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Kerosene has advanced to the front rank as a fuel for the farm tractor within a decade. A heavily preponderating majority of tractors burn kerosene. The history of early oil engines is reviewed and some comparative costs of kerosene and gasoline fuel for tractors, obtained from tests made in January, 1920, are given. Kerosene tractor-engine development is then discussed. The conditions required for complete combustion are the same in principle for both kerosene and gasoline, but in actual practice a wider latitude in providing ideal conditions is permissible for gasoline than for kerosene. The four classes of commercial liquid fuels usable in internal-combustion engines are the alcohols, the gasolines, the common kerosenes and the low-cost heavy-oil fuels. The alcohols rank lowest in heating value per pound of combustible. Under existing economic conditions neither alcohol nor the fuel oils require consideration as available fuels for the tractor.

A large number of tests were made in the altitude laboratory of the Bureau of Standards, using aircraft engines. The complete analysis of these tests was conducted under the direction of the Powerplants Committee of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. Many of the engines were of the same make, differing in compression ratio or dimensions. The testing program included determinations of the brake-horsepower at various speeds and altitudes, or air densities, and the friction power, or the power required to operate the engine with no fuel or ignition at various speeds and air densities, with normal operating conditions of oil, water and the like. Some tests included determination of the effect of change of mixture ratio and of air temperature, and of different oils. The difficulties caused by the necessity of using indirect methods to ascertain the effect of various factors are outlined. The test analyses and curves are presented.

The development of the supercharger for aircraft engines has led to the possibility of hitherto unheard-of speed of transportation. An analysis of a definite case is presented to show the different aspects of the problem in a practical form, with a view toward determining what can reasonably be expected. An attempt is also made to arrive at a knowledge of the elements involved whose improvement will effect the greatest gain. The supercharger overcomes the deficiency of the ordinary gas engine's serious loss of power at great altitudes, due to its inability to obtain sufficient oxygen for the combustion of a normal charge of gas which, in an engine of conventional design, is essential to the development of its maximum output.

Design factors are considered from the thermodynamic standpoint only, which excludes several factors affecting power and economy. The problem of air heating includes a consideration of its influence on pressure, the consequent lowering of pressure being counteracted to some extent by the resulting improvements in carburetion and distribution and by more rapid and complete combustion; the effects of delayed combustion, with a study of the thermodynamic conditions and possible improvements; and the results that are actually obtainable from lean and rich fuel mixtures. Fuel economy is difficult because its factors conflict with those of power. The benefit of the expansion of any elastic working medium to economy is emphasized. Charts from previous papers, showing the ratio of air to fuel by weight, are referred to and discussed, best economy being obtained with mixtures leaner than those giving maximum power.

From a laboratory examination of the controlling relationships between carburetion and engine performance still in progress, the general conclusions so far reached include fuel metering characteristics, the physical structure of the charge, fuel combustion factors and details of engine design and manufacture. In every throttle-controlled engine, the variation in fuel metering for best utilization is inversely functional with the relative loading and with the compression ratio, but the nature of the fuel leaves these general relationships undisturbed. The physical structure of the charge influences largely the net engine performance and the order of variation of the best metering with change in load. Perfect homogeneity in the charge is theoretically desirable but entails losses in performance.

THE ever-increasing demand for highly volatile fuels and constantly decreasing volatility, constitute a serious problem. Synthetic fuels have been suggested as a remedy, but these require a change in carburetion methods. It is the author's conviction that, if any redesigning is necessary, this should embody a combustion method by which any of the existing liquid hydrocarbons can be utilized and further change of method obviated, if a new fuel should later be developed. The high-compression engine is presented as a solution. Proof is offered that by its adoption any liquid hydrocarbon fuel can be utilized under any temperature condition and a real saving in fuel accomplished through increased thermal efficiency. Sustained effort should be made along these lines to increase thermal efficiency and provide an engine of adequate power, flexibility, ease of control and ability to operate on any of the fuels obtainable now or later.

THE oil engines described are for stationary or land installations and are of the “hot-surface” design with combustion at constant volume. Progress in the design is referred to and the thermal efficiency of modern designs is compared with that found in engines twenty-five years ago. Three important features are reviewed, namely: (a) Reliability, (b) first cost and (c) economy. Improvements in the design of spraying devices, and other details of construction which have brought about greater reliability, are referred to. Dimensions of large two and four-cycle oil engines are given, and the first costs of each type are contrasted. The greater economy of the modern oil engine as compared with the earlier type is explained. Indicator cards, test data, speed, weights and other details of interest are enumerated concerning the De La Vergne SI type of oil engine, this being an example of the results obtained in a modern hot-surface-type oil engine.

