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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).
Article on the development and testing of new materials for high-duty bearings in Bentley and Rolls-Royce cars.

Identifier  ExFiles\Box 115\2\  scan0440
Date  11th April 1939
  
April 11, 1939.
373
The Motor

FUNDAMENT OF RELIABILITY. The seven-bearing counter-balanced crankshaft of the Bentley engine. The bearings are fabricated in the new Derby-developed A.C.9 material which is referred to in this article. It has been outstandingly successful in running long mileages under high duty conditions.

POWER BENEATH THE BONNET. The Bentley six-cylinder 4 1/4-litre engine, seen below, is designed to give a reasonably sized car a road speed in excess of 90 m.p.h., together with flexibility on top gear, high acceleration and extremely long mileage between overhaul.

THE lot of the technical journalist is cast in many places and in circumstances which may be dull, exciting or enthralling. A visit to the Rolls-Royce and Bentley works at Derby can, without hesitation, be placed in the last-named category. By tradition and repute both of these cars stand in the very forefront of the world's automobiles: so much so, indeed, that the words "Rolls-Royce" have in many cases become a synonym for excellence.

DEVELOPMENTS
in high-duty bearings

Interesting New Material Used on
Bentley and Rolls-Royce Cars

by Laurence Pomeroy, Junr.

From their inception, Rolls-Royce and Bentley have been built to only the finest standards in design, workmanship and material. In the course of a visit to Derby some little time ago, I was given an opportunity of examining in particular the methods by which materials are developed in their new laboratory.

The testing equipment of itself is deserving of many pages of a highly technical article. These are not available in this issue and I must, therefore, summarize the principles upon which the Derby metallurgists work. They are largely concerned with the development of metals suitable for working under highly stressed conditions. The test equipment, therefore, reproduces these conditions. In one instance small bars of metal are rotated under a stationary disc, heavy loads applied for a pre-determined length of time, and the rate of wear accurately measured. In other cases it is the strength or the stiffness of the material with which the designer is primarily concerned. To check these factors normal tensile testing machines are used and also a specially small tester developed by Mr. L. H.{Arthur M. Hanbury - Head Complaints} Hounsfield, the Tensometer, in which quite small pieces of, say, aluminium taken from the piston can be examined, and, what is more, tested at elevated temperatures.

As is generally known, metals weaken very considerably when hot; moreover, their friction properties change. For this reason it is highly desirable that such parts as valve guides and valve steels should be tested under conditions which
  
  


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