A VENTILATOR EMPLOYING THE ROTOR SYSTEM.
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A Description of an Air Extractor that has had Considerable Success on the Continent.
MANY of our readers will probably ramember the Flettner Rotorship that was produced a few years ago. Mr. Anton Flettner, the designer, later turned his attention to ventilators for mechanical vehicles and met with considerable success, ventilators designed by him being employed on the Continent on a large number of public and private vehicles.
The Peckham Truck and Engineering Co., Ltd., of 504-5, Stafford House, Norfolk Street, Strand, London, W.C.2, has now introduced this type of device into England, and we have had the opportunity for witnessing a test of it.
The Flettner device is intended to extract impure air from the interior of a vehicle. It consists of a metal ring, which is fixed to the roof, carrying a spindle. This runs on ball bearings which are contained in an oil bath: The spindle passes through the centre of two superimposed metal• plates, which are spaced apart by pillars and by apecially shaped rotors.
Air impinges upon • the laStommed two compenents and causes them to • revolve. A vacuum is created by a number of small vanes carried under the lower plate, thus causing air to be sucked out.
The test witnessed by a representative of The Commercial Motor consisted of revolving the rotors by hand and blowing smoke through the lower part of the extractor, when the smoke quickly dispersed. A neat circular plate may be fitted into the interior of the head, below the extractor, providing for the regulation of the amount of air drawn out.
We are informed that when a vehicle stops, the rotors will continue to revolve for at least four minutes. If there be a wind the extractor will, of course, operate during the whole time that a vehicle is stationary. We noted this two years ago on some Berlin buses.
It is claimed that the Flettner ventilator (lees not cause draught, but that, at the same time, it maintains the
atmosphere of the interior of the vehicle in a pure state. Extractors may be embodied in roof lamps and are well finished, so that they should not detract from the smart appearance of the modern passenger vehicle.