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Resilient Road Wheels.

16th January 1908
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Page 17, 16th January 1908 — Resilient Road Wheels.
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

Mr. G. Stuart Ogilvie, the inventor and patentee of the " Vieo " wheel, is to be congratulated upon the considerable measure of success which has now been demonstrated as the outcome of many years of patient effort and trial. He has, as a motorist and a hard driver, had every opportunity of putting this admirable device to the test under severe conditions of load and speed, whilst, as will be gathered from the brief summary and description which is given later, he has not omitted to subject his system to the even more exacting demands which are put upon an irontired wheel on the driving axle of a motor lorry.

The Need ol a Resilient Road Wheel.

Mr. Ogilvie, in the course of a most interesting paper which he read before members of the Automobile Club on the night of the 9th instant, dealt at some length with data which have accumulated in regard to the cost of pneumatic tires upon heavy cars of touring patterns, and with an average running weight of approximately two tons each. We cannot spare the room to quote details of these costs, and it must suffice to say that they showed an average expenditure in excess of 6ii. per car mile, a figure which compares very unfavourably with the total expenditure on the mechanical upkeep of the same class of vehicle. The experience of users of motorvans tends in the direction of the prohibition of the pneumatic tire for vehicles which have to carry loads appreciably in excess of 12;li cwt., and it will be within the recollection of many of our readers that this class of tire failed disastrously, in the recent trials of the R.A.C., under the effects of one-ton loads. In the circumstances, however, we are inclined to agree with Mr. Ogilvie when he emphasises the consequences, both direct and indirect, of the heavy outgoings which are experienced in this connection, and we quote a few of his sentences on the subject : It is no exaggeration to say that there are hundreds and probably thousands of prospective customers who are deterred from purchasing an automobile to-day solely on account of the costly upkeep of the tires. The number of those who can afford to ignore this bill is limited—indeed, threatens to become exhausted—while the exceedingly satisfactory and economic longevity of the high-grade motorcars now on the road again indirectly lessens the demand for new machines The market must be widened by the introduction of some substitute for the treacherous and costly pneumatic tire."

The Ugly Duckling.

The reader of the paper introduced the business vehicle in an original and amusing manner. He said : " There is another type of motor which is just beginning to make itself felt in another sphere of usefulness, and which is assuredly destined to affect a yet wider economy in transit even than the pleasure car. I refer, of course, to the commercial vehicle. Purely utilitarian, lacking in elegance and romance, our commercial Abigail—other than the motorbus—has not heretofore appealed to the public fancy. The company promoter has not as yet, therefore, assailed her virtue with infamous proposals. She is the ugly duckling of the motor brood whose eventual development may yet amaze and confound her daintier sisters in the yard. But the economy of the commercial vehicle, even more than that of the pleasure motorcar, is governed by the conduct of its road wheels." Mr. Ogilvie next devoted a considerable section of his paper to the important bearing of the wheel and tire question upon the growing use of commercial vehicles for loads between 15 cwt. and 3,1tons more particularly. He argued, in common with all who have studied the question with care, in favour of large-diameter wheels, and expressed the view that the larger first cost of rubber had forced manufacturers to reduce diameters more than was reasonable on other grounds. He acknowledged that it was necessary to use a silencing band, of rubber or other material, for the treads of the floating rims of his " Vieo " wheels, but added : "While admitting that on the wheels of commercial passenger vehicles sonic sort of silencing band is undoubtedly desirable, this is not necessary for commercial goods transportation, and, if a resilient vibration-absorbing wheel can be produced, with an iron or other tread, it does not seem reasonable or scientific to attempt to obtain the same resilience by placing so tender and expensive a substance as rubber on the outer periphery of a heavily-laden power-driven wheel. A whimsical writerrecently described such a proceeding as being about as sensible as sending a navvy to his work in felt slippers.'

Sick Unto Death: The Crisis Over.

