From the Rolls-Royce experimental archive: a quarter of a million communications from Rolls-Royce, 1906 to 1960's. Documents from the Sir Henry Royce Memorial Foundation (SHRMF).
The progress of developing a standardized apparatus and method for testing fuel knock.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 27a\4\ Scan064 | |
| Date | 11th November 1931 | |
| Cooperative Fuel Research Apparatus And Method for Knock Testing By T. A.{Mr Adams} BOYD* FOLLOWING the account of the activities of the detonation sub-committee* of the Cooperative Fuel Research Committee presented here a year ago,¹ a large amount of additional work has been done and further progress toward uniformity in knock testing has been made. In brief, this progress has consisted chiefly of the following items: 1. Further improvement of the engine, and settlement upon the continuously variable-compression valve-in-head type as the best to use for knock testing. 2. Design and manufacture of a carburetor expressly for the knock-testing engine. 3. Choice of an induction motor which runs at synchronous speed and holds the engine at 600 r.{Sir Henry Royce} p. m.{Mr Moon / Mr Moore}, as the power-absorbing medium. 4. Tentative choice of the bouncing-pin indicator as instrumentation, in conjunction either with the electrolytic cell or the knockmeter. 5. Preparation of a tentative outline of procedure for making knock tests. 6. Provision of adequate supplies of the reference fuels, normal heptane, and iso-octane (2, 2, 4-trimethyl pentane), which constitute the basis of the octane-number system of rating fuels. 7. An organized series of experiments to evaluate the most important of the variables that enter into knock testing. 8. Cooperative tests on a series of fuels, which showed that the apparatus and procedure as now developed are capable of giving accurate results, and results which consequently agree from laboratory to laboratory. 9. Approval by the Cooperative Fuel Research Committee of the apparatus and the tentative procedure for its use. 10. Making the apparatus and tentative outline of procedure available to the two industries concerned. This is the Report of Progress in the Work of the Detonation Sub-Committee of the American Petroleum Institute, presented at the Twelfth Annual Meeting, Chicago, November 11, 1931. APPARATUS, METHOD, AND REFERENCE SCALE NOW AVAILABLE ALL three of the items mentioned at the outset of the paper presented a year ago,¹ as being essential to a uniform method of rating fuels for knock, have now been made available to the two industries concerned in a usual form. The three essential items referred to are: 1, a standardized engine and accessories; 2, a common reference fuel or scale of fuels; and, 3, a uniform procedure. It should be said that this combination of apparatus, method, and reference scale is still tentative and, therefore, subject to change in some respects. Attention is called also to the fact that, as yet, this development applies only to the laboratory knock testing of motor gasolines and not to the rating of aircraft fuels. The apparatus in its present revised form is illustrated in the photographs, Figure 1 and 2, and is described in some detail in Appendix I. The engine has only one cylinder, it is made with a one-piece valve-in-head cylinder construction, and is provided with a ready means for continuously varying its compression ratio. The engine is fitted with a suitable ignition equipment, with a carburetor especially designed for this work, and with a bouncing-pin indicator as instrumentation. To insure uniformity of jacket temperature, the engine is evaporatively cooled; and positive circulation of the liquid in the cooling system, which for testing motor gasolines is water, is assured by means of a pump. Twin V-belts connect the fly wheel of the engine to a power-absorbing device, which is an induction motor of the slotted-rotor type, which has the constant speed characteristics of a synchronous motor, and by means of which the engine speed is automatically held constant at 600 r.{Sir Henry Royce} p. m.{Mr Moon / Mr Moore} Current for the bouncing-pin circuit and for operating the ignition in those cases in which a magneto is not used is pro- * General Motors Corporation, Detroit, Michigan, (chairman, detonation sub-committee). The membership of the sub-committee has been augmented during the past year, and is now as follows: D.{John DeLooze - Company Secretary} P. Barnard, Standard Oil Co. (Indiana), Whiting, Ind.; A.{Mr Adams} L. Beall, Vacuum Oil Co., New York, N. Y.; A.{Mr Adams} E.{Mr Elliott - Chief Engineer} Becker, Standard Oil Development Co., New York, N. Y.; T. A.{Mr Adams} Boyd (chairman), General Motors Corp., Detroit, Mich.; H.{Arthur M. Hanbury - Head Complaints} K.{Mr Kilner} Cummings, Bureau of Standards, Washington, D.{John DeLooze - Company Secretary} C.; H.{Arthur M. Hanbury - Head Complaints} C. Dickinson, Bureau of Standards, Washington, D.{John DeLooze - Company Secretary} C.; Graham Edgar, Ethyl Gaso-line Corp., Yonkers, N. Y.; J.{Mr Johnson W.M.} Bennett Hill, The Atlantic Refining Co., Philadelphia, Pa.{Mr Paterson}; H.{Arthur M. Hanbury - Head Complaints} L. Horning, Waukesha Motor Co., Waukesha, Wisc.; D.{John DeLooze - Company Secretary} R.{Sir Henry Royce} Jackson, representative of British cooperating group), New York, N. Y.; L. C. Lichty, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.; Neil MacCoull, the Texas Co., New York, N. Y.; J.{Mr Johnson W.M.} C. MacGregor, Standard Oil Co. (California), Richmond, Calif.; J.{Mr Johnson W.M.} B. Rendel, Shell Petroleum Corp., St.{Capt. P. R. Strong} Louis, Mo.; C. F.{Mr Friese} Taylor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass.; and C. B. Veal (secretary), Society of Automotive Engineers, New York, N. Y. 85 | ||