A new type of automotive engine should be the quest of all designing engineers. Investigation has revealed the fact that 68 per cent of all tractor engine troubles occur in magnetos, spark-plugs and carbureters, the accessories of the present-day automotive engine. Four-fifths of the fuel energy supplied is regularly wasted, yet the fuel is a liquid meeting severe requirements of volatility, etc., and is already becoming scarce and costly. In an airplane, fuel is carried by engine power. In ocean-going cargo vessels it increases available revenue space. It is at once clear that for purely practical reasons the question of fuel economy, no less than the question of the nature of the fuel, becomes momentous. What fuel will do is entirely a question of what process it is put through in the engine; in what way combustion is turned into power.

Manufacturers of carbureters and ignition devices are called upon to assist in overcoming troubles caused by the inclusion of too many heavy fractions in automobile fuels. So far as completely satisfactory running is concerned, the difficulty of the problem with straight petroleum distillates is caused by the heaviest fraction present in appreciable quantity. The problems are involved in the starting, carburetion, distribution and combustion. An engine is really started only when all its parts have the same temperatures as exist in normal running, and when it accelerates in a normal manner. Two available methods, (a) installing a two-fuel carbureter, using a very volatile fuel to start and warm-up the engine, and (b) heating the engine before cranking by a burner designed to use the heavier fuel, are described and discussed.

ENGINEERS have different ideas regarding highly efficient and moderately efficient engines, but designers dare not ignore the fact that the public requires today a small very high-speed engine, with good torque at low speeds, and capable of revolving efficiently at very high speeds. These two characteristics are difficult to attain, since in practice one is really opposed to the other. To obtain high speeds with power, the valve areas, valve parts, carbureter, etc., should not be restricted in any way, while to get a good mixture at low speed with heavy torque means a different valve-setting and more or less restricted port and valve areas, etc., to secure high gas velocities. The author states that the fundamentals of high-speed engines are high volumetric efficiency; high compression, to aid in obtaining rapid combustion at high speeds, and light reciprocating and rotating parts, to secure high mechanical efficiency.

The authors first define the elementary conditions governing combustion efficiency, dividing these conditions into three main classes. They next compare engines operating on constant volume, constant temperature and constant pressure cycles, dealing specifically with the Otto, Diesel and semi-Diesel types. The main part of the paper is devoted to an outline of the constant pressure cycle, analyzing its advantages as compared with the merits of the constant volume cycle now used in internal-combustion engines. The paper is concluded with a detail description of a proposed constant pressure engine.

In order to achieve lean burn engine control system, it is necessary to develop high accuracy air fuel ratio control technology including transient driving condition and lean burn limit expansion technology. This paper describes the following. 1 The characteristics of the transient response of the fuel supply are clarified when various kinds of air flow measuring methods and fuel injection methods are used. 2 To achieve stable combustion in lean mixture, fine fuel droplet mixture, whose diameter is less than 40 μm, needs to be supplied.

Unsteady laminar flame propagation confined in a closed cylindrical combustion bomb is studied by numerical computation for an axisymmetric two-dimensional laminar flame. Computation includes complete two-dimensional unsteady Navier-Stokes equations of change for a chemically reacting propane-air mixture. Implicit Continuous fluid Eulerian, Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian finite difference technique, simplified reaction kinetics models, and artificial flame stretching transformation and inverse transformation were adopted in the calculation. Physically realistic flame behavior can be demonstrated even with rather coarse computing cell size, simplified reaction kinetics models, and personal computer level low power computing machines.

A procedure has been developed for evaluating equivalent drive cycle emission results from raw exhaust gas emissions data obtained from an engine under test on a computer controlled Vehicle Simulator Engine Dynamometer. The emitted species data is integrated with the air intake flow rate to determine the total mass of emissions, after correcting for the reduction in exhaust gas mass due to precipitation of the moisture of combustion. This procedure eliminates the need for the Constant Volume Sample (CVS) System attached to the vehicle exhaust while undergoing simulated drive testing on a chassis dynamometer to evaluate compliance of the test vehicle with the Australian Design Rules, ADR27 and ADR37. Sources of error with the procedure are examined by comparing the fuel consumption measured using a volumetric technique during the test with that evaluated by a carbon balance procedure as given in the Australian Design Rules.