A NEW ENGINE

Waikato Times, Volume 93, Issue 14536, 7 December 1920, Page 7

A NEW ENGINE

TRIUMPH OF BRITISH SKILL. Considerable interest has been aroused amongst engineers by recent disclosures regarding developments made during the war in the construction of unilluw engines. In these engines ,as their name indicates, the steam Hows always in. the same direction, entering the cylinder at the ends, and leaving it by exhaust openings situated in 'the middle of the cylinder (says the Bulletin of the Department of Overseas Trade). In a paper read before the Institution of Mechanical Engineers it was stated that the efficiency of such engines is ivery high, and a succeeding speaker stated that Hie efficiency was of such an order as to challenge the title for maximum efficiency for power plant claimed by the steam turbine and electrical machinery makers. The manufacturers of slow-speed engines in this country, about 30 in number, are to take concerted action —first, to carry on propaganda work to make known the merits of the system, and, secondly, to conduct research into the thermodynamic possibilities of the engine. In any industrial applications, such as for Bessemer blowing engines and rolling mills, the advantages of quick response to control and load placed this type of engine above all other systems. It is interesting to note that this engine, which is sometimes wrongly ascribed to a German inventor, was probably first invented by an Englishman named Jacob Perkins, about 1825-7, and subsequently patented by another Englishman in 1885. It was not until 1908 that Professor Slumpf, by devising a special type of valve gear, caused the engine to be reintroduced. German science was, however, unable to produce a reversing engine on the uniflow principle, and before the war a German manufacturer offered £40,000 to a British manufacturer if he could produce such \ an engine. Developments in valve gear made during the war by British manufacturers enable reversing to be done satisfactorily. j