The mechanical engineering department received two gifts of laboratory equipment during the 1999-2000 academic school year. Dr. J. Walter Harrington III, assistant professor of mechanical engineering (ME), who requested the equipment, received an automobile engine from Ford Motor Co. of Dearborn, Mich., and a heat exchanger from the Graham Corp. of Batavia, N.Y. The equipment is used in the ME Senior Lab, which Harrington teaches. It is located in in the Center for Engineering Education and Research (CEER).

The equipment donations were facilitated through two mechanical engineering alumni: the auto engine donation was coordinated by Yongping Gu, a senior technical specialist at Ford Motor Co., who earned his ME master’s degree from Villanova in 1988; and Lou Kahl, a 1955 ME graduate, classmate of Harrington’s and president of The Kahl Co., secured the heat exchanger, which was donated by the Graham Corp.

Senior ME majors take Harrington’s lab as part of the required curriculum. The engine allows the student engineers to learn how to measure an auto engine’s performance. The heat exchanger is needed for cooling the engine. The heat exchanger performs the task that a car radiator normally does; it is used to to remove the heat produced by the car engine.

"The heat exchanger takes the heat produced by the engine and transfers it into water, which is then disposed of by channeling it down the drain," said Dr. Harrington. "It is appropriate and we are very pleased to have the upgraded engine available for use in lab in our new engineering lab building, CEER."