After a statement of the cost of rubber tires upon a certain van, which figures, as was pointed out in the subsequent discussion, were really exceptional and no fair criterion of costs for such tires if properly proportioned to their load, Mr. Ogilvie completed the introductory part of his address in the terms of the two paragraphs which follow :

"The other class of commercial motor, conveying passengers instead of goods—the motor omnibus—lies sick unto death. But signs are not wanting that the crisis has passed, and that convalescence is in sight. The motorbus has proved too great an economic factor in the daily life of millions in this great city to be allowed to pass away, and when the authorities responsible for the regulation of the traffic in the cramped and congested streets of London have once grasped the obvious fact that, quite apart from the enormous saving in the initial capital outlay, the dirigible motor omnibus, by reason of the fluidity of such traffic, offers a peculiarly cheap, convenient, and speedy means of passenger transportation in places and under conditions where the undirigible tram it an absolute impossibility, we may reasonably suppose that the harassing conditions under which this new industry has been struggling will be largely ameliorated, and that a new era of prosperity will dawn upon the poor man's motorcar. But this can never be until the present inefficient, unresilient road wheels, with their consequent destruction of chassis, aggravated by an exorbitant bill for perishable tires, are exchanged for a durable, economic, vibration-absorbing, and transmission-gearprotecting resilient road wheel."

Grasp the Nettle.

"I have tried to emphasise the intimate economic relation of the automobile to its road wheels. It will avail the motorcar manufacturer nothing to attempt weakly to burke this vital question. The output of pleasure cars is being restricted by the present tire bill ; the whole future of the commercial vehicle is dependent upon its road wheels. The heavy motorcar manufacturer must grasp his nettle or he will be badly stung. He must realise it is as futile to build ships on the waterless Sahara as to manufacture commercial vehicles without efficient wheels to run upon. If he continue to press the sale of his vehicles upon

the small body of enterprising customers who are the pioneers of this, the next, great motorcar development, without first securing an adequate, economic, vibration-absorbing wheel, he will kill the goose that otherwise will lay more golden eggs than perhaps the manufacturer ever dreams of. For it is certain that, once given an efficient wheel, the economy in time and money effected by the substitution of mechanical for horse traction in the transportation of heavy goods by road will cause such a demand for this class of motor that it will, in a very few years, throw the manufacture of pleasure cars into absolute insignificance."

The Conditions of Resiliency.

These, as stated by Mr. Ogilvie, are of particular interest, and we quote a portion of his paper in this connection. He writes :—

"The essence of any practical road wheel is that it shall be capable of conveying heavy weights at high speeds over uneven surfaces, without injury to itself, its axle, or the chassis and load borne thereon. Furthermore, in a power-driven wheel—and it is the power-driven wheel that is the crux of automobilism—it is essential that the transmission gear, which conveys the torque of the engine to the road wheel, shall be protected against road shocks, and, still more, against the sudden strain of overcoming the inertia of heavy weight when starting, by some subsidiary buffing agent. To -do this

1. The wheel must possess stability—lateral and circumferential.

2. It must absorb vibration.

3. It must yield to concussion.

4. It must be durable, and therefore economic.

5. It must be simple of design, accessible of detail, and easy to repair.

a. It must not, when power-driven, convey the torque of the engine through its primary resilient medium.

7. It must convey this torque through a secondary resilient medium.

S. It must distribute the axle-weight over as wide a superficies of resilient material as possible.

9. It must sit down on the road '--that is to say, resilience must be obtained without the tread of the wheel losing its friction drive off the road surface.

10. It must give fair warning of approaching collapse arising from wear or accident.

11. It must be easy of draught.

12. It must be silent in running.

I would add, not as essentials, but as highly desirable qualities

of the ideal wheel, that—

It should be impervious to atmospheric conditions.

It should be elegant and pleasing to the eye."

