"WIND CLAWS."

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 113, 16 May 1933, Page 14

"WIND CLAWS."

STREAMLINING EFFECTS. ADVANTAGES DESCRIBED; IMPROVEMENT IN THE OFFING. Under existing economic pressure two phases of future automobile development appear to be puzzling the engineering minds that originate improvements in motor cars. One is the streamlining trend for bodies, and the other a multiplicity of forms that tranmissions may take to solve the gear-shift-ing problem.

Streamlining, ■when eventually worked out, should have the double effect of making greater speed possible with reduced fuel consumption. Projected improvements in transmissions and clutch controls aim at elimination of the gearshift lever or "wobble-stick" from the front compartment of the average car, says an American correspondent. Conservative engineering opinion concedes that the so-called streamline trend represented in new 1933 models, is one dictated by stylo change rather than practical utility. The c-hanges and benefits that real streamlining may bring when it is worked out on a true scientific basis are unknown quantities as yet. The engineers are arguing about it, and there are two schools of opinion. One group holds that facts learned from aircraft operation may be useful in the

process of cutting down wind resistance that cars encounter, and thereby add to speed and economy. The other school contends that wind resistance, as it applies to cars, differs from that of aircraft because the essentials of the landdriven and air-driven types of vehicles ehow wide variance in both conditions and requirements.

Technicalities. A word picture of the problem from the motor car angle recently was drawn for the annual Detroit Assembly of the. Society of ' Automotive Engineers by Professor W. E. Lay, who specialises in aerodynamics at the University of Michigan.

"It may help us to see," Professor Lay said, "what can be done if we remember that we live .and drive our motor vehicles around at the bottom of an ocean of air. Professor Piccard and some of our pilots have explored some of the upper layers of this ocean, but none has reached its surface. The rank and file of us are content to epend' our days rooting about at the bottom, sometimes in the very dregs of this atmospheric ocean.

"The fluid we call air has both weight and inertia. At the temperature and pressure existing in a room, the air contained in a 28in cube will weigh about one pound. Because of this weight, it is able to support an airship, just as the Atlantic holds up a submarine. Because of its inertia, it can .support an aeroplane in flight, as the water supports a pebble that ekips along its surface. To move an object through the air slowly requires but little effort, while to move it ewiftly requires great power. Who has not seen a car passing ewiftly down a dusty road, and wondered at the great swirls and eddies of dust and air left in its wake? After the car lias passed, it may be Been that the area of disturbance extends far outside the space through which the vehicle actually passed. If the car is driven at high speed, the air will whirl and eddy with tremendous energy. "There is only one possible source ot this energy. It comes from the gasoline tank, and we have to pay for it when we fill the tank. If we can shape the car eo that it will pass through the air without euch a great disturbance, we can conserve the energy in our full tank instead' of leaving so much of it behind us in the eddying wake of the vehicle."

s .; • "Wind Claws." Professor Lay pointed out that other factors in addition to streamlining-may, dictate the shape of a vehicle body, and that to achieve the desired result, the rear part must be shaped so that it will close the passage-way, laying • the air back in place with a 'minimum of eddies and turbulence. In suggesting "that all barnacles or "wind claws," sharp edges and - corners be removed from cars to be replaced by curves, he said the difficulty of it was apparent.

"It is certain," he added, "that the public • will spend more money for ite conception of beauty in a car than it will for a streamlined monstrosity. The day is coming when we shall drive streamlined cars ard mar 'el a*v their beauty."

On the power control side of motor car operation; numerous improvements are in the offing. Some of the changes will be radical, if devices the engineers •arc working on prove practical. An automatic transmission that will meet advanced.requirements can contribute to all of these except eafety, according to Mr. AValter C. Keys, a Detroit engineer, designated by the •Society of Automotive Engineers to outline the possibilities. Mr. Keys enumerated and described eight transmission types differing in principle from thoee now used. They included friction drive, gas-electric drive, the Do Lavaud automatic in European usage, three European "torque converters" known ae the C'onstantinesco, Spontan and Vickers-Coats, the Salerni transmission, or "lluid flywheel," a British device for which introduction is being sought in America, and the Tyler transmission dutch, which 16 an American development. At present we have only opinions whether automatic transmissions can give manufacturers a sales advantage, Mr. Keys explained. Recently fourepeed transmissions were offered in America, and some companies since have gone back to three speeds. "Any good car giving exceptional gasoliie mileage," Mr. Keys said, "will outsell competitors, but drivere care nothing for euuli economy as four-speed transmissions give, and are usually too shiftless to use them." Thie seems to point a future for automatic transmission, particularly since the greater amount of driving by Americans ie under conditions where automatic shifts with adequate stamina can be made to function safely and satisfactorily without interference from the driver.