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Encyclopedia of Connecticut biography, genealogical-memorial ...

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Later the Yale & Towne Manufacturing<br />

Company, to whom Mr. Emery had sold<br />

his patents, disposed <strong>of</strong> them in turn to<br />

William Sellers & Company. Mr. Sellers<br />

designed a fifty-ton testing machine<br />

which was built under Mr. Emery's pat-<br />

ents and placed in the Watertown Arsenal,<br />

Watertown, Massachusetts, where<br />

Mr. Emery's large machine was already<br />

in use. Under these patents machines<br />

were also built by William Sellers &<br />

Company for several <strong>of</strong> the technical<br />

schools and colleges in the United States<br />

and Europe. The War Department exhibited<br />

one <strong>of</strong> these machines in the Government<br />

Building at the Columbia Exposition<br />

in Chicago in 1893, the machine<br />

afterward going to Sibley College, Cornell<br />

University.<br />

After the Yale & Towne Manufacturing<br />

Company sold his patents to William<br />

Sellers & Company, Mr. Emery resigned<br />

his position with them and resumed the<br />

designing <strong>of</strong> cannon and projectiles in<br />

which he had been interested during the<br />

Civil War. He designed a gun carriage<br />

for a twelve-inch rifle for the War Department<br />

under the supervision <strong>of</strong> the<br />

Board <strong>of</strong> Ordnance and Fortifications.<br />

This design was never completed for the<br />

reason that its construction required more<br />

money than had been appropriated.<br />

While with the Yale & Towne Manufac-<br />

turing Company he designed and built<br />

a car dynamometer for the Pennsylvania<br />

Railroad Company to make autographic<br />

records <strong>of</strong> the drawbar pull <strong>of</strong> locomo-<br />

tives, the dynamometer having a capacity<br />

<strong>of</strong> 28,000 pounds. Several years later, in<br />

1902, he was asked by Mr. Vogt, mechanical<br />

engineer <strong>of</strong> the Pennsylvania<br />

railroad, to consider designing and constructing<br />

another dynamometer for them,<br />

as the old one was entirely inadequate to<br />

measure the loads given by the increased<br />

size <strong>of</strong> locomotives.<br />

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BIOGRAPHY<br />

259<br />

Mr. Emery was confined to his room<br />

with a broken knee cap at that time, but<br />

decided he could undertake the work, and<br />

he designed and built a car dynamometer<br />

<strong>of</strong> 100,000 pounds capacity, the Pennsyl-<br />

vania railroad designing and building the<br />

car therefor. The dynamometer was put<br />

into service in 1906 and is still in service.<br />

In the meantime the continued growth<br />

<strong>of</strong> locomotives and the introduction <strong>of</strong> the<br />

electric locomotive have made the capacity<br />

<strong>of</strong> this instrument inadequate, and<br />

at present (1920) Mr. Emery is rebuilding<br />

certain parts <strong>of</strong> this machine to increase<br />

its capacity to measure 150,000 pounds<br />

drawbar pull instead <strong>of</strong> 100,000 pounds.<br />

In order to calibrate this instrument it<br />

was necessary to have a very accurate<br />

method <strong>of</strong> measuring hydraulic pressure,<br />

and he designed and constructed an ap-<br />

paratus for measuring hydraulic pressure<br />

up to 3,000 pounds per square inch, sensi-<br />

tive to 0.005 pound per square inch. In<br />

order to adjust the weights for this ma-<br />

chine a special scale, having very great<br />

accuracy and sensitiveness, was con-<br />

structed, using "Emery" plate fulcrums<br />

instead <strong>of</strong> knife edges. Later an improved<br />

form <strong>of</strong> this apparatus, having a<br />

capacity <strong>of</strong> 4,000 pounds per square inch,<br />

was built by him for the Bureau <strong>of</strong> Stand-<br />

ards.<br />

The next important undertaking which<br />

engaged the attention <strong>of</strong> Mr. Emery was<br />

the construction <strong>of</strong> two testing machines<br />

for the Bureau <strong>of</strong> Standards in Washington.<br />

One was for loads <strong>of</strong> 230,000 pounds<br />

tension and compression, and the other<br />

for loads <strong>of</strong> 1,150,000 pounds tension and<br />

2,300,000 pounds compression, on specimens<br />

<strong>of</strong> any length up to thirty-three feet.<br />

While building these machines, Mr.<br />

Emery also constructed a machine to<br />

calibrate testing machines, which was in-<br />

stalled in his laboratory in Glenbrook,<br />

<strong>Connecticut</strong>. The calibrating machine is

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