A NEW MOTIVE POWER.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXX, Issue 10104, 1 August 1893, Page 6

A NEW MOTIVE POWER.

It ia said that Herr Erupp, the famous manufacturer of heavy gun?, ia carrying out a aeries of experiments on an entirely new line, the use of mixed coal-dust and atmospheric air in motor engines to develop mechanical power. Such mixtures burn with explosive violence and produce in an engine clyinder an effect entirely analogous to 'similar explosions in gas engines. The production of ashes by the combustion is a difficulty which has to be overcome; but it is said that the distinguished experimentalist expresses entire confidence that the removal of the ashes can be practically accomplished, and that, while in the use of coal for generating steam only a small part of the heat cs»n be converted into power, the direct uso of fuel in an engine cylinder may result in the utilisation of perhaps 89 per cent of the mechanical equivalent of the heat. It would seem that the prevention of cylinder and valve cutting from the pressure of gritty matter always present in coal ashes would be a most difficult problem to solve in carrying cut the proposed scheme, and that anything like a good lubrication of the working parts in and connected directly with tho cylinder, would scarcely be possible. If Herr Erupp should succeed in mastering these and other practical difficulties that will readily suggest themselves to a mechanical mind, he will add much to tho honor in which, as a mecnanical engineer, inventor and business organiser, hi* name is now held throughout the wcrlf.