiocarbanilide, aniline, and sulfur. No one knew the exact chemical composition. Sebrell succeeded in breaking this mixture down into i t s component parts and isolat­ing the active ingredient, which was mer-captobenzothiazole or Captax as Goodyear markets it.

Goodyear has made, used, and sold as much a s 10,000,000 pounds of Captax in one year.

Pliolite i s made by reacting rubber with t in chloride or chlorostannic acid. Used originally a s a cement for joining rubber to metal, its uses were subsequently extended t o the making o f a satisfactory corrosion-resistant coating for metal. It is used too for the insulation of -wire and the coating of paper, as i t renders paper moisture-proof and heat-sealing, and in the manu­facture of bullet-sealing fuel tanks.

Pliofilm Packaged Motors Pliofilm is a transparent film which

found peacetime outlets in the packaging of food and other products. A dramatic use today is in the packaging of aircraft engines. Formerly these engines were covered with grease t o prevent corrosion, and i t took from 50 to 75 man-hours of work t o grease a n engine for shipment and then t o degrease it after it reached its destination.

Today only a light coating of oil is used and t h e engine i s packed in a bag of Plio­film. An engine can be put into service almost as quickly as i t is removed from the bag.

In t h e synthetic rubber field Goodyear is operating i t s own plant at Akron in making a n oil-resistant rubber, Chemigum. In addition, i t will operate for the Rubber Reserve Company, government-owned plants in Akron, California, Texas, and Canada.

Laboratory Detai ls The new laboratory contains the latest

and m o s t powerful instriunents available

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for research, in rubber, synthetic rubber, plastics, aircraft, and allied fields.

A wide flight of stone steps leads to the central entrance which is in the clock tower. Along the edges of the tower and the other walls, there is a series of stone symbols taken from ancient alchemy.

The structure is in the form of a "U", the front section being 225 feet long and 50 feet wide. Architecturally this front section is divided into two sections by the central clock tower.

The arms of the "U" extend backward, one arm. being 140 feet long and 72 feet wide, and the other 200 feet long and 72 feet wide. There is a total of 74,000 square feet, of floor space, distributed on three floors.

The farther end of the longer arm of the " U " constitutes a single room three stories high. This room is 6 0 feet long and 72 feet wide and can be used for large-scale equipment or pilot plants.

On t h e ground floor are five large labo­ratories suitable for heavy machinery. These, for the present, will be used for studies of rubber processing, plastics processing, film casting, and allied tests. This floor also contains a machine and workshop, a room for building services, and a series of smaller rooms that can be used flexibly as shops or laboratories.

Managerial executives are provided with a suite of eleven offices on the sec­ond floor. There is also a conference room opening from the manager's office, and rooms for stenographic and clerical work. A group of laboratories devoted t o physics, x-ray studies, and micro­scopic research are located on this floor.

A dozen laboratories devoted to ana­lytical and organic chemistry, including one bombproof laboratory, are on the third floor which also contains the library.

The equipment of the various labora­tories includes many of the latest research instruments available. Among them are an RCA electron microscope and a Bausch and Lomb analytical spectro­graph. The Goodyear chemists are con­structing their own infrared spectrometer.

Other devices include x-ray machines of various types, optical microscopes, and the vast array of apparatus needed for physical and chemical investigations, including implements for microanalysis and electrochemographs.

Dedication ceremonies lasted three days, the last two being given over to four symposia. Speakers at the first session on synthetic rubber were : Dr. Per K. Frolich, A. C. S. president and director of the Chemical Division, Standard Oil Co. of N . J.; Dr. N. A. Shepardr

chemical director, American Cyanamid Corp.; Dr. L . B. Sebrell, manager, Re­search and New Products, Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co.

The second symposium covered plas­tics. Speakers were: Dr . T. S. Carswell, research director, Monsanto Plastics Co.; D r . D . S. Frederick, Rohm and Haas; and D r . A. M. Howald, Research Division, Plaskon Division, Libbey-Owens-Ford Glass Co.

Wednesday morning, June 23, was given over to a symposium on the Present and Future of the Chemical Industry. Speakers were: Mr. Leland I . Doan, vice president in charge of sales, D o w Chemical Co . ; Dr. E. R. Weidlein, Director, Mellon Institute; Dr . G. P. Hoff, technical director. Nylon Division, du Pont Co.

The concluding session covered the Present and Future of Transportation. Speakers were: Dr. Jerome C. Hunsaker, National Chairman, Advisory Committee

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for Aeronautics; Dr. A. B. Culbertson, manager, Product Application Dept., Shell Oil Corp.; and .Mr.,P. W. Litch­field, Chairman of the Board, Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co.

Right. The combination living-dining room of the house of the future. Kitchen is in the rear. Below. O n e

of the bedrooms.