Document p2RZmXw73ajy0Nqwq9mqZapK7

bee rWe spring 1974 VOLUME XXXXIX, NUMBER 2 A quarterly magazine published by United Aircraft at East Hartford, Connecticut 06108 Editor -- Francis L Murphy Associate Editor -- Frank Giusti The Electrical World of Essex By Frank Giusti 2 Texans Build a Jetport By Robert J. O'Leary Rx for Auto Ailments By William L. P. Ralphson 9 14 Bettering the Jet Breed 18 Cadets on Campus By Ralph Villers 22 Up on the Gigahertz Scale 28 Printed on recycled paper. PHOTO CREDITS: Pag* n, Dallas/Port worth Ragional Airport; p** 1e'.U S An": *** ** 27 MWO Oattyaburg Collaga; paga* 23. (laltl, U S Air Fore*; paga *4. University Of Illinois. All other photos by United Aircraft staff photographsrs THE COVER -- Electrical discharges of up to two-million volts, simulating extreme power surges such as lightning, are sent through high-voltage cable in tests at the High Voltage Research Center of Essex International, United Aircraft's new subsidiary. The facility at Lafayette, Indiana, is devoted to research, development, test, and evaluation of conductors and insulators for electric utility companies. United EAST HARTFORD. CONNECTICUT Aircraft PRATT & WHITNEY AIRCRAFT ESSEX INTERNATIONAL SIKORSKY AIRCRAFT HAMILTON STANDARD NORDEN UNITED TECHNOLOGY CENTER UNITED AIRCRAFT RESEARCH LABORATORIES TURBO POWER & MARINE SYSTEMS UNITED AIRCRAFT OF WEST VIRGINIA UNITED AIRCRAFT OF CANADA LIMITED , UNITED AIRCRAFT INTERNATIONAL 1 RBB 00122 SC-ELEC-05872 ELECTRICAL WORLD OF 2 RBB 00123 ONE looking for Paul W. O'Malley on the second day of the work week will find him in Detroit. "I'm there every Tuesday," says the president of Essex International, Inc. "The Detroit scene is very important to us." Indeed it is. Take a car apart and you'll find masses of wiring and associated devices and controls tucked all around it. Essex makes that equipment. While the automotive industry is its largest customer, the company's products are pointed as well to numerous markets besides Detroit. They go into boats, bulldozers, power stations, and hair dryers. They lace homes, office buildings, and factories. They are strung overhead and laid underground. If it delivers, routes, or controls electrical energy, chances are it is made by Essex. It may be an integrated circuit the size of a matchhead, a telephone cable as thick as a longshoreman's forearm, or any of a broad range of other things electrical, electromechanical, electronic. . "Our job is to carry electricity from the power source right through to the end use," an Essex man said at the company's headquarters in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Essex International was acquired by United Aircraft in February, 1974, in the corporation's drive to enlarge its position in industrial and commercial markets. It functions now as a wholly owned subsidiary of United, with 33,000 employees and more than 100 plants in the United States, Canada, Mexico, England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. Essex is a leading producer of a host of things -- and the leading producer of two: magnet wire and building wire. Magnet wire is found everywhere, from heavy-duty generators to electric toothbrushes. There are at least five miles of magnet wire in the family car and even more in the home, nestling in appliances major and portable. The wire can be as thick as your finger or finer than a hair from your head. Made of copper or aluminum and coated with insulation, it is designed to be wound into coils around a core to create a magnetic field when current is sent through it, Essex produces magnet wire to more than 20,000 specifications at five plants in Indiana. Illinois, and Michigan. The raw material is copper or aluminum rod, delivered in big coils from the company's own rolling mills and from outside sources. Machines pull the metal through a series, of alloy and diamond dies, each drawing out the wire thinner and thinner. After each step, the drawing having hardened the wire, it is heated. This anneals, or softens, it to make the next draw-down easier. Processed down to the desired diameter, the wire is insulated with a plastic material, applied as a liquid and baked hard. The wire passes through a bath of red or green enameling solution. Then it moves through an oven, where the coating is hardened. Again the wire is immersed in the fluid to build up the insulating ma terial to the desired thickness, and again it is baked. The process is repeated several times before the finished wire, inspected and tested, is wound onto reels for de livery to the marketplace. In their quest for greater production efficiency and product quality, Essex researchers are seeking ways to eliminate the bathe-and-bake process. One idea they are investigating is electrically depositing the insulation in powder form. In addition to magnet wire, Essex leads the industry in the production of wire for the construction industry, making more than 5,000 types