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The paper is a presentation of a practical solution for the coordination of military and commercial transport with rail and water transport. The necessity for combining and coordinating transportation facilities with the idea of organizing a homogeneous transportation network of waterways, railways and highways, proved to be the essence of success in military operations during the World War. The utter inadequacy of pre-war and war-time transport facilities, when organized in the separate fields of railroad, maritime shipping and port operations, and the decentralized elements of highway transport, caused the United States Army to make a comprehensive study and plan of the world's war-time transportation with particular attention to the organization of motor transport as the necessary factor in coordinating all transportation facilities. The salient features and general principles of this study and the resultant plan are stated.

Annual Meeting and Detroit Section Paper - As the success or failure of the finish of an automobile depends largely on the finishing-varnish, a plea is made for more scientific analyses of the problems of automobile finishing and more care in selecting and applying a suitable varnish. The qualities to be desired in a finishing-varnish are divided into two classes: the shop qualities and the service qualities. The shop qualities include color, body or viscosity, working, flowing, setting, hardening, fullness and the safety of working. The service qualities, or those that enable the varnish to withstand the various conditions of use, include resistance to break-down under the chemical action of the actinic rays of sunlight, to the destructive action of moisture and the alkalis in mud and soap, to expansion and contraction, to vibration and to abrasion.

The author quotes statistics relating to the proportion of closed to open bodies and outlines the changes that have taken place in body construction in recent years. He sketches the advances that have been made and states that the question to be answered now relates to what all this improvement in manufacturing methods has accomplished toward reducing the price of a closed-car body to the consumer. He compares the percentage of public benefit in 1922 with that of 1914, excluding the period of inflated prices immediately following the war, and states that it is 10 to 15 per cent, but says also that this is an unfair comparison because of the excessive increases in the cost of labor, lumber, sheet steel and trimming cloth. An unconventional type of body, covered entirely with fabric over a foundation of wire-mesh and buckram fastened to the conventional wood-framing, is illustrated and described in detail, together with a statement of its advantages.

Annual Meeting Paper - The heat-dissipating properties of three types of radiator core have been investigated at the Mason Laboratory, Yale University. These include the fin-and-tube, the ribbon and the air-tube groups, so classified according to the flow of the water and the air. The ratio of the cooling surface to the volume is shown to be nearly the same in the fin-and-tube and the air-tube cores, while that of the ribbon core is somewhat greater. A formula is derived for computing the heat-transfer coefficient, which is defined as the number of heat units per hour that will pass from one square foot of surface per degree of temperature-difference between the air and the water and is the key to radiator performance, as by it almost any desired information can be obtained. When the heat-transfer coefficients have been found for a sufficiently wide range of water and air-flows the cooling capacity of a radiator can be computed for any desired condition.

Stating that most of the copying of aircraft practice in post-war car-design has proved a failure because the fundamental difference in duty has not been realized, the author proposes to show wherein the automobile designer and the engine builder can profit by the use of practice developed for air-cooled aircraft engines and, after generalizing on the main considerations involved, discourses on the simplicity of layout of the efficient air-cooled cylinder as a preface to a somewhat detailed discussion regarding cylinder design and performance, inclusive of valve location, type of finning and form of cylinder-head.

In the case of the internal-combustion engine, where virtually every separate portion of explosive mixture behaves differently, the usual thermodynamic interpretations of the pressure-volume indicator-card, as applied to steam engineering, have little value. In internal combustion, the pressure-volume diagram is of value only as an expression for the product of the force exerted upon the piston-top times the distance through which the piston moves. The paper (Indiana Section) begins with the fundamental phenomena and develops from them a diagram such that each fuel-mixture particle can be properly exposed for analysis during the process of combustion. This is termed the pressure-volume-quantity card, and it is described in detail and illustrated. An extended consideration of its surfaces follows, inclusive of mathematical analysis.

The author describes a series of road service-tests, made on stock cars driven by their usual drivers when using fuel of specified grades, to determine the effect of any changes in the fuel volatility on the gasoline mileage for the respective make of car, as part of a general research program undertaken jointly by the automotive and the petroleum industries. The object was to determine the best fuel as regards volatility, from the general economic standpoint, and what grade of fuel would afford the maximum car-mileage per barrel of crude oil consumed. Factors influencing the selection of cars used are enumerated and the fuels tested are discussed, together with general comment and a description of the test procedure. The results are tabulated and commented upon at some length, inclusive of descriptions of the methods. A summary of the results is presented in the form of conclusions that are stated in four specific divisions.

The rail motor-cars now used by the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad are illustrated and commented upon, and statistical data regarding their operation are presented. The features mentioned include engine type and size, transmission system, gear-ratio, double end-control, engine cooling, heating by utilizing exhaust gases and exclusion of exhaust-gas fumes from the car interior. A table gives revenue data.

Aerodynamic analysis relates mainly to questions of performance and stability, the latter including both maneuverability and control, but the designer's problems concern chiefly the prediction of the best possible performance. Accurate analysis, which would include a summation of the elemental resistances of an aircraft part by part and the making of many corrections, supplemented by tests of models in a wind-tunnel, involves much labor and expense. When a preliminary choice of dimensions and specifications for a new type of an airplane is to be made or there is a question of the performance attainable with a given load and power, a shorter method becomes necessary. This is to be found in the derivation of simplified formulas and graphs.

