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y Wally Wyss
Page 45
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n American correspondent's impressions of ne of the GM gas turbine powered tractive nits which are quietly being tested in Derators' fleets in the States -1E Titan 90 stands tall, like all t-cab diesels. But this one's different you know that by the whooshing und coming from the two oval lokestacks.
The scene is a cement-hauling firm Santa Fe Springs, California rout 10 miles southwest of Los ageles.
The truck is a Titan 90 Diesel from levrolet but instead of a diesel it's nning an experimental Allison T-404 gas turbine engine back of the b.
General Motor's Detroit Diesel Llison Division has been developing e engine for several years and ..:koned the best way to see what nd of guts it had was to hand it • er to a trucker and tell him to treat like any other truck in his fleet. M eventually plans to "loan out" turbine trucks disguised as diesels to truckers all over the USA.
Invited to take a ride in the truck, hopped in, along with my photoapher. The cab was one of the test designs with the curving, "wrapound" instrument panel.
Instead of a 15-speed or one of 30 her manual shift gearboxes found most diesels, the driver of the rig Ld a four speed automatic—the ,ming thing in trucks.
The driver wasn't able to start right f. After turning the key, he had to lit until the turbine gasifier got up idle speed, and the turbine inlet mperature gauge showed 980°C 8004F.) With "D" selected, the rig acceleted from 0 to 88km/h (0 to 55mph) under a minute.
Although the "top end" speed is ider 120km/11 (75mph) while most sels can top 128km/h (80mph) even th a full load, the 209kW (280hp) rbine-powered tandem-axle Titan 90 n climb upgrades easily when the her trucks have to crawl at 8krnth mph) in a special slow lane to the !,ht.
Binswanger Trucking was selected be a pilot test firm partly because the route its trucks take—from the ojave desert to snow-capped mounins.
One of the big fears of truck drivers what happens when you get to the other side of the mountain and maybe lose pressure in your air brakes. With the gas turbine and automatic, they can rest easy, as the engine has powerful engine braking stopping the truck from "running away".
The turbine oil—a mere 23 litres (5 gallons)—will go for 80,000km (50,000 miles) before it's due for a change. GM expects the engine to go 30,000 hours or 160,000km (100,000 miles) before a tear-down is needed. This compares with what most fleet operators expect out of diesels.
Fuel usage is not revealed directly, but Binswanger drivers say it's better than they expected, but not quite as good as a diesel. Other sources say 1-8km/1 (5mpg) is about par. The saving grace is that it can burn the cheapest low grade fuel, even kerosene and, with the energy crisis, burning cheap fuel is your biggest advantage since you can extract more of it from each barrel of crude oil.