and sizes in single- and multi-strand configurations. Long, horizontal machines draw the strands at the rate of more than 11,000 feet a minute through as many as 15 dies, each reducing the diameter by 20 per cent. Other machines take up several individual strands and gather and twist them around one another into the wire's final form. Insulation is applied as a solid, rather than a liquid. A powdery substance is extruded and fused onto the wire under high heat and pressure. More than half the company's sales come from wire and cable, among them such heavy-duty products as high-voltage, telephone, and coaxial cable, in addition to countless varieties of smaller wire. Over the last four decades, Essex has extended its product lines to em brace more and more of the devices and systems related to wire and circuitry. Six of the 12 divisions make products other than wire and cable, and the number of plants making non wire devices is nearly double the number of wire and cable operations. The products are vast in variety -- fittings, switches, controls, relays, valves, moldings, ex truded parts, solenoids, coils, thermostats, transformers, terminals, and more. They come off the production lines by the millions. 3 RBB 00124 Multi-strand electrical cable tor use in construction is fed into a machine which extrudes insulation onto the conductor. Jack Carter oversees the operation at Essex' Columbia City. Indiana, plant. "See this -- it's a general-purpose power relay. It retails for about a dollar-sixty." Donald Kampenga. general sales manager of the controls division at Logansport. Indiana, fingered a reddish device, about half the size of a cigarette package. "We make millions of these," he said. "They are used to switch air-condition ing fans on and off." The appliance industry is a huge user of a broad line of Essex products, sold both to original equipment manufacturers and substantial aftermarkets. The Logansport plant alone gulps 45.000 magnet wire coils a day. representing 40 tons of hair-fine wire a month, in manu facturing the myriad devices that are either products in themselves or components made for other Essex plants for appliances, air-conditioning, heating, refrig eration. and other equipment. Although it is basically an electrical equipment manufacturer, the company 4 supplies a host of controls for gas appliances and fur naces, too. It is the largest independent manufacturer of the wire assemblies, or harnesses, found in every motor vehicle. There are over 40 in some cars. The network of these assemblies forms the car's nervous system, carrying information from points throughout the car to the dash board and sending back driver commands. A harness is a cluster of individual wires of varying lengths, gathered and taped together and fitted with numerous connectors. "The instrument panel harness of a Thunderbird or Continental Mark IV contains 247 wires totaling 750 feet." said Joseph Curio, manager of the wire assembly plant in Lafayette. Indiana. Between 40.000 and 50.000 harnesses a month are produced at his plant by em ployees who snip, stamp, mold, fasten, and test as the wire bundles move from station to station, looking like clusters of multi-colored vines. About 150 different electromechanical devices are installed in today's car. Essex makes them. The more accessories that auto designers devise for the safety and RBB 00125 All these Essex-made wire assemblies arrayed around William Loux are installed in a single automobile. They carry information to the dashboard and send back driver commands. . convenience of riders, the greater the demand for Essex products. New systems are being added all the time -- anti-skid, anti-theft emission controls, seai-beh and ignition inter locks. Because it is quick to capitalize on such market- enlarging opportunities, Essex has products on every automobile built in the United States. So much electrical and electromechanical gear is crammed into Detroit's creations these days that there isn't room for much more. "The main harness of the Thunderbird is already as thick as a small tree trunk." APresident ttairf Yet more features are being introduced into auto mobiles, calling for more wiring. Consequently, Essex is turning increasingly to electronic technology. Through microelectronic devices and multiplexing techniques, its products are being designed to perform expanding tasks while reducing the labyrinthine wiring required. "A logical question is, `Aren't we taking ourselves out of the wire business?' " O'Malley said. "If we don't, someone else will. We've got to stay ahead of the game and come up with new ways of doing the things our customers require. To meet such requirements, Essex carries out inten sive research, development, and product improvement directed at new control concepts. Its integrated cir cuits, so tiny that 300 of them fit onto a wafer about the size of a silver dollar, were the first to go into production-line