A preliminary Review of some major options aimed to reduce substantially the fuel consumed by automobiles

Abstract

There is a need to save automotive fuel, not only for the benefit of personal budgets but also from a national budget and atmospheric pollution viewpoint. Nine different proposals are reviewed and their evaluation includes seven important properties besides fuel reduction. Each property is given a points maximum and an award is made according to what is considered to be achieved in every proposal. Totals are given for each case for the purpose of comparison. The table is found to award the highest merit points to some of the simplest proposals. Highest rating of all is earned by a simple regenerative compressor. A recent new design and tests reveal a far greater potential for this compressor than previously thought possible and the prototype after development for only 3 months already works suffi ciently well to offer what appears to be the best solution. A non-dimensional graph comparing various traditional regenerative pumps with the latest designs reveal an advance that dwarfs the performance of previous traditional machines. These traditional regenerative compressors had been too bulky for serious consideration in supercharging vehicle engines. In 1968, however, Herbert Sixsmith introduced radical changes to the usual design that made very significant improvements. The new design has created a much more compact compressor which also features variable specific flow that covers the complete range of operation, rendering the usual throttle valve superfluous. It now seems that the regenerative compressor having spent a century or more in a quite backwater, because of this new development, is now ready to play a major role in tomorrow's automotive and other technology.