GERMAN SUBMARINES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 January 1943, Page 6

GERMAN SUBMARINES

USE OF NEW ENGINE. The possibility that Germany is feeling a shortage of lead has been suggested as the result of the capture of a submarine using not the ordinary storage batteries for underwater cruising, but an internal combustion engine patented some years ago by a German engineer, Rudolf Erren. The Erren principle consists of decomposing water >by a high-pressure electrolyser into its component oxygen and hydrogen, the gases being stored under 23501 b pressure in steel containers. Both gases have 100 per cent purity, and hydrogen has been proved to have 45 per cent heat efficiency, compared with the 22 per cent and 32 per cent respectively with petrol and Diesel oil fuel. The hydrogen is then used as the fuel in the same way as petrol or other oil fuel. Certain definite advantages of operation are claimed for the engine, one which seems apparent being that the submarine is floating in its own fuel supply. The use of the Erren system would, it has been claimed, enable full cruising speed to be maintained when the craft is submerged, a big advantage in Atlantic operations. Disadvantages would appear to lie in the bulk of the electrolyser and the need of heavy steel containers for the gases produced.