BOOKS
Page 31
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Engine testing
• In his foreword to -The Testing of Internal Combustion Engines", Sir Harry Ricardo writes: "The second generation of this famous little book will continue to give guidance and instruction to the professional engine tester and to the student, and to make both more than a match for the engine."
The authors of the book, A. B. Greene and G. G. Lucas are staff members of the Department of Transport Technology, Loughborough University of Technology, and the book is based on the original edition by S. J. young and R. W. J. Pryer which was first publishpd around 1937.
While Sir Harry pays tribute to the book as an aid to professional testers and students, I consider that it has an even wider scope. It can be recommended to anyone who has a technical interest in engine performance. No-one can have a proper appreciation of the merits or shortcomings of diesel and petrol engines without a knowledge of testing power units in the laboratory. And this book could well be instructive to those who are incapable of understanding some of the higher mathematics.
Descriptions are given of all types of dynamometer, performance characteristics are outlined in detail and of special interest a chapter on indicator diagrams shows how such diagrams are obtained and how they are interpreted. A chapter on ancillary experiments gives useful data on calorific values of fuels and exhaust gas analysis.
P.A.C.B.
Freight reference manual • Over the years, the Goods Vehicle Yearbook has established a solid reputation as a reference work primarily for hauliers. Now in a 1970 edition just published it takes on a new guise as the Freight Industry Yearbook, enlarged not only in size but also in scope and providing a range of useful reference information across a broad field of road/rail/sea/air goods transport.
The book, which costs £5 5s. net from Modern Transport Publishing Co. Ltd., Terminal House. Shepperton, Middlesex, runs to 276 pages and measures 11/in. by As before, it lists manufacturers and suppliers of road transport vehicles, bodywork, trailers, components, handling equipment and the like, and has a directory of organizations and associations in the transport world. But as well as expanded guides to road haulage and own-account operators the new volume introduces directories of specialized road carriers, forwarding agents, intermodal container carriers, container repair and cleaning agents. Freightliner depots and services and air freight agents.
A whole section, with route maps. is devoted to international road transport services into and through Europe. The familiar guide to road transport law, in summary form, has been brought up to date and includes an explanation of the main effects of the 1968 Transport Act.
A page is devoted to the regional and national administration of the Lorry Driver of the Year Competition: there is a useful guide to goods vehicle taxation rates: and a table of comparative costs of fast parcels services will be useful to shippers and traffic offices.
Altogether a most useful reference work, clearly presented and stoutly bound. H.B.C.