AN OIL TURBINE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 20104, 24 March 1928, Page 21 (Supplement)

AN OIL TURBINE

A NEW ZEALAND INVENTION Petrol turbines in dozens of forms have occupied the attentions of inventors during the last few years, but up to the present no machine worthy of development for automobile work has been built. The latest oil turbine is the invention of a resident of Auckland but most of the work has been theoretical, as it was thought best to have the demonstration model built in England. The designs have been examined at the Auckland University, and several engineers have investigated the device as far as possible. An expert has estimated the overall thermal efficiency of the machine at 33 per cent., as compared with from 20 per cent to 30 per cent, for the ordinary type of petrol engine. The calculated speed of the turbine is 3600 revolutions per minute. Power is developed by the ignition of charges of petrol and air which are supplied under pressure to combustion chambers in a rotating disc shell.

The perfect balance of the steam turbine as compared with the reciprocating engine has been an influential factor in directing the attention of in* venters toward internal combustion turbines. Obstacles which have faced inventors have been the failure of metals to stand up to the high temperatures of the petrol turbine and the difficulty of making the combustion chambers gastight. A company has been formed for the development of the Auckland in ven-