We should add, as being distinctly essential considerations from the users' standpoint, that reasonable first cost, reasonable maintenance, and freedom from liability to derangement, are of equal importance in any specification of this character, and we are pleased to be able to add that there is concrete evidence to show that a considerable advance has been made in all of these directions by Mr. Ogilvie.

The Merits and Faults of Air-filled Tires.

• A lament as to the variable wear which is yielded by covers for pneumatic tires was next voiced, striking examples of

fluctuation being given. On the general subject of the use and retention of air in the inner tubes of such tires, the lecturer remarked, inter alia :—

" Of all known resilient mediums, air compressed to a moderate degree is the best. It never tires ; it never deteriorates ; it never varies in quality ; it costs nothing ; it weighs nothing ; it is extremely recuperative. Where, then, is the flaw in this apparently ideal medium? It is exceedingly difficult of retention. The only absolutely reliable receptacle for air under pressure is a steel cylinder with a screw top. It is a physical impossibility to confine compressed air within a flexible cover with any sense of security. Sooner or later it will suddenly escape, and no amount of care can be certain of always detecting any outward and visible sign of the impending catastrophe. That is the inherent defect in compressed air as a resilient medium, and this defect seems to be aggravated by the process employed in manufacturing the outer covers of all existing pneumatic tires—a process which appears peculiarly liable to error. Nothing baffles the would-be statist more than the uncertain behaviour of these covers. It is common knowledge that we may buy two outer covers at the same time and the same price and of the same manufacture and run them under the same conditions, and yet— quite apart from all fortuitous accidents due to punctures or road wounds—one cover will give three times the life of its twin brother."

Spring Wheels.

The inventor of a spring wheel has a sorry time nowadays. No matter what he may produce, no immediate regard is paid to his ingenuity or cleverness, and he has to suffer for the failings of those who have preceded him in this field of investigation and experiment. In fact, one may justly say that the majority of people who are connected with the motor industry positively seek a means of escape at the approach of an inventor of a spring wheel, who is still degrees more close to anathema than were inventors of side-slip devices a year ago. It is, therefore, admittedly a difficult matter for any inventor to secure anything approaching a general recognition of merit in a spring or resilient wheel in the early days of its exploitation, because there are limits, both physical and mechanical, to the powers of endurance of those who are asked to examine and criticise them. We are, accordingly, all the more ready to express our admiration for Mr. Ogilvie's tenacity, since he, in the face of rebuffs and hyper-critical remarks from both casual and expert observers, has shown the value of his invention on the road, and has adduced Sufficient proof of its successful application to justify its admission in the world of commercial motoring as a practical method of construction for particular uses. We make only this short extract from his paper here

I am aware, gentlemen, that the spring wheel, as an engineering proposition, stands discredited alike in the eye of the public and the ear of the l'ress. There have been too many false Christs leading their credulous disciples away to die in the desert of futile invention. The crying need for a reliable resilient road wheel has temporarily been its own undoing. The reward that awaits success in this field is so great that it has attracted a multitude of clever opportunists and unfruitful John o' Dreams. The fever to get rich quickly and without effort is almost univer

sal ; the faith that hastens not is very rare indeed. The pioneer in every walk of life must bring to his task not only the human attribute of imagination, but also the primordial instinct of the Leaver and the bull-dog—an innate love of labour, an indomitable tenacity of purpOse. For it is not the sudden conception, but the slow and often painful gestation of an idea that alone justifies the inventive faculty."

The "Vieo" Wheel.

Mr. Ogilvie is an avowed opponent of the view that it is possible successfully to transmit torque, in a power-driven wheel, through its primary resilient medium, without nullifying the elasticity of that medium qua the absorption of road shocks. He has conceived the principle, and carried out the design of the " Vie() " with every regard to that opinion, and we shall now state a few of the facts and figures with which he supports his contentions about that wheel, before proceeding to describe it.

Economy.