cars, causing horns to blow and lights to blink if thieves try to enter some 1973 Chrysler models. Its circuits are now employed in systems that prevent a car from starting unless seat belts are fastened. While integrated circuits are nothing new, Essex applied itself to the techniques for mass-producing them on the high-volume scale -- tens of millions an nually -- required for automotive use. One-piece, paper-thin printed circuits are under de velopment to fit auto dashboards and appliances, sim plifying assembly and eliminating mazes of wiring. Looking further into the future, Essex is at work on an advanced concept in which all a car's energy dis- tribution and control functions will be performed through a computer. Data will appear on a panel in front of the driver. Such a system would be a boon to car maintenance and, in these fuel-short times, could perform precise sensing and measuring to ensure opti- Essex builds a broad line of control devices for applications including appliances, besting, air-conditioning, refrigeration. Some are displayed here by Arthur R. Brinkruff, operations manager of the controls division. 5 RBB 00126 Numerous individual conductors go into telephone cable produced by Essex. Terry Parks inspects the forming of a multi-conductor cable at the Decatur. Illinois, plant. As many as 6,600 individual wires, plus jackets and shields, make up telephone cable such as this one held by Tonya Lovan. Essex pioneered manufacture -of moisture-proof cable for underground installation. mum burning of fuel, saving gas and minimizing ex haust emissions. A key advantage to Essex of its merger into United Aircraft, as O'Malley views it, is that his company will benefit from United's breadth of experience and know how in electronic and solid-state technology. From Essex' laboratories has come what an auto motive magazine calls "one of the most outstanding electrical breakthroughs to come to the auto industry in 40 or 50 years and possibly longer." The object of such superlatives is a rubber-like material, named Pressex. invented by Gideon A. DuRocher. director of advanced design for the Essex electromechanical divi. sion. In its free state. Pressex does not conduct electricity. When compressed, it does. These characteristics promise broad opportunities for its use: as an electrical inter face, for example, ridding a circuit of the need for terminals; or as a switch, eliminating numerous parts. Pressex found its first production application in an auto horn ring. Its use is expected to spread to other automotive systems and to a widening range of elec trical gear for other industries. i As Paul O'Malley scans the roster of markets his company serves, he looks for special growth from two in which Essex has been only a short-time participant -- [ telephone and electric utility companies. Both are users I of the heavy-duty cable, strung overhead or buried l underground, which the company is turning out at an \accelerating rate._____________ _ jVplam beiiiffcompleted in Hoisington, Kansas, will add substantially to the company's capacity to produce cable for the 1,800 independent telephone companies that buy from Essex. At the new High Voltage Re search Center in Lafayette, Indiana, its towering trans formers capable of delivering 600,000 volts, engineers develop, evaluate, and test the conductors and insula tors that go into the transmission and distribution net works of electric utilities. Nowadays, more and more cable is being laid under ground, where it lasts longer, requires minima! main tenance, provides uninterrupted service during natural disasters, and eliminates unsightly overhead jungles. For buried installation, telephone cable must be moistureproof. Essex pioneered the manufacture of cable in which all the elements -- as many as 6,600 individual wires, plus shields and insulators -- are impregnated with a gel-like substance to ward off moisture. As a prime producer of conductors, Essex is one of the nation's largest users of copper, consuming 25 to 30 million pounds a month. Its processes yield 60 million pounds of copper scrap a year, though none is scrap in 6 RBB 00127 Tin/, magnetic switches, encapsulated in glass, are manufactured in this clean-room facility at Logansport. Indiana. The switches are used in computers and other electronic equipment. The robed employees are Betty Kepinger (front) and Cieetus Strieker. Essex markets machinery of its own manufacture to domestic end oversea customers. A lacing machine is assembled in the foreground by Michael Hamm while David Brown, in the rear, works on a wire winder. the environmental sense. It is all shipped for reclama tion to the Three Rivers, Michigan, plant, where it is melted down, cast into ingots, and roiled into rod for reuse in wire production. Essex designs and builds much of the specialized equipment needed for its own operations. To domestic and international customers, it markets automatic wirewinders and