Air May Yet Replace Petrol As Motor Fuel: Recent Developments

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 15, 23 January 1948, Page 7

Air May Yet Replace Petrol As Motor Fuel: Recent Developments

The air engine, first invented in the last century, was abandoned because metallurgy was not far enough advanced to cope with its requirements, states Trevor Williams in the Sydney Morning Herald. Developments arising from rocket and jet have today rectified this deficiency, and already Dutch engineers have constructed engines running on air. The next two or three years majr well see air-driven cars and railway engines. Towards the end of the 19th century engineers designed what they called air-engines, in which air was admitted into a cylinder behind a piston. The air was heated, causing it to expand, and the expansion forced the piston back. By means of a system of valves the process was made continuous, just as it is in the steam-engine. Recently, a few designers, especially in Holland, recognised the opportunity that was open to them. They turned up all the old descriptions of air engines and investigated how they could be improved by using the new materials and new knowledge which had become available during the previous half-century. The results were astonishing. A two horse-power engine was designed and built, which had cylinders with less than one-hundredth of the capacity of the original air engine. The weight, too, was reduced to one-fiftieth of its former size. In fact, the engineers found to their astonishment that the air engine, long despised as a clumsy freak, could be built in a form which had many of the advantages of the petrol engine. The air engine may well herald a new age in transport, not only for carrying people in great numbers by air or water, but even for the individual. The engine lends itself to the construction of units small enough for private cars.