Hampton Roads Club Mini

                                            A Wonderful Day at Work



Just when you think you have a cool job there are days when you wish you did something else. Before we get into the events of the day I think a little back ground info is in order. As most of you know Roy works at one of the wind tunnels at NASA. Now in this wind tunnel there is a really big fan (duh) and it’s connected to a 135,000hp electric motor by a four foot diameter stainless steel shaft. The main thing that makes this tunnel different from most other wind tunnels is that it’s a cryogenic tunnel. That means it gets really damn cold in there. Something like minus 356 degrees. Now when things get that cold they tend to move around a little (shrink when cold, expand when warm) so all of the supports holding this contraption together are designed to move. Not a whole lot but just enough to have a little wiggle room. The drive motor on the other hand is stationary (like set in concrete). What all this means is that there has to be a flexible coupling on that big shaft to allow it to move some.  Now we’re talking about a rather huge coupling and inside this monster is a set of splines about the size of dinosaur teeth. Also in there is some grease (and a lot of it) to keep those splines all happy.

Alright that’s the back ground now for the good stuff. The seal on this particular coupling had gone bad (a long time ago) and it was decided to just add more grease rather than fix the stupid thing. Keeping in mind that when the shaft turns it slings grease and the faster it turns the more goo comes out. There is a shroud over this coupling (because OSHA says anything that goes roundy roundy has to have a cover so the kiddies don’t hurt themselves) so the grease was mostly confined to one area.  The other day the word finally came down from on high that now it’s time to actually put a new seal in.  Two other guys got the pleasure of working the seal. Roy’s mission (whether he accepted it or not) was to clean the glop off the shroud. So there he was, all day long, cleaning up wind tunnel poop.

At least you have air conditioning at work. 

Wanna trade jobs? 

So Roy, is that like a big Lovejoy type coupling or a Falk style coupling complete with gridmember etc?