ABSTRACT
GROAT 18.10. 1867 Hannibal MO/USA 16.06. 1949 Hightstown NJ/USA Benjamin Feland Groat obtained his BSc degree in 1901 and the LL.M. degree in 1910 from University of Minnesota, Minneapolis MN. After early works with railroads, he went from instructor to professor in charge of mechanics and mathematics at the School of Mines at his Alma Mater from 1898 to 1910. In parallel he invented a lead pipe coupling with adjusted expansion properties in 1894. Groat, from then a consulting engineer, inventor and patent attorney, became interested in ‘chemi-hydrometry’ for discharge measurement applied to turbine tests. His 1916 paper was awarded the ASCE’s Norman Medal. Further works related to the efficiency of screw current meters, as opposed to the cup current meter, and to the Pitot tube for velocity measurement, for which he was awarded the 1914 Silver Medal from the Engineering Society of Western Pennsylvania. Groat then proceeded with research in hydraulic modeling. In the early 1920s, this technique was not generally accepted as an alternative to prototype observations and to hydraulic computations. Scale effects were considered the main limitation, preventing to up-scale laboratory observations to prototype scale. Groat also worked in this field with a final paper in 1932. He developed precise turbine engine tests and methods of measuring water discharges chemically. He authored many papers on water power. He was further interested in non-Newtonian models but recommended that Newtonian models should be adopted in hydraulic engineering. Following the proposal of John R. Freeman (1855-1932), Groat supported his National Hydraulic Laboratory, including thereby the experiences collected in Western Europe. Anonymous (1941). Groat, Benjamin F. Who’s who in engineering 5: 706. Lewis: New York. Anonymous (1949). Benjamin F. Groat. Civil Engineering 19(8): 580. P Groat, B.F. (1913). Characteristics of cup and screw current meters: Performance of these meters in tail-races and large mountain stream, statistical synthesis of discharge curves. Trans. ASCE 76: 819-870. Groat, B.F. (1914). Pitot tube formulas. Proc. Engineers’ Society Western Pennsylvania 30: 324. Groat, B.F. (1914). Water-discharge measurement with chemicals. Engineering Record 70(8): 208-209; 70(9): 246-247. Groat, B.F. (1916). Chemi-hydrometry and its application to the precise testing of hydro-electric generators. Trans. ASCE 80: 951-1305. Groat, B.F. (1932). Theory of similitude and models. Trans. ASCE 96: 273-386.
