FUEL ECONOMY IN THE SERVICES.
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How Imports Could Be Reduced and Home Products Employed.
SINCE THE APPEARANCE in the issue of TEE COMMERCIAL MOTOR Of 30th August, 1917, of a detailed description of the apparatus, we have kept in close and careful touch with the Paterson carburetter, because, as we said in that article, we have the conviction that the inventor, Mr. A. D. Paterson, of Christchurch, New Zealand, has applied to the carburation of motor fuels an entirely new and revolutionary principle—that of supplying -the mixture at a temperature in inverse ratio to the speed of the engine, or, as Mr. Paterson puts it, to the degree. of throttle opening.
The foolish wastefulness of o.ur present system of obtaining power from petroleum products, through the medium of the internal-combustion engine, is well known, and coupled with this is the fact that the growth of the motorear. movement throughout the world has Considerably outpaced the production of petrol.. So mph is this the case that petrol, which used to be of .680 specific gravity, is now, as supplied to the motoring public, rarely ever lighter than .725, whilst there is every prospect that, after the war, the density of the fuel will gradually become heavier as the demand for quantity compels us to use the heavier fractions. To the commercial vehicle owner this must mean greater running costs, as greater driving skill would be called for.
The clue to the solution of the problem is, however, heat properly amilied to the fuel on its way to the combustion chamber, so that it shall reach there always as if dry gas, expanded to the least possible degree, and thus . affording the greatest volumetric efficiency. No earlier attempts at the solution of the problem have ever succeeded in accomplishing this, but, since the publication of the essence of Mr. Paterson's system, many authorities have acknowledged the accuracy of the reasoning behind that system.
The facts have been placed before the naval and military authorities, who have, albeit tardily, recognized the advantages accruing from the employment of the Paterson invention, but progress towards its general employment has been extraordinarily slow. And yet, at a very small expense for fitting up a• modified apparatus, it is claimed that, on the present
consumptionof spirit in Service vehicles, motor patrol boats and other applications of the internal-combustion engine in the Services, at the very least 10 million gallons of motor spirit could be saved in a twelvemonth.
Such a claim as this demands serious attention, particularly when it is pointed out that the saving in shipping space can be even greater than these figures represent, because, at once, many home-produced fuels distilled from coal, cannel and shale can be employed in place of imported petroleum products.
A number of tests carefully supervised and checked have been made with different fuels employed through the Paterson carburetter, not only in 1"i ew Zealand and Australia, but also in this country, and they have shown that paraffin or kerosene is rendered readily volatile, and that even heavier oils, such as tar distillate can be employed without trouble. '
In January, a test, officially observed, was carried out over a distance of 472 miles from Christchurch to Dunedin, N.Z., and back, the weight of the car and load being 1 ton 16 cwt. The running time.was 19 hrs. 55 mins, and the average speed 23.7 miles per hour, the roads being heavY and the weather by no Means favourable. The fuel used was tar distillate, costing Is. 3d. per gallon, and the consumption was 19.75gallons, giving a fuel consumption of one gallon per 23.9 miles, equal to 44.2 ton-miles. The fuel cost worked out at 11d, per passenger for the journey.
We have referred to a modified use of the system. It is, of course, recognized that, in the present circumstances, metals being required for essential munitions, it would not be reasonable to suggest the replacement of the existing carburetter with a new one even if it can give a fuel economy (as is claimed) of 20 per cent. and a cost economy, through the use of heavier and cheaper fuels, of from 70 to 80 per cent. But a modified system, calling for a very small expenditure of metal, would effect a saving of quite 10 per cent. on the fuel at present used in the Services and, in view of all the circumstances, it does therefore Seem reasbnable that some effort should be made to take advantage of the system..