1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200 
Mintech . . . geared to aid transport
Page 80
Page 81
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
At the annual luncheon of the Motor Industry Research Association, the new Minister of Technology, ANTHONY WEDGWOOD BENN, MP, said he was determined that some of the vast resources of his expanded Ministry should be used to help the British motor industry. He also called for more cooperative research. COMMERCIAL MOTOR'S technical editor, TONY WILDING, asked him to elaborate in an exclusive interview.
Wilding: In what fields do you think your Ministry can assist operators and manufacturers of goods vehicles and p.s.v.?
Bean: I think the most valuable general contribution we could make is by helping manufacturers to improve their production techniques, reduce costs and improve reliability. Exploitation of new vehicle design principles will certainly improve flexibility of engines and transmissions, safety and air pollution.
Wilding: The assistance in this respect is through the various research establishments, the 18 or so that you are interested or involved in? Through grants and so on?
Benn: There are various ways in which we can assist. We do of course provide some assistance to the Motor Industry Research Association direct. If firms come along with research and development projects we certainly like to look at them and we have access in our own establishments to a great deal of know-how.
Wilding: At the MIRA lunch you referred to commercial vehicle design from the safety aspect. What items, in particular, do you feel should be examined by operators and designers?
Benn: Two items at the moment are probably worth particular attention: anti-lock braking devices, particularly for the large articulated vehicles, and measures to reduce driver fatigue such as considerations of visibility and noise. The most important aspects of safety are those related to regular inspection and maintenance.
Wilding: There has been a considerable improvement in the past seven years in vehicle design. Would you care to comment on how far you think we have gone in this time?
Benn: I think there has been a tremendous improvement. If you compare visibility alone from the driver's cab over recent years, the latest design is really first rate. On the other hand if you examine the impact of new safety regulations in the United States and you look at the fact that these may spread and indeed ought to spread, I think you will find there is still room for improvement.
Wilding: Do you think enough attention is paid to possible new forms of power unit for commercial vehicles?
Benn: A lot of research and development is being carried out but I think that more consideration might well be given to the possible advantages of turbocharging. Some investigations might also be carried out with respect to combined cycles. For example, high b.m.e.p. exhausting to a gas turbine geared to the main output shaft.
It is also important that existing power units should be fully developed by the use of new materials and techniques to improve efficiency. Get to maximum efficiency and at that there should be a minimum of atmospheric pollution. The key seems to be not just the development of entirely new ideas but the use of science and engineering to perfect work already going on and existing systems.
Wilding: Of course a lot has been going on, and a lot of novelties are in existence at the very bottom of the development scale. But will it not take many years to get these accepted by operators?
Benn: We as a department are trying to stimulate and encourage things that are already going on. It would be a great mistake to think that we are trying to direct anybody as to what to do. We are trying to find points of growth, new things that are worth pursuing and help them to develop. People who are working on ideas that have a potentiality will find in the Ministry of Technology a friend.
Wilding: Is there any way in which the Ministry of Technology links with the Ministry of Transport in its work?
Benn: We link with them in a number of ways. A lot of work in our own laboratories has a bearing on transport interests. We are also discussing with the Ministry of Transport what joint research and development programmes we should undertake which have a bearing on transport in its widest sense.
We have quite a lot of common interests and I would hope that the commercial motor industry, though it is primarily responsible to the Ministry of Transport, would regard us as their natural friends on any relevant matters involving engineering or research or development. I don't think you will find any difficulty about coming to us because we're in such close touch with them.
Wilding: Can you refer to any particular avenues of development or research that are being undertaken at the moment that will bring about the end result that you would like to seethe safety, improvement in vehicles and so on?
Benn: Work done by MIRA which we help to finance is obviously part of this, as it includes safety aspects. We've research and development work going on in diesel engines which might conceivably have some bearing, and work on hydrostatic transmission at the National Engineering Laboratory.
We are concerned with various aspects of pollution which has a link with the motor industry. Then there is our work on shipbuilding, relative insofar as shipbuilding leads to the greater use of containers and container ships will connect directly with the container revolution on the roads.
These are just some of the examples that come immediately to mind—not to mention the possible development of hovercraft or the aircushion principle and very many projects like production engineering.
