Construction of Dave Fultz Memorial Laboratory for Hydrodynamics*

*the name of the laboratory is tentative

Noboru Nakamura, Synte Peacock, Douglas MacAyeal , David Rowley, Brian Lynch

Department of Geophysical Sciences, University of Chicago

John Phillips, David Smith, Gerard Jendraszkiewicz

James Franck Institute, University of Chicago

David Plitt

Central Shop, Physical Sciences Division, University of Chicago

Construction is underway for a hydrodynamics laboratory on the 4th floor of Hinds Building, University of Chicago. The lab is inspired by the original work of the late Prof. Dave Fultz from our own Department, who pioneered many remarkable experiments that described the essence of fluid motion in the atmosphere and ocean. The new lab is intended for both instruction and research and will be partially operational by the end of the year 2004. This project is funded by:

The Fultz family
Women's Board, University of Chicago
Provost's Program of Academic Technology Innovation, University of Chicago
Block Board, Physical Sciences Division, University of Chicago
Center for Teaching and Learning, University of Chicago
National Science Foundation (pending)

Special thanks are due to John Marshall and Bud Brown (MIT) for the useful information on their turntable design which we basically adopted, Harry Swinney (U Texas) for an insightful tour of his laboratory, and Stuart Dalziel (U Cambridge) for invaluable suggestions on visualization and measurements.

The design of lab started in January, 2003, when the Department received a gift from the Fultz family as a seed grant for the project. Much of 2003 was spent in internal fundraising and visits to similar facilities. The actual construction finally gained momentum in spring/summer of 2004. Although the original Fultz lab was located in the subbasement, we decided to build our lab on the 4th floor to ensure visibility and accessibility.

8/11/04 The 600-ft sq lab space has been cleared. The untiled area will be diked and epoxy-coated for the equipment. The opening in the ceiling is for the secondary turntable for a camera.

8/11/04 A close-up view of the opening in the ceiling. The electrical conduits need to be reworked to accommodate the turntable/camera assembly.

8/11/04 The doorway needed to be expanded to allow for enough clearance for equipment.

8/18/04 The expansion of the doorframe is now complete. The center pole is just a temporary prop.

8/20/04 The base of the main turntable being assembled at the Central Machine Shop.

8/20/04 Another view of the base.

8/20/04 This one-horse-power DC moter will propel the turntable. It delivers lots of torque!

8/20/04 The jig plate for the tabletop and the plate-shaft mount (upside down).

8/26/04 The assembled turntable. Attached to the shaft is the 18-circuit slip ring assembly. Behind the slip ring is the belt drive.

8/26/04 A view of the motor.

8/26/04 Drawing for the turntable after the MIT model.

9/12/04 A double door has been installed.

9/12/04 The floor has been diked; storage tanks and unistruts installed. The undiked area of the lab will be used as a small classroom.

9/12/04 Believe it or not, these tanks (200 gal.) are the SMALLEST I could buy from the US Plastics Co. Actually it was their size that necessitated the door expansion.

10/6/04 The diked area has been epoxy coated and a floor drain installed.

10/6/04 We wanted some color with the epoxy floor, but the choice was rather limited. I thought yellow would be too hip, which left me with the only alternative of bloody red. It smelled pretty bad, too: we needed to leave the fan on for a few days to ventilate.

10/9/04 A tailor-made tank has arrived (40 inches in diameter). An exquisite piece of acrylic, this alone cost nearly $5K. Price didn't include lobsters.

10/9/04 There is a drain hole of about 1 inch in diameter on the base of the tank to the right. The tank will be filled and drained using pumps.

10/9/04 Gerry testing the ceiling unit and the control software in the JFI Electronics shop. Note the camera mounted on a small turntable.

10/30/04 Testing of the turntable! The base has been painted and the jig plate powder-coated. The speed of the turntable can be varied (with a remote!) between 0 and 4 radians per second. With this much of water, the rate of rotation was steady to within ~0.01 rad/sec.