Historical Documents

   The oldest exhibit currently in the museum is this copy of J.M. Spitzglass's paper "Flow of Gas Formulae", presented to The Illinois Gas Association on March 21, 1912. The Spitzglass formula is an example of empirically developed flow equation. The formula was widely used in the design of low pressure (less than 1 psig) cast iron systems.

Here is the page from the paper where Spitzglass presents his equation.

The paper is extremely fragile, as expected for a document almost 100 years old. 

  The 1935 Bureau of Mines Monograph 6, "Flow of Natural Gas Through High-Pressure Transmission Lines", was the first major comprehensive study of the flow of gas through large diameter, high pressure transmission lines. The knowledge gained from this study lead to the development of the Miller equation in the late 1930s and the Panhandle A and Panhandle B formulas in the 1940s and 1950s.

 In 1956, the Bureau of Mines published Monograph 9, "Flow of Natural Gas Through Experimental Pipe Lines and Transmission Lines", the results of eight year study reexamining the problem of the flow of natural gas in pipe. This work served as one of the underpinnings of the development of the last great empirically-derived natural gas flow equations for fully turbulent and partially turbulent flow by the American Gas Association NB-13 committee in 1964.