The modern
era of U.S. aviation was launched with NISTs help. Before
World War I, U.S. military forces had only several dozen aircraft,
all obsolete by European standards. Aviation instruments were sent
to NIST for testing, and many were modified or overhauled before
being adopted by the military. NIST also produced the first quantitative
data on the power-producing qualities of fuels and the first serious
U.S. studies of the aerodynamics of flight.
Important initial
research on the atomic bomb was carried out by NIST, which served
as a central control lab for determination of the properties of
uranium. The staff also found a way to remove virtually all impurities
from uranium oxide and developed analytical procedures for controlling
the purity of critical materials used in nuclear reactors and bombs.
Eventually, development and engineering tasks were transferred to
the militarys Manhattan Project.
NIST researchers
patented a radio direction finder, a special antenna that determined
the direction of radio transmissions, which served as a prototype
for the U.S. Navy and was used widely to pinpoint the positions
of enemy forces during World War I. NIST also disproved the then-common
notion that radio communication was impossible under water and built
a simple but effective radio apparatus for submarines.
The trend toward
miniaturization of electronics was advanced by NIST weapons
research, which led to a contractors development of printed
circuits. This technology substituted printed wiring, resistors,
and coils for the conventional discrete components in electronic
devices. NIST provided useful engineering data and components, including
a rotary printer that applied printed circuits on either flat or
cylindrical surfaces.
The U.S.
synthetic rubber industry was created with NISTs help
during World War II, when imports of natural rubber from the Far
East were cut off. Prewar NIST work on the thermodynamics of rubber
suggested which types of synthetics to use and how to test them.
NIST helped standardize both physical and chemical testing, thereby
improving accuracy in rubber testing, and helped develop tests and
improve instruments later used in synthetic rubber plants.
NIST contributed
to the design of two early smart weapons systems
used in World War II. One was a radio proximity fuse
that exploded a projectile when directly over its target, rather
than on impact, making the weapon five to 20 times more effective.
NIST also helped design and construct the Bat, the first fully automated
guided missile ever used successfully in combat.
The military
and other users have saved millions of dollars thanks to NISTs
contributions to the testing of antennas used for communications
to and from satellites. NIST developed a theory that made it practical
for researchers to compute an antennas complex outdoor radiation
pattern using data collected entirely indoors near a test antenna,
as well as software for using the data to compute field performance.
The voltmeters
used to make products such as missile guidance systems commonly
are calibrated using standards based on NIST technology. In the
1980s, NIST developed a volt standard that was more accurate,
more stable, and much easier to use than its predecessors.
Commercial machines
influenced by NISTs real-time control system, a concept for
controlling automation, are improving the precision of shipbuilding
and keeping U.S. troops out of harms way by clearing land
mines in Bosnia. The RCS was among the influential technologies
to emerge from NISTs Automated Manufacturing Research Facility,
which was co-sponsored by the U.S. Navy.
Date created:
2/9/01
Last updated: 2/9/01
Contact: inquiries@nist.gov
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