UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Interview #513
MYERS, PHILLIP

MYERS, Phillip (1916- )
Graduate Student; Professor of Mechanical Engineering
At UW: 1942-1986

Interviewed: 1998	
Series: College of Engineering
Interviewer: Paul Morledge
Length: 2 hours

Childhood in Kansas; Undergraduate education at McPherson College; Doctorate at UW; Dissertation; Hiring by UW Department of Mechanical Engineering; Otto Uyehara; Research in engine combustion and engine emission; Engine Research Center; Early WARF funding; Teaching; Committee work; University Committee; Society for Automotive Engineers; Engineering Institute in Surabaya; Trip to China; College of Engineering deans; Retirement.

February 20, 1998

Tape 1/Side 1

00:00:30	PM's father was a preacher who moved the family through a number of Midwestern states during PM's childhood.  PM remained in Kansas during his high school years.

00:01:26	PM was one of five children.  His family culture mandated that all attend college.  He entered McPherson College during the Dustbowl days and found it difficult to pay for his schooling from his meager wages as a summertime worker on his uncle's farm.

00:02:33	When PM entered college he thought about studying law and/or engineering.  His uncle told him to take some general liberal arts courses to help him decide his major.

00:03:33	During his summertime farm work, PM had to learn how to fix farm equipment.  He thinks these early days of tinkering with farm machinery led to his ultimate decision to become a mechanical engineer. 

00:05:22	PM majored in mathematics and commerce at McPherson College.

00:06:03	PM went to Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas to earn a master's degree in mechanical engineering.  Professor Scholer became his mentor during his years at KSU.

00:08:03	After receiving his master's degree from KSU in the summer of 1942, PM "took the attitude of a conscientious objector” toward WWII.  As a graduate-trained engineer, he also was eligible for deferment from military service, so he chose to teach thermodynamics and fluid flow at Indiana Institute of Technology in Wayne, Indiana.  Shortly thereafter he was offered a teaching job at the University of Wisconsin and a position as a graduate student at Yale. 

00:11:42	During the fall of 1942, he elected to come to the UW College of Engineering as an instructor, teaching thermodynamics, fluid flow, and the internal dynamics of combustion engines.  He then decided to enroll in courses towards a doctoral degree in mechanical engineering. 

00:13:33	PM obtained his doctoral degree from UW in 1947.  PM learned that he enjoyed both teaching and research during his time at UW, so he decided to remain in academic engineering.

00:16:27	PM's dissertation research measured the combustion temperature inside diesel engines.  He was the first researcher to study this thermodynamic phenomenon, and he teamed up with his longtime research "compatriot" Otto Uyehara (OU) for this seminal work.

00:18:52	PM says three College of Engineering faculty members influenced him greatly: L. A. Wilson, and Olaf Hougen and C. C. Watson from the Department of Chemical Engineering.

00:20:30	PM served as a full-time instructor—which meant a 12 months year—while taking courses and doing research toward his doctorate.

00:21:49	PM says the continuing theme in his research career at the UW was internal combustion engine technology and air pollution.  His work has focused on the efficient use of fuels, engine heat transfer, and the dampening of noxious engine emissions.

00:24:12	PM became involved with the A. O. Smith Company in Milwaukee in investigating heat transfer during welding practices.  Ultimately, the American Welding Society published a booklet about welding heat dynamics based on PM's and Uyehara's work.

00:25:55	PM and Uyehara designed an instrument called the Optical Pyrometer to measure heat cycles in engines.  Just for fun, the two used this instrument to measure the surface temperature of the sun, and they received national press attention for this exercise.  Shortly thereafter, physicists from the University of Chicago duplicated the Optical Pyrometer.   PM speculates that the device was used to help design nuclear bombs.

00:31:15		End of side.
Tape 1/ Side 2

00:31:24	PM and OU also used the Optical Pyrometer  to measure the temperature of blades in turbo-charged airplane engines, but other researchers quickly found other uses for the UW-designed instrument.

