Abstract :
NOTWITHSTANDING THE engineering manpower shortage and the national defense program, 1951 marks a year of many engineering developments. Advances in the art have been reported by the technical committees in all five divisions of Institute activities. In the field of communications, the completion of the transcontinental microwave radio-relay system, which was inaugurated during the Japanese Peace Treaty Conference in San Francisco, marks an epoch of engineering progress. In the field of illumination, the amount of light produced in 1950, measured in trillions of lumen-hours, was approximately double that used 5 years before. In the metals industries, there has been an increase in the speed and complexity of modern processing lines. Eastern mining has shown a trend toward increased use of mechanized equipment and the need of technically trained men for maintenance and operation. In the field of power generation, three exclusively gas-turbine stations went into operation for the first time. There is a trend toward larger sized units and if manpower and materials are available the next two years will set an all-time record of expansion. Also the first high-voltage series capacitor at 230 kv in the United States was placed in service at Chehalis, Oreg. In the realm of science and electronics, there has been a multiplicity of electronic applications through the whole gamut of industry: communication, control, power, instrumentation, research, and electrical techniques in medicine and biology. Cobalt 60 as an X-ray source has been employed for the treatment of deep-seated cancer and a synchrotron that produces the most powerful X-ray beam, 70,000,000 volts, ever generated for cancer research has been built.
