Abstract :
In the Annual Report of Engineering Foundation, Inc., there will appear a notice of the term Fundamental Properties of Dielectrics, adopted toward the end of the year, in substitution for “Dielectric Absorption Research,” as a more suitable brief designation for the work being carried on by John B. Whitehead and R. H. Marvin in the Electrical Laboratory of the Johns Hopkins University. Insulating liquids, particularly insulating oils, such as are used in high-voltage transformers of electric current, cables and condensers, occupied attention for the year. Detection and measurement of extremely small values of current and energy loss necessitated great delicacy of manipulation and instruments of unusual sensitiveness. Some of these instruments were devised and constructed in the laboratory. Results are stated, with the technical details of methods, in a paper, The Conductivity of Insulating Oils, by Whitehead and Marvin, presented at the Winter Convention of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, January 1930. The Institute is sponsor for this research, and the information sought by it is important to users and makers of electrical equipment and cables, as well as to producers of insulating materials. From June, 1926 to December, 1929, Engineering Foundation contributed $5750, obtaining $9150 from 18 cooperating companies in addition to services and facilities supplied by the University, and a “grant-in-aid” of $1000 by the National Research Council, for apparatus.
