Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-04-14
Structure, 1900 Feet Long
and Block Wide, to Be
Worlds Largest.
GREAT ENGINEERING FEAT
In Designing Revolutionary
Building Difficult Problems
Were Beaten.

leave room to spare, building that lit
orally stretches itself out over the
ground when the sun beats down upon
it and shrinks again when GOODNESS
comes, a building that rests upon giant
moving rollers instead of being firmly
anchored to its foundations, building
with such tremendous doors that the
task of opening one of them is equal to
swinging the side of an 18-story sky
Scraper on hinges, a building so vast
and hollow that windstorm can attain
cyclonic proportions within its four
walls.
This building is the airship factory
and dock which is being constructed by
the Goodyear-Zeppelin Corporation at
Akron. 1t and the ones which are to
follow 1t may help make America the
greatest producer Of Zeppelins in all the
world. and may bring the rigid dirigible
at last into the great place it is destined
to take in the practical everyday avia-
ton Of the future.
DirigibIes to Create New Era.
The dirigibles to be constructed in that
building will be so much larger than
anything yet attempted that they will
create almost new field. They will be
three times as big as that vast silver
cruiser of the air, the Los Angeles,
whose bulk has made half Of America
gasp as 1t f1oated over city after city.
They will be nearly twice as big as the
Graf Zeppelin, which made air history
on its voyage from Germany to America
and back last year.
But more important than that is the
fact that this new building has marked
such revolutionary changes in engineer
ing design that it points the way TO
larger and still larger dirigibles: and
therein lies the opportunity for this type
of air vehicle to become as familiar, as
practical and as useful as any part OF
the worlds transportation system.
All this depends upon dirigibles being
built larger and larger, but even with
the dirigibleS which are already in
service the matter Of harboring and
sheltering them has become so vast and
complex problem that it threatened to
limit further engagements. But with
the development of the Akron building,
Q design of such revolutionary change
has been evolved that it opens the way
for larger and larger hangers and there
fore larger and larger ships.
DR.. Arnstein Responsible.
The man who has been responsible
for this change Is DR.. Karl Arnstein,
now vice president of the Goodyear
Zeppelin Corporation, who supervised
the construction of more than 80 great
dirigibles a Germany before coming to
this country. In the Akron airship fac
tory and dock, the same broad prin-
cipleS Of streamline construction which
have marked the development Of auto
mobile bodies, speed boats and airplane
fuSelages has been applied to buildings.
This airship factory and dock was de-
signed by the firm of Wilbur Watson
and associates of Cleveland, Ohio, under
the direction Of DR.. ArnStein and to do
this, it evolved a design unlike any
other building in the world.
It has much the appearance of an
egg cut in two the long way mad laid
fiat side against the earth. The ends
are rounded of like the ends of an egg
to reduce resistance to the wind, every
element Of roof and walls has been de-
signed to lessen the effect of the wind
and the door are, so arranged that even
when opened they do not present one
extra square foot of area to the wind.
This is totally different from the old
hangers. They almost always had blunt
ends which produced great preSsures
against the building. Moreover, when
the doors we're opened they extended
out on both sides, making the building
roughly T-shaped and setting up eddies
and aerial whirls around the doors that
magnified the difficulties CT getting the
ships into the hangers.
Models Are Tested.
To eliminate this, DR.. Arnstein devel-
oped several building models, all radi-
cally different in their engineering ma
ture. Models of these buildings were
constructed by the Goodyear Zeppelin
organization, and all Of them tested out
under actual working conditions through
the use of the wind tunnel at the Uni
versity OF New York. In these tests
the superiority Of the egg-shaped design
was Overwhelmingly demonstrated and,
therefore. it was determined upon for
the Akron building. The mere matter
of creating doors for this building pre-
Sented more tremendous and difficult
problems than might be found in the
erection Of skyscraper. The dirigible
hangers OF the past have had doors
which were based on principles almost
as old as civilization itself; they either
swung open and shut or they slid open.
But as the size of the doors grew great
er and greater, these doors became more
and mores unsatisfactory.
When winds were blowing, it some
times took several days to open the type
Of doors that slide or swing. Men, ma
chinery and electric power were incapa-
bic Of moving them against the wind
pressure The sliding doors would open
more easily, but when they were open
supported target for the wind that 1t
seemed they might be ripped bodily
from the hangar.
"Orange Peel" Type.
Neither Of these types of door would
serve In Americas great new airship
factory, The situation called for some
thing entirely. new. and it has been pro-
duced. The new type of dor has been
called the orange peel" type. Each Sec
ton actually looks like quarter section
Of an orange peel. 1t has no hinges nor
rollers. The sections of doors are hung
upon enormous pins" up on the roof
leach pin feet long and II inches in
diameter) and they curve out to the
bottom, where they are mounted upon
series after series Of the same kinds of
trucks that electric street cars run upon.
The doors are opened with electric
power, and when they open they slide
tight against the sides Of the building.
never encountering any greater wind
pressure than when they are closed.
That one development alone has added
enormously to the practicability of dirt
gibles, making it possible to get them
into or out Of their hangers quickly, re-
gardlesS Of weather conditions.
Yet with all the wind pressure that
has to be withstood and all the colossal
weight that has to be figured upon, this
giant structure has to be mounted upon
rollers SO that practically the entire
four-block- long building can move itself
back and forth, up and down. 1t Is
well known, of course, that almost any
material expands with heat and con-
tracts with cold. In ordinary build
ings this expansion and contraction is
so small that it takes care Of itself. But
in a building 1900 feet long, one city
block wide and equal to Is stories IN
height, the movement under the infiu-
ences Of temperature changes becomes
SO great that the building would burst
itself asiinder IL it were firmly fixed to