TRANSPORT AND SCIENCE.
Page 21
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Sir Henry Fowler, at the British Association Meeting, Emphasizes their Mutual Interests.
+WE ARE perhaps too apt at the present time to forget the obligation which the world owes to transportation, so commonplace have the improved methods become. It has been said that effective transportation is one of the great aids to civilization, but it must not be forgotten that all movement of material from place to place is economically waste so far as the dissipation of work is concerned. Problems of transportation have been solved more or less successfully in all ages, and some of them, such as the moving of the stone to Stonehenge, etc., still excite our wonder and admiration. Such works, and similar ones of much greater magnitude in the East, however, we feel as engineers could be accomplished by quite crude methods if there were unlimited labour available, and if time were of no consequence."
This striking passage occurred in the course of the presidential address under the heading of " Transport and Its Indebtedness to Science," delivered by Sir Henry Fowler, K.B.E., before the Engineering Section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, at Liverpool on Friday. September 14th. He said:— " There is no city in the Empire, or in the world, which is so dependent on traction in one way or the other as Liverpool, and I can also say, without fear of contradiction, that there is no city in the world which has acted as so great is pioneer in traction development as this one on the Mersey."
After a reference to railways, Sir Henry said:— An Observer in the Liverpool Trials.
"The other matter in which Liverpool has done pioneer work en traction is that of heavy motor traffic. From its inception in 1895 the Liverpool Self-propelled Traffic Association was specially connected with this method of transport. Under the presidency of the late Sir Alfred Jones, with the guidance of Dr. Hole Shaw, and under the organizing ability of its enthusiastic and energetic secretary, Mr. E. Shrapnell Smith (now Mr. E. S. Shrapnell-Smith, C.B.E.), it organized and carried out trials Of commercial vehicles in 1898, 1899 and 1901. In May, 1898, were carried out the first practical trials of these vehicles held in the country; and I had the honour of being the observer of the first lorry to leave the yard. The Motor Car Act of 1903, which allowed a practical weight for commercial road motor vehicles, was the result of a deputation of the Liverpool Self-propelled Traffic Association waiting on the President Of the Local Government Board (the Rt. Hon. Walter Long, now Viscdont Long) when, ho was on a visit to Liverpool.
"The transportation which aids civilization is that which cuts down the wastage of power to a minimum and which reduces the time occupied in carrying this out. It is here that science has helped in times past, and will help increasingly in the future if we are to go forward. In no other branch is Telford's dictum, that the science of engineering is 'the art of directing the great sources of power in Nature for the use and convenience of man,' so well exemplified,and this utilization has been carried forward at ever increasing speed during the last hundred years.
"Dealing with transport, it may be said, roughly, thatoitlis mainly dependent upon three things—the method of propulsion, the material available for use, and the, path over which traction takes 'Oats. I cannot deal fully even with one, of . these, and propose' to confine my remarks to the first two, which are the ones I sin best acquainted with. It may be said that advance in traction really became rapid when methods of propulsion other than those of animals and the force of the wind became available. The greatest step forward— wonderful as some of the achievements of aeronautics have been of recent years —came with the development of the steam engine.
Early Efforts at Steam Transport.
" The first attempt at traction by using a steam engine was a failure because of the lack of this knowledge. I refer to the work of Jonathan Hulls and his attempt in 1736-7 to apply one to the propulsion of a boat on the River Avon in Worcestershire. He failed because of the lack of that knowledge, although undoubtedly he possessed the necessary imagination. Although James Watt is not directly associated with traction, it was his application of-science to practical use that finally gave the greatest impulse to transportation that it has ever had.
"The interngi-combustion engine, as we almost universally have it Lo-day, is the result of the cycle adopted by N. A. Otto in his gas engine in 1876. It may be truly said that the advance made has been so much more rapid than in the case of the steam engine and electrical machinery, because of the more advanced state of scientific knowledge, and it farnishes an example of the assistance which this gives to progress.
"In relation to transport the work has proceeded on two, distinct lines, the Daimler and the Diesel engines. In 1885 Gottlieb Daimler produced the engine that is associated with his name, and which utilizes a light spirit evhich supplies a carburetted air for the explosive mixture for the cylinder. The development of this engine has itself proceeded in two directions. In the one it has been made very much more flexible and silent in its adaptation to motorcar work, whilst in the other the great .desideratum has been lightness, and in association with the improvements in the necessary materials had rendered•possible the aeroplane as we have it to-day. In both cases the development to the degree reached has been due to a careful study priraarily of the pressures, compression and composition of the mixture.
"The internal-combustion engine has not been largely used for rail transport owing to its comparatively high cost of fuel per horse-power and its lack of flexibility. The latter-is particularly the case when one remembers the high torque which is so desirable and which can be attained in both the steam and electric locomotives in starting.
"Of transport by road it may be said that.its commercial inception came at a time•when scientific knowledge was well advanced, and its progress in consequence was more rapid. It must not be forgotten that in the fairly early part of last century 'considerable work was done on. scientific,lines with steam cars, only to be abandoned when legislation made its continuance impossible. The development of the motorcar engine from the small unit,of Daimler to.the present car is undeniably due to the.use of 'ordered knowledge' of the gaseous mixture, of its ignition, of the fuel itself and of the compression that should be employed. Here, again, we have a case of the careful application of the principle developed with ever increasing care until we get engines as noiseless, as efficient, as reliable and as flexible as we have them to-day. It is a case, too, where the development is so recent that many of us can remember the scorn and distrust that this method of traction excited even here in this city that was so prominent in its inception 25 'years ago.
Valuable Metallurgical Research.
" We to-day have no basic metal or material which was not known when transport first turned to mechanical methods for assistance. The change which has come about has been as largely due to the advances made in metallurgy as to the inventioas hi mechanics that have led to the improvements in means of propulsion and in machinery. I am aware that neither of these would have been of any use were it not for the increase in facilities of production, but most certainly the scientific work of the metallurgist is one of the many points which, taken together, have caused the resultant progress. The early builders of steam engines were not only troubled through inability to get their engines machined properly, but also with the difficulties of obtaining suitable material for the parts they required. Steel has been known for thousands of years, 'but its rapid and economic production is of very recent growth. It has very truly been said that every great metallurgical discovery had led to a rapid advance in other directions.
"From the early uses of alloy steels there has grown up a large number of Various alloys, many of which are of the very greatest use for various transport purposes.
" At one time it looked as if the advantages which follow high compression and its resultant high temperatures might be lost owing to the inability of• ordinary steel; to resist the heat, but the employment of 13 per cent, chrome steel allowed work in this direction to be continued. Not only the aeroplane but the motorcar are the results of the work on alloy steels.
"It is not only -with steels that we have been benefited so much from research. The case is as marked with light alloys, which have aluminium as a base. The latter itself ie the result of investigation along scientific lines, and in aeronautical work particularly."