The production engineering advisory service which begins in about a week or two will greatly help manufacturers of commercial vehicles so that by and large we are very deeply involved in the sort of work you are engaged in.
Wilding: What effect do you think the aircushion principle might have on road transport?
Berm: Air-cushion vehicles have a lot of practical difficulties to overcome. There are a number of limitations on the type of surface on which they can operate and at the moment they make an awful lot of noise. I don't know how long this is going to be a feature. But the air-cushion principle can certainly be applied—in terminals for example for turnround facilities.
It is a great mistake to think of the air-cushion vehicle only in terms of a vehicle. It is the aircushion principle applied to the sort of problems that confront people engaged in the commercial motor business that is likely to be more rewarding.
Wilding: We saw an example of this recently with a vehicle carrying a 150-ton transformer. The load was spread and it saved the weight on bridges.
Benn: This is really what I was trying to get at. It may be that the development of new techniques, particularly the air cushion, is going to be best exploited by combining it with other things. Once you have got over the excitement of a new invention you can sit back and see how to take advantage of it. It may be that just the existence of the new invention gives you new light on an old problem.
Wilding: What is your opinion of existing training methods for maintenance staff and engineers in road transport, and designers in commercial vehicle design offices?
Benn: I find one of the most encouraging things is the great development of technical colleges which are running study courses. And what is so attractive about a technical college is that it isn't an isolated training centre at all: it is a university with porous walls. People are always coming in and out and you get the block release and day release system under which apprentices and others come in and out and do further training.
I think many opportunities for more advanced courses of study are available and the Government does try to encourage people to take advantage of them. But here as in every other field the need for more skill, for higher levels of skill and for retraining to higher levels of skill is going to be the key to the speed with which we can advance.
Wilding: Do you think there's a chance that we're tending too much to the theoretical? Do you need high academic qualifications—or practical engineers?
Benn: You need both. A great deal of the engineering work that has to be undertaken involves academic analysis. If you are not using modern data logging methods and computers to process information you are going to deny yourself the basic scientific knowledge that enables you to design good engines and so on.
But as more engines and machines come into use you need a far larger body of more highly skilled technician engineers responsible for the practical aspects.
I don't see any danger here of shutting out the practical man from engine design. It is important that the graduate engineer should have an opportunity of being put on an absolute equality of footing with the scientist, the pure scientist. And at the same time, while more technician engineers will be required than graduate engineers, you should alway maintain some ladder that would enable the so-called technician engineer to become the graduate engineer by Lifting his own level of skill.
We are living in a period when there's an explosion of demand for skills at all levels and I think that we've a reasonable chance of catering for them all.
Wilding: Do engineers in road transport enjoy a sufficient status?
Bean: I don't think engineers in Britain enjoy a sufficient status at aU. I think this is one of the great defects of our society arising out of our educational system; out of the fact that many teachers have never been in industry. They just go to school and then to teachers' training college or university and then they go back to school and I am sure in general the question—or the answer—is that they don't enjoy sufficient status.
But it is a little difficult to define what you mean by engineers for this purpose because status and supply of graduate engineers is one problem. The other problem is the spreading of much higher levels of skill among practical engineers of the kind that you were mentioning.
MECHANICALS FOR CANADA
THE summer meeting of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers is to be held in Canada from June 3 to 14 with technical discussions and visits including one to Detroit, USA.
DATES FOR IRTE THE SECOND national conference of the Institute of Road Transport Engineers will be held at the Grand Hotel, Birmingham, from May 19 to May 21, with Sir William Swallow in the chair. The theme: all aspects of legislation, brakes, conversion kits, safety, jack-knifing and design.
Dunlop Luton Depot: A £35,000 tyre distribution depot has been opened by Dunlop on the 24-acre Percy Bilton industrial estate at Luton. Beds.
More M4: The 12 miles of new M4 between Coldra. east of Newport, and the roundabout at Newhouse, on the western approach to the Severn and Wye bridges, will be opened to traffic on Wednesday.
Urban Clearway: Five-and-a-half miles of the A5 from Kingsbury Road to Marble Arch will be an urban clearway from Monday. But on certain stretches there will be peak-hour loading restrictions only-8 a.m. to 9.30 a.m. and 4.30 p.m. to 6.30 p.m.—to enable shops and business premises to be serviced.