Philadelphia Section

May 2001

Chair’s Letter

planned for May at the Hagley Museum. The Delaware section will be invited.

The Philadelphia Section has focused its outreach on support of science and math education in primary and secondary schools. We provided a $200 contribution to the Regional Future City Competition held in conjunction with Engineers Week. We also contributed $600 to the Delaware Valley Science Council.

This year, the Philadelphia Section submitted a nomination for the Delaware Valley Engineer of the Year. Although our candidate was not elected, we feel this was an important effort that brought attention to mechanical engineering and provided knowledge for future nomination strategy. We also initiated an active interest in history and heritage and are working on identifying new historical landmarks in our area. We are proud of our improved web site and look forward to its more extensive use in communicating to our membership.

Our elected slate of officers for next year include:

CHAIR: Jerry Jones
VICE CHAIR: Jim Tully
SECRETARY: Anastas Lazaridus
TREASURER: John Chen
SENIOR DIRECTOR: Fred Willis
JUNIOR DIRECTOR: Lou Fendo

We have had a very successful year due to the hard work of our executive committee. A major challenge is to get more of our membership involved in promoting mechanical engineering through ASME activities. We are fortunate to have many active student sections and we will continue to support their efforts. We would like to expand our activities, particularly in K12 outreach programs. We have substantial financial resources but lack personnel willing to get involved.

I would personally like to thank the members of our executive committee for their dedication and cooperation during my two years as section chair. The Philadelphia Section is looking forward to another eventful and prosperous year in 2001-2002!

Nelson Macken

New Officers for 2001 - 2002
The following section officers will serve for the year 2001-2002.
CHAIR: Jerry Jones
VICE CHAIR: Jim Tully
SECRETARY: Anastas Lazaridus
TREASURER: John Chen
SENIOR DIRECTOR: Fred Willis
JUNIOR DIRECTOR: Lou Fendo

The section would like to thank the section officers who volunteer their time to work on section programs and activities. We are actively seeking additional help from people to continue our current programs. If you would like to help, contact one of the current officers, shown on page 3.

Section Meetings
Student Night February
A large number of people signed up to attend the presentation by Professor John Ruzukas. Unfortunately the weather did not cooperate the day of the talk. A major snow storm hit the area during the afternoon which limited the attendance to a small number of adventurous people. The presentation was a review of Leonardo DaVinci's ornithoptor. An interesting combination of video tape and CD ROM was used to make the presentation.

After studying the DaVinci design and reverse engineering the device, Dr. Ruzukas conclusion was that the device was much too heavy to fly. Even if made from modern light weigh material, it is doubtful that a human could generate enough power to lift the device off the ground. Although Leonardo's design could be viewed as a failure, the presentation was a unique glimpse into the mind of a genius who's work was not limited by the time in which he lived.

Kvaerner Tour April 3
by Fred Willis and Jim Tully
The ASME response to the April Kvaerner Shipyard tour was as massive as the shipyard itself. Normally ASME attracts 20-25 people for a tour and that was our initial estimate. In three days 57 people signed up, in four days 73 people and eventually the number approached 100 people. Both ASME and Kvaerner were overwhelmed and gratified with the response but, only 40 people could make the tour. Unfortunately we had to call people back and informed them the tour was full.

This shipyard is located in Philadelphia just off I95 at Broad Street. Over the past year, Kvaerner has constructed this new shipbuilding facility, complete with its 650 ton crane, which lifts the ships' modules (or sections) and places them into the dry dock for assembly.

Doug Peel of PSDC, Kjell Herting and Rolf Pettersen of Kvaerner gave us a detailed tour of the yard. Although it is only a small part of the old Navy yard Kvaerner is still massive. The yard is 114 acres with almost 500000 square feet of fabrication and assembly space plus two dry-docks and administrative and engineering space.

Kjell Herting, vice president of engineering, gave us a talk on the ship design and fabrication philosophy and how that affected the shipyard design. Then we saw the shipyard.We followed the steel plates from the storage yard to the fabrication shops. Once there the plates are marked, edged and welded into plates up to 16 meters square. Other plates are mounted on pins, bent, heated, and welded into their curved shapes.

After fabrication the plates are welded into subassemblies and moved to the grand module shop. Here the subassemblies are fabricated into a module, a cross section of the ship. Modules are then lifted into the dry dock and welded together forming the ship. After welding, wiring the modules and mounting equipment, a ship emerges and away it sails. The current ship requires 42 modules.

The dry dock is approximately 1100 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 50 feet deep. With the pumps and valves that are available, the dry dock can be filled in 90 minutes, and emptied in 120 minutes. A door is being constructed, which will allow part of the dry dock to be flooded, while the remainder stays dry. Thus, one ship can be launched while another is still under construction.

Due to the overwhelming ASME response we are working with Kvaerner for another tour. Watch the newsletter for further information and dates.

Letters/EMail
I noted something in the last paragraph of the Industrial Notes item [in the February 2001 issue] that I would like to point out to you. The information was generally correct but is not absolutely correct. Westinghouse Government Environmental Services Co. is a division of Washington Group International. Washington Group International, formerly Morrison Knudsen Corp. recently purchased Raytheon Engineers & Constructors. Raytheon Engineers

and Constructors was a wholly owned subsidiary of Raytheon Corp of Lexington, MA. One of the legacy companies that formed Raytheon Engineers and Constructors was United Engineers and Constructors of Philadelphia.

Thanks
Barry Neimeth
PSE&G

Industry Notes
Weston Family to Sell Company
Roy F. Weston and his family will no longer own the company, which bears his name, under a buyout agreement announced on March 12. The pioneering environmental engineering company, based in West Chester, will be bought by a core group of company executives with the backing of a Bethesda, Md. investment firm. The agreement takes the company private in a deal estimated at $51 million.

The company, which was founded in 1956 by Mr. Weston, is a leader in all areas of environmental engineering. The company has also been active in nuclear waste disposal and clean up.

Weston will become a wholly owned subsidiary of a holding company owned by American Capital Strategies and by senior managers of Weston. (See www.rfweston.com for more information)

Washington Group - The saga continues

The Washington Group, which recently bought Raytheon Engineers from the Raytheon Company, now faces liquidity

problems as a result of the transaction. In an announcement on March 2, the company said that it is in default under certain credit facilities. The problems are caused by a delay in resolving purchase price adjustments related to its purchase of the Raytheon engineering and construction unit. The unit's projects have substantial cost overruns and neagative cash flows that where allegedly not disclosed by Ratheon during the purchase negotiations. Washington Group is also considering bankruptcy as a result of the cash flow situation.

The Washington Group has started a lawsuit against Raytheon and stated that Raytheon concealed cost overruns during the negotiations over the purchase of Raytheon Engineers. Instead of allowing the suit to proceed, the Idaho district court recently sent the lawsuit into court supervised arbitration.

On March 8, Washington Group walked off the site of two power plant projects in Massachusetts, which were part of the Raytheon deal. It was initially reported that the company returned to work on the projects under a no-fault general services contract. But on March 15 the New York Supreme Court ordered the developer of the projects to cancel the contract with Washington. The walkout forced Raytheon to fulfill the original performance guarantees to the project's owner and has since announced that it has hired Duke Flour Daniel to complete the projects.