other machines of its own manufacture. In consumer lines, it makes electric blankets and heating pads. Production of its diverse products is carried out at 113 plants in 17 states and in five countries outside the United States. The plants are centered in the Mid west. Indiana has 40, Michigan 16, Illinois and Ohio, 11 each. Production facilities are also scattered about the East, South, and Far West, The plants are small, generally employing only a few hundred. "We feel we can best serve our customers by locating within their general marketing areas," O'Malley said. "We also enjoy a significant freight savings by produc ing close to the areas of application." . In addition, Essex owns or leases 32 warehouses in 21 states and runs a trucking company with 31 freight terminals and about 2,500 pieces of rolling stock oper ating in seven states from Pennsylvania to Missouri. The man who started it alt, back in 1930, was a financial entrepreneur named Addison E. Holton. He was a figure of some substance, a seller of commercial paper and a director of Anaconda Wire and Cable. Holton was well-connected in Detroit. His friends helped him set up an agreement with the Ford Motor Company to manufacture its auto wire, and Holton began his operations in a leased corner of the Ford plant in the Detroit suburb of Highland Park. Holton had scarcely begun fashioning wire for Fords when he reasoned that, besides making and assembling the wire, he should also make the devices attached to it. So he acquired a Logansport company that built automotive switches. In leasing the Highland Park facility, he had fallen heir to some equipment for making magnet wire. Look ing for additional markets for the wire, he became associated with William J. Shea, a sales representative to the electrical motor industry centered in St. Louis. Shea began selling that portion of Holton's output not needed for autos. Shea was such a productive salesman that the High land Park wire-making capacity soon grew strained. Whereupon Holton bought the Indiana Rubber and In sulated Wire Company in Jonesboro, which had begun producing building wire in 1890. Its Paranite brand is still maintained by Essex. RBB 00129 7 At a rolling mill in Thro* Rivers, Michigan, copper is processed into coiled rod for use in production ol wire and cable at other Essex plants. Robert Neat guides a finished coil. Next, in 1936, Holton acquired the plant and ma chinery of Fort Wayne's Dudlo Manufacturing Com pany, which had started operations in 1912, risen to global leadership in magnet wire manufacture, and then fallen on hard times, suspending production in 1933. With Holton at the helm and Shea as executive vice president, Essex added a plant here and a company there as its products multiplied and its markets spread. By the early '40s, it had established itself in the fields of automotive electrical systems, wire and cable for construction, and magnet wire for electrical motors and transformers. It was also beginning to participate in the appliance industry. The postwar years brought new growth, the addition of plants, greater market penetration, and the transfer of corporate headquarters from Detroit to Fort Wayne. Holton and Shea both retired in the early '60s, and Essex became a publicly held corporation in 1965. The senior management today comprises Walter F. Probst. who has been chairman of the board and chief executive officer since 1962; O'Malley, who as president is the chief operating officer; and Ove W. Jorgensen, executive vice president for finance. All three have joined United Aircraft's board of directors, and Probst, a lawyer who went to work for Essex more than 30 years ago, also sits on United's executive committee. O'Malley, 52, has been elected a group vice president of United Aircraft and serves on its operating and policy committee. Step by step, the company has successfully widened its interests over the years by building on products it already makes and markets it already serves. Most of this growth has been generated internally. The growth in recent years has been robust. Sales went up more than 130 per cent during Essex' nineyear span as a public corporation before it was merged into United Aircraft. In the last two years, sales have climbed by nearly $250 million, rising to a record $845 million in 1973. "Our growth has come about as a natural extension of our existing products and markets," O'Malley said. "It has all been closely related activity. We have let the demand and desire well up from our marketing and operational people in the field, who let us know what they need to augment and supplement their mar keting and manufacturing programs. One thing has led to another in a pretty reasonable and logical progression." Essex is the largest independent producer ot magnet wire. Otis Bunch checks wire doing wound onto reels after emerging Irom a curing oven in which the insulation was baked on the conductor. 8 RBB 00128 4 . . -t