00:33:01	In the mid-1950s PM and OU changed their research focus from studying engine combustion processes to studying the polluting effects of engine emissions.  PM says studying pollution at this time was radical—the automotive industry had not yet considered the problem.

00:35:14	PM began his collaboration with OU as a graduate student.  OU was a chemical engineer who was also interested in combustion dynamics.  PM and OU always co-advised graduate students and published most research articles together.

00:37:07	OU and PM profited financially from their tight partnership, since they shared consulting income.

00:38:58	The College of Engineering's widely acclaimed Engine Research Center (ERC) started out in a temporary building, which was called T-25 and has since become the label for the outstanding automotive engineers who were trained in the facility.  PM comments that the automotive engineering field is rife with the "T-25ers.” 

00:42:08	PM and OU gave birth to the ERC, which, according to PM, is easily considered the best engine research facility in the United States—possibly the best in the world.  PM attributes the ERC's success to the outstanding faculty that have supported it.  

00:45:30 	PM says that even though there have been exhaustive investigations of engine combustion, there is still less known about what happens during the combustion process than what happens in a nuclear reactor.  The ERC is currently using a Cray Supercomputer to process all the combustion variables in order to simulate the workings of a simple combustion engine.

00:51:44	The industrial applications of PM’s research have been employed by his ERC students, who have used what they have learned at the ERC in order to solve problems within the automotive industry.

00:52:53	While the UW graduate school and the Wisconsin Alumni Research Fund supplied the start-up funds for his research and the ERC, PM has received little money from the UW since then.  Most of his funding has come from the federal government and private industry.

00:55:04	The US Department of Defense has been a major contributor to the ERC; however, as a conscientious objector, PM has refused to conduct classified research for the military.  

00:56:27	Many of PM and OU’s research papers have won awards around the world.

00:57:58	In his early days at the UW College of Engineering, PM operated on a “shoestring” research budget and studied topics that he found interesting.  At present, his research is greatly influenced by large sums of money and research topics that industries want him to investigate.

00:59:48	PM believes the UW allows researchers great freedom.  He looks to the Wisconsin Alumni Research Fund as a great source for starting new research. 

01:01:41	PM and OU have received a few patents in the control of engine pollutants, but they have  not received much income from them. 

01:02:28	End of side.  End of tape.

Tape 2/ Side 1

00:00:12	PM developed and taught courses in thermodynamics, air pollution and internal combustion engines.

00:01:38	While students today are more technically capable than they were in the past, PM has not noticed any significant changes in overall student aptitude since he began teaching at UW.

00:02:46	There were practically no women enrolled in the College of Engineering when PM first arrived on campus.  There has been an increase in female enrollment since then, but unfortunately, the number has leveled off.

00:04:34	In the past, most international students at the College of Engineering came from the upper-class in their respective countries and were not very adept at doing hands-on research. Today, however, international students seem as capable technically as their American counterparts.  PM says that Asians have long comprised the largest number of international students in the College of Engineering.

00:06:40	Returning WWII veterans showed the greatest motivation and ability to learn during PM’s employment at UW.  He believes this results from the fact that they were forced to mature quickly because of their war experience.

00:09:25	PM discusses Fred Mancheski, a former undergraduate student, who became CEO and the driving force behind the Echlin Company.  Mancheski also was a leader in founding the hospice movement in the US.  He recently received an honorary doctorate from UW-Madison.

00:12:04	During his employment at UW, PM chaired the building committees for the Engineering Library, Union South and the Engineering Research Building.  PM saw his campus committee work as a good vehicle for meeting faculty from other academic disciplines and for staying abreast of campus changes.

00:15:23	PM briefly describes his work on the UW’s Honorary Degree Committee and the process of selecting honorary degree recipients.

00:17:21	PM relates some of the issues that faced the University Committee from 1974-77, such as selecting a vice-chancellor for the university and debating the appropriate amount of control  the university faculty and administration should have over campus-wide governance.

