GAS AS FUEL

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 290, 2 August 1932, Page 2

GAS AS FUEL

RECENT EXPER1MENTS. Despite the predominance of petrol as a fuel for internal combustion engines, intensive research is being' continued in respect of substitutes for that product, stafes an Australian newspaper, and certain corporations in England have conducted successful experimants with ordinary town gas. During the war, when petrol was scarce in Britain, it was not uncommon to see a motor vehicle being driven on household gas, which was stored in a balloon-like container of flexible material carried on the roof of the car. Recently, some interesting tests were made by the Birmingham gas department with a fourcylinder engine, having an improved type of air-gas mixer; and more exhaustive trials were also made with a 7 h.p. four-cylinder unit, which was in turn driven with gas alone, with- • out supercharging. With a combina- ' tion of gas and benzole, and also of gas and petrol. As a result of these experiments, the following conclusions were reached: "The tbermal efficiency of high- : pressure internal combustion engines when supercharged is greater when town gas is used, and that it is furth'er increased by carburetting the gas with benzole. The thermal efficiency of petrol is decreased by supercharging, but the maximum power developed with gas alone is lower than with petrol. The carbon monoxide content of the exhaust gases is considerably less with gas than with petrol, and gas is more responsive to supercharging than petrol, the pnwer being increased to a greater extent."