The author gives a short history and general description of duralumin and quotes the Navy specification of its physical properties as drawn by the Naval Aircraft Factory. The manufacture of duralumin is described and commented upon, inclusive of an enumeration of the improvement in physical properties produced at each stage. The physical properties are stated for annealed, heat-treated and hard-rolled duralumin, and some of the possible automotive applications are suggested, inclusive of wormwheels, hearings, gears, connecting-rods, rims and wheel parts and chassis and body trimming. A report by the research department of the Fifth Avenue Coach Co. on the results of a test it made on duralumin wormwheels is included and the author details the advantages he claims as being attendant upon the use of duralumin.

The development of intake-manifolds in the past has been confined mainly to modifications of constructional details. Believing that the increased use of automotive equipment will lead to a demand for fuel that will result in the higher cost and lower quality of the fuel, and being convinced that the sole requirement of satisfactory operation with kerosene and mixtures of the heavier oils with alcohol and benzol is the proper preparation of the fuel in the manifold, the authors have investigated the various methods of heat application in the endeavor to produce the minimum temperature necessary for a dry mixture. Finding that this minimum temperature varied with the method of application of the heat, an analysis was made of the available methods on a functional rather than a structural basis.

After pointing out that the general question of weight reduction is no exception to the fallacies that seem to have beset the development of the automobile from its earliest days, the author outlines briefly the problem confronting the automobile designer. The influence of the weight of the reciprocating parts on the chassis in general and the engine in particular is emphasized as being of greater importance than the actual saving in the weight of the parts themselves, it being brought out that the bearing loading due to inertia is really the factor that limits the maximum engine speed. Reference is made to the mathematical investigation by Lanchester in 1907 of the advantages of using materials of high specific-strength and the conclusions arrived at are quoted in full. A tabulation of the specific strengths of various materials used in automotive engineering practice is presented as showing the advantages of aluminum as compared with steel.

Metropolitan-New England Sections Paper - The loss of power due to the friction of the various parts of the chassis has been carefully and elaborately investigated by a dynamometer, the dual purpose being the determination of the amount of internal frictional resistance of the front or rear wheels and the measurement of the power that can be delivered at the rear wheels with the concomitant rate of fuel consumption. The rolling-friction due to the resistance of the wheels as a whole is taken up first and afterward the separate resistances of the tires, bearings and transmission are studied under varying conditions of inflation-pressure and load. The five frictional resistances that were chosen as giving the most useful information are those of the front tires, the rear tires, the front bearings, the rear bearings and the engine.

Stating that the trend of tractor development must be toward the small tractor that is capable of handling all of the power work on a farm, the author quotes farm and crop-acreage statistics and outlines diversified farming requirements, inclusive of row-crop cultivation. Tractor requirements are stated to be for a sturdy compact design to meet the demands of the diversified farm, which include plowing, seeding, cultivating, hauling and belt-power usage, and these requirements are commented upon in general terms. Consideration is given to farm implements in connection with tractor operation, and the placing of cultivating implements ahead of the tractor is advocated.

The authors enumerate some of the questions that are involved and, after outlining a previous paper on the subject of plows, analyze these questions in part by the aid of diagrams and applied mathematics. Comparative draft data are presented in tabular form and commented upon, as well as comparative hitch-length data. Tractor reactions are explained and discussed in some detail in a similar manner, special attention being given to the reactions on a slope and up-hill. The reactions on cross-furrow slopes are considered, comparisons being made between two tractors that were reported upon in the University of Nebraska tests. The factors involving tractor stability and resistance against overturn are analyzed. The authors state that the analysis presents a definite method of attack for the more correct solution of the proper hitching-point, as well as being a study relating to lug design.

After generalizing on the need for greater consideration in automobile design for service and maintenance requirements, the author discusses the accessibility of car parts at some length with the idea of pointing out difficulties encountered by service-station mechanics when parts are inaccessible, this having a bearing also on the length of time required for repair work and the consequent increased cost to the car owner. Specific instances are given and illustrated in which improvements in design could be made to obviate trouble. These are inclusive of cylinders, cylinder blocks, pistons, bolts, cap-screws, nuts, valves, dashboard instruments and general take-up adjustment. Special emphasis is placed upon certain inaccessible parts that necessitate excessive dismantling.

The author states that motor transport today is threatened with arrested progress due to the lack of economic coordination between motor-vehicle operation, highway construction and legislative regulation. Highways constructed at considerable cost to the public have gone to pieces in many places, sometimes years before their bond issues have matured. Efforts to preserve these roads have been confined principally to heavy taxation and restriction of motor transport; they have not been made upon a sound economic basis, largely because principles of highway-transport economics are not only imperfectly understood, but have hardly been studied sufficiently to provide any definite basis of understanding.

Dr. Dickinson outlines the history of the Research Department since its organization, indicates why the universities are the principal bases of operation for pure research, describes how the department functions as a clearing-house with regard to research data and comments upon the bright prospects for the future. He enumerates also the facilities the Research Department has for the coordination of research problems. The practical achievements of the Department have resulted from its recent concentration upon the three major projects of study with regard to the tractive resistance of roads, with reference to fuel and to testing programs, and of an effort to render financial assistance to the Bureau of Standards and the Bureau of Mines that would enable these Bureaus to continue their elaborate research programs, details of all of this work being included.

The author describes the research work on the internal-combustion engine done recently in his laboratory in England, and presents his deductions therefrom, based upon an analysis of the evidence he has obtained to date. Fuels are discussed at length under three specific headings, many tabular data being included and commented upon, and the calculation of thermal efficiency described. Mean volatility and detonation are discussed and the author's present views regarding turbulence are stated, this being followed by a brief summary of the conclusions reached by Mr. Tizard, a colleague of the author, following recent investigations. The influence of the nature of the fuel upon detonation is presented, a lengthy discussion of the subject of stratification being given under three specific divisions, inclusive of comment upon the benefits derived from using weak fuel-mixtures.