Grant for university to test fuels

Press, 2 December 1981, Page 16

Grant for university to test fuels

Equipment to test the economy and efficiency of alternative liquid fuels will be bought with a $109,000

research grant to the University of Canterbury from the Liquid Fuels Trust Board. The equipment will be used by Mr P. J. Hindin with a chassis dynamometer in the university’s mechanical engineering department. The dynamometer has been improved to allow rigorous comparisons to be made in the laboratory between various alternative fuels: blends of methanol and petrol at 15 per cent (Ml 5 and 90 per cent (M9O), liquefied petroleum gas, synthetic petrol, and ethanol.

The dynamometer, which is installed in the floor of the university’s automotive laboratory, has two large roller drums on which the driving wheels of the cars to be tested are put. When the car is started its tyres cause the drums to revolve and the car’s performance, at speeds of up to 200 km , can be measured

The equipment will enable precise measurements to be made of fuel consumption and efficiency, exhaust emissions, driveability, and road load. A mini-computer will allow programmable control of the vehicles under test.

For tests with some vehicles, the engines will not be modified but the cars that will use the M9O fuel will have modified engines. Four vehicles from Brazil, where the use of alcohol fuel is well advanced, will be tested using ethanol fuel.-

The grant was one of 10 research grants and contracts valued at $179,150 reported to the university’s council.

A second Liquid Fuels Trust Board grant of $11,750 will enable Dr D. K. Green to investigate the dynamometer performance of engines running on 100 per cent methanol using the WalkerFletcher Challenge converter system. Five grants were made from the profits of the Golden Kiwi lottery. They include $15,000 for assistance in the construction of the lm telescope for the university’s Mount John Observatory; $5OOO for research on slope stability and landslides by a geologist, Mr D. H. Bell; $6OOO to Professor J. P. Penny, head of the university’s computer science department, for the development of a network using specialised processor subsystems for different user requirements; $BOOO for equipment for a scanning electron microscope for the mechanical engineering department; and $5OOO to Dr P. C. Harper for field expenses involved in a three-year international survey of Antarctic seabirds.

Other research grants include $9900 from the Ministry of Works and Development to Professor T. Paulay for an experimental and theoretical study of earth-quake-resisting shear walls in multi-storey buildings. The following degrees were conferred at the council meeting: Doctors of philosophy:

Patrick Bernard Heffernan, in electrical engineering; Terry Donald Prowse ; in geography.

Masters of arts, with second-class honours, division two: Edith Kay Ikerd, in American studies;' Nicholas Campion Burchall Peren, in Economics. Bachelors of arts: Thomas Reilly; Joanne Ingrid Thomson. Master of science, with distinction: Brendan John Lynskey, in chemistry. Bachelor of science: Benjamin Tan. Lincoln College Bachelor of agriculture science, with second-class honours, division two: Barbara Ann Dolamore.