Mr. Ogilvie, after paying a high compliment to the Rudge-Whitworth Company, as manufacturers of the wirespoked wheels which he has employed upon his 4oh.p. Daimler car, and after recounting how those on the driving axle had withstood a collision with an embankment when the front wheels, which are of the artillery pattern, had collapsed, proceeded to give some particulars of maintenance costs. It appears that the net cost of repairs for a pair of " Vieo " wheels upon the car in question was £'94 16s. Tod, for a distance of To,T To miles, or 2.26d. per carmile, compared with an average for similar cars, as previously stated, in excess of 6d. per car-mile, or a saving in excess of A.„-i7o per To,000 miles run. These savings, of course, have no application to commercial-vehicle practice, where the leading tire companies are prepared to guarantee a complete set of tires for a double-deck omnibus at a maximum of 2(1. per mile run, the actual contracts ranging between £75 and £83 per To,000 miles. There were adduced, none the less, some striking figures in connection with the use of a pair of " Vieo " wheels upon the back axle of a lorry in the service of Measures Brothers, Limited, this vehicle being a mh.p. Milt-les-Daimler chassis fitted with Hall's hydraulic transmission. One of these wheels is illustrated herewith, and it ran a total of 9,101 miles before the internal rubber rollers had to be replaced by new ones

at a total cost of 2 ios. The average load upon this lorry was 2A. tons, and the average back-axle weight some 4i tons. Its users have given high testimony to the durability of the wheels, and to the absence of any increase in fuel consumption. They have also testified to the noticeable reduction of noise and vibration with these wheels, even though they are shod with steel tires. The cost of maintenance for the ti.vo driving wheels came out at less than id. per mile.

Mr. Ogilvie intimated, towards the close of his paper, that the company is now engaged upon the application of wooden treads in conjunction with the wheel, with a view to their adoption on lorries and wagons of all kinds, and our readers will now be interested to have a brief description of the principle of construction of this wheel, together with sufficient details for them to appreciate its peculiar qualities. The company's address is Lindsay Works, Woodbridge, Suffolk, and every attention will be given to enquiries for quotations or specifications. The accompanying illustrations will convey to any reader the constructional features of this wheel. It will be observed that the inner member, which receives the final drive from the engine, has a series of helical springs arranged in its felloe, and that its rotation compresses these springs, one at a time, against the contained felloe stop which encounters the

adjoining projection, or horn, of the floating rim. There is, thus, always a direct drive between the parts, and the rubber rollers, which are inserted between the two members, give a considerable degree of resiliency. The life of these rollers is found to be very considerable, and can be prolonged by dressing them once a week with graphite, but care has to be taken that an extra roller is inserted as soon as there is room for it, as damage must result if any of the rollers get across the tread. A fresh roller has to be added on an average once in 1,500 to 2,000 miles.

In the above illustration, A and G represent a pair of stops; A effects the forward drive, and G the reverse. The horn, or rim driver, which is attached to the driving rim, and which is not shown., lies between these stops. The stop (A) is carried by a shoe (B), which is free to slide in a recess in the felloe as far as is allowed by the oval slot through which the s-top (A) protrudes. Behind the shoe (B) i.s a helical spring (C), which is pressed against the block (F). By withdrawing the belt (D), the block (E) can be removed, and access obtained to the spring, whilst F is a nozzle through which grease can be introduced. It will be observed that each spring in compression acts as a buffer to the drive in its transmission from the inner member of the wheel to the floating rim. It should be noted, too, that the construction of the wheel allows for circumferential movement between its two members, as well as vertical movement. Each of the felloe stops does the actual driving to the rim as the stop comes into the arc which would correspond, on a clock face, with the distance between 1.30 and 4.3o. If one of the helical springs collapses, the drive at that point is no longer a buffer one, but the vehicle can be run home, without damage to the wheel, in that condition, and a new spring inserted at the depAt. This operation takes about 15 minutes.

The wheel is one which should reduce repairs to the chassis, but in itself it introduces a new element for attention. Further experience can alone prove the extent to which it will be adopted.

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Organisations: Automobile Club
Locations: London

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