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• A NEW SUCTION GAS PRODUCER.:

23rd November 1920
Page 15
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Page 15, 23rd November 1920 — • A NEW SUCTION GAS PRODUCER.:
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A Description of the Pee Gee Pee Suction Gas Producer, which Combines Certain Novel Features with Extreme Simplicity.

THE HIGH COST of petrol, and the possibility that this fuel may be come more scarce and more expensive in the future, has caused a considerable amount of attention to be paid to other fuels for propelling internal-combustion-engined commercial vehicles, and particularly to those fuels capable of being produced at home.. Much experimenting and research has been conducted with alcohol and other liquid fuels, but up to the present without any great success, chiefly because of the difficulty of

obtaining adequate supplies. Certain inventors have turned their attention to the-possibility of utilizing suction gas as N fuel. The great difficulty has been to deign a plant which, whilst capable of delivering the necessary volume of gas for various engine speeds and Toads, should be light enough and small enough to carry on an ordinary lorry without adding materially to its weight or occu

pying excessive space. Until recently, the only producer which in any way met these requirements was that invented by Lieut-Golonel D. J. Smith, and it was proved that this apparatus could be used successfully with many different types of carbonaceous fuels, such as coal, coke, peat., etc. The only objection against. this apparatus is that in its present form it is somewhat complicated, as it ern

bodies mechanically,operated rocking firebars, fuel feed, water pump, and ash discharge.

A suction gas producer which presentsmany points of interest, and one of the

chief merits of which is extreme simplicity, is being marketed by Producer Gas Plants, Ltd., 22, queen Anne's Gate, London, S.W. and called the " Pee. Gee Pee." Experiments have been proceedindwith this plant during the past three years, and an A.E.C. lorry, loaned to the company by the Worthmore Motor Co., the well-known commefcial vehicle dealers, and fitted with one of these producers, has been demonstrating its capabilities in the vicinity of Olympia during the recent commercial vehicle and private car Shows.

The results obtained up to the present -have been eminently satisfactory. We arc not cognizant with the actual fuel consiimptn obtained with this particular vehicle, but a similar producer, fitted to a second-hand J type Thornycroft. lorry (which, incidentally, was in a bad state of repair) made several runs from London to Cranleigh and back, via Dorking and Leatherheitd—a distance for the round j.aurnay of 62,,inile.s—on an average consumption. of 1.46 lb. _of coke. Coke is the standard fuel utilized; this being broken into Ernall lumps and freed from dust, although the plant Can be modified for um with charcoal and other fuels. The weight of the Thornycroft lorry complete with 2 cwt. of spare fuel was 4 tons 13 cwt. 2 qrs., whilst the

weight of the useful load was 3 tons 10 cwt. Allowing 25 pee ton as the cost of the coke, the fuel cost worked out at 1.26d per mile, .15d. per gross ton-mile, and .36d, per net ton-mile, i.e., per ton of useful load.

We were recently afforded an epportunity for a short trial run on the A.E.C. lorry. We started from Victoria, and

proceeded through Holland Road, up Notting Hill, along Piccadilly, down Regent Street, and finished our trip at the -top of St. James's Street. Throughout the engine responded to the throttle without a falter. The traffic -tontrol was quite satisfactory, and the acceleration good. On hills the vehicle was certainly somewhat slower than a similar vehicle running on petrol, the engine settling down to a slaw, steady pull, which enabled us to climb Notting Hill on top gear. St. James's Street was also sar. mounted on top, in spite of several blocks whichcaused us to slow down; as a matter of fact, if we bad not known that the vehicle was running on producer gas it would have been difficult to have drawn a distinction between this fuel and petrol, except for the fact that the engine did not knock, even when pulling at remarkably low speeds.

It would be an advantage if a higher compression could be utilized, as a compression pressure of 125 lb. per sq. in., instead of the 75 lb. used with petrol, would certainly 'give better results; as it is, the producer is somewhat at a disadvantage, as it is as if a petrol engine was being run at a compression pressure of 45 lb. In spite of this, the lass of power, as compared with petrol, is only from .10 to 15 per cent.

The producer, which is of square section in the horizontal plane and tapered towards the ashpan, is held by clips to the off side of the lorry and against the dashboard; in this position it does not overhang the vehicle. It is surmounted by a welded steel hopper of similar shape. The producer itself is also chiefly constructed of welded steel. It creisiats of a jacket and an-inner portion which is lined with fire-resisting material, whilst the ashPan is an iron casting.

A novel feature in the construction is that the firebars dip into troughs of water. Each of these troughs comeistaof a 2 in. diameter steel pipe with a slot cut along its top ; a web is provided at the

• C18 base of each firebar, and this dips into the water. The water in the troughs is kept at a constant level by means of a float chamber carried by a bracket at the aide of the producer, and supplied with water from the petrol tank. The float chamber can be raised or lowered as required in order to alter the water level. This arrangement has a double advan

tage, the firebars are kept comparatively cool and their life is thus lengthened, and the water is evaporated, the vapour rising, through the firebars to help form

the suction gas. The necessary is admitted at the top of the producer jacket, and passes down this and up through the grate.

For starting purposes, a Champion geared blower, operated by hand, ie carried, as shown in one of the illustration, and a pipe from this conveys the air to the top of the producer jacket. The gas produced is conveyed through a pipe of large diameter to a dust collector coneisking of a box provided with a baffle plate. The gas passes in at the top of this box at one side, passes under the plate, and rises to the exit situated at the other side. The prisition of the baffle plate is of considerable importance,

although this might not appear so actually, it is much CIOSPIC to the incoming side than the other.

EIVII1 the dust collector the gas is carried to the back of the vehicle, where it is bubbled through water and then carried through a scrubber containing moistened coke. From the scrubber it. is taken along the near side of the chassis to a throttle situated close to the engine. Some 6 ft. from the throttle, however, is a simple air valve, which can be set to give any quantity of air. The hopper holds sufficient fuel to carry the vehicle a distance of from 29 to 30 miles. It is provided with a quickly-detachable lid.

For starting, a fire is lit at the base of the Producer, and the air compressor is then operated for a time, which varies from 10 minutes, if the producer be still warm from overnight, to 20 minutes if it is cold. Starting the engine is remarkably easy, the producer gas firing isatisfao. torily over a wide range of mixtures.

If the vehicle is stopped for a few minutes after the producer has been running for a shorttime, a satisfactory start can be made without any attention to the producer, but if the stop be of long duration it is necessary to blow up the fire for a time, which varies from half-aminute to two or three minutes.

It is claimed that after seven hours' traffic driving, practically no clinker was , formed and the fire was clean enough to carry on for an indefinite period. With the clean coke used, it is only necessary to rake out the aahpau once a day. One reason given for the remarkably slight amount of clinker and the fact that none adhered to the firebars was that these always remain -comparatively cool, owing to the water into which they dip. The engineer of the company and designer of this producer plant ie the wellknown consulting engineer, Mr. IL W.

Bomber, M.I.A.E., of 166, W. Many of our readers will remember this gentleman as one of the first works managers of the Daimler Motor Co., Ltd., at, Coventry.

The actual inventor of the producer is Mr. 3. W. Parker, whose early experiments with producer gas have led up to this development, and the managing director of the company is Mr, 0. I!. Mundy. 4

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People: Mundy, W. Parker, Anne

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