00:19:00	PM thinks the University Committee, which in many ways is representative of faculty governance, is a very effective way of dealing with campus issues.

00:20:06	PM has made several presentations before US Senate Committees, mostly about air pollution.  PM was unimpressed by the politicians’ understanding of the issues and was generally discouraged by his experiences in Washington, D. C.

00:21:30	PM discusses being the first academic to become president of the Society for Automotive Engineers in 1969.  He believes that he was elected president of the SAE because of his original work in air pollution—a hot topic in the auto industry at the time.

00:24:02	PM discusses his work on a team that investigated the financial needs of Indonesia for a new engineering institute in Surabaya.  He said many other UW COE faculty have since gone to Indonesia in order to serve as academic consultants for the engineering program there.

00:27:22	PM accompanied Chancellor Irving Shain and several UW faculty members on a trip to China. The end product was that UW arranged exchange programs with several Chinese universities.

00:31:10	End of side.

Tape 2/Side 2

00:31:15	PM later went on a six-week lecture tour of Chinese universities where he spoke about his engine research.  He describes his fascination with seeing Chinese surgeons operate on patients who were anesthetized with acupuncture, not pharmaceuticals.

00:34:36	According to PM, UW mechanical engineering facilities have not grown with the needs of the department.

00:36:17	PM describes the major growth of the mechanical engineering graduate program, primarily in engine research. 

00:37:18	PM thinks the College of Engineering’s mechanical engineering department has done a good job at keeping up with the times, partly by hiring young faculty who have been educated at leading universities with cutting edge programs. 

00:38:13	WWII clearly affected the UW mechanical engineering department through the influence of the returning war veterans.  Mechanical engineering students did not get involved in the campus Vietnam War protests, and, as a result, the protests did not have any significant impact on the department.

00:42:11	PM was one of the first mechanical engineering faculty members to have a Ph.D.  PM’s progression from student to faculty seemed very natural, since at that time universities did not have any concerns about hiring their own doctoral students. 

00:44:12	PM describes former dean Morton Withey as a highly effective, stern-looking fellow, who was very judicious.  PM liked him and thought he did a good job.

00:45:21	Kurt Wendt was the most effective College of Engineering dean during PM’s tenure.  PM points simply to the fact that Wendt was the first UW personality to have a building named after him while he was still working for the university.  PM portrays former dean Bob Marshall as being not as impartial as Wendt.

00:47:00		PM says he needs to wait to judge current COE Dean John Bollinger because he is too close to him right now.  However, PM says there is some controversy surrounding Bollinger.

00:48:22		PM describes the frustration in dealing with the red tape of federal agencies as a technical consultant.  However, he did enjoy working as a consultant with NASA when it first got involved in rocketry.

00:49:08		PM found consulting with industries much more gratifying than consulting with the government.  He also has found that the questions posed to him by industries have served as good learning instruments for his students.

00:51:57		PM discusses consulting with International Harvester Company (now Navistar) about combustion in the cylinder and how the company could modify their cylindrical designs in order to maximize the driving forces reaped from combustion.

00:53:47		PM thinks the private sector is run much more efficiently than the public sector, and, therefore, he is partial toward helping industries.

00:55:06		PM decided to retire when he was 70, but his wife has informed him that he has “flunked retirement,” since he has become so busy with industry consulting.  He has worked for the College of Engineering in an advisory capacity since his formal retirement.

00:57:34		PM says one of his major pastimes has been camping in National Forests.  He also has enjoyed a lot of international travel both during and after his career at the UW.  PM discusses how his and OU’s wives spent countless hours graciously entertaining their many graduate students over the years.  Their wives played an integral role in forming the bonds between the “T-25ers” over the years.

01:00:12		PM says “I’ve enjoyed and appreciated the UW, and I hope the same is true for them.”

01:00:26		End of side.  End of tape.

END