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Stirling engine design and feasibility for automotive use
Book Review are essentially worse than ant hills or prairie dog colonies. I submit that there are indeed differences, but they do not add up to “every prospect pleases, and only Man is vile”. There is little question that Man has become too numerous for the good of the Planet. However, once again, it is difficult to view this as an inherent evil ; left to its own devices, Nature will redress the matter in short order through famine and other “natural” processes. The problem is rather that Man, having become conscious, has shed his instinctual behavior and can participate in Nature now only by understanding it. For example, the population of large predators in the Western U.S. has been decimated. While I regret this intellectually, I am not sure that I would welcome a major effort to restock the city of Boulder with grizzly bears and mountain lions. However, the result is a loss of control of a population of deer and of a number of rodent species. This in turn results in the over-grazing of certain areas by the deer, and enhanced erosion. Clearly one solution, once the above statements have been turned into quantitative terms, is very carefully controlled deer hunting, and probably some sort of population control on the rodents as well. In a word, one solution is very careful, deliberate human intervention in “natural” processes, with man filling the ecological niches vacated by the previous occupants, who operated by instinct, and do not require large research budgets to function. Starting from this point, one can in fact derive the need for the conservation of undisturbed lands; many urban dwellers are so ignorant of Nature as to consider environmental
283
protection a luxury, and of no benefit to them. But it may be worth the price of some sheep to let coyotes control the rodent population rather than needing a rat trap on every acre (or hectare) of the American West. Humanity is indeed important. In many areas today the ecological impact of removing human intervention would be far greater than that ofcontinued management. I suspect that it will always be. true that the human mortality rate is one per capita. Many scientists are of the opinion that, if all other diseases were controlled, we should all die of cancer - i.e., of the ultimate breakdown of transmission of genetic information within the body. There is an acute need to understand the environment in quantitative terms, so that it can be consciously managed. There is always the offhand chance that we may conclude that it is preferable to let the mountain lion manage the deer population than to have to do it ourselves. In that case, it would be unfortunate if the mountain lion had become extinct and could not be recalled. In summary, there are good reasons to do most of the things we are now doing in the way ofconservation, and ifit requires a religious persuasion to get people to do them, I suppose that is all right. But we will continue to bungle until we understand the imperatives, get our priorities in order, and get on with the business of compensating accurately for the messes we have already made in our ignorance. Neither Cahn nor those that he has interviewed seem to understand this. To sum up, this is a fascinating book, but not quite what it starts out to be. JAMESP. LODGE, JR.
for Automotive Use, edited by M. J. Collie, Noyes Data Corporation, Park Ridge, N.J. 07656, 1979, x + 270~~. Price $36.00.
Stirling Engine Design and Feasibility
As I have commented more than once, the so-called “gray literature” is a difficult problem for a journal editor. It covers all the vast complex ofcontractor reports made in response to the reporting requirements of government and foundation entities, circulated in numbers ranging from a few to a few thousand, and nowadays generally the form in which a large percentage ofall research is first reported. In some cases these reports have gone through extensive review and editorial processes within the originating institution ; in others, they contain every word, every typographical error, and every grammatical slip of the original authors, together with some occasional very bad science. Some ultimately see the light of day as journal papers; some die a merciful death; many consist of long data tables that are neither publishable in journals nor enough in demand to warrant book publication, but nevertheless valuable archival material. Aside from its uneven quality, the real difficulty with the gray literature is its obscurity, particularly for foreign readers. You simply cannot go into your neighborhood book store and buy it, nor can you subscribe to it. Its advantage is that it is frequently more up-to-date than the published literature. There are clearly times when it must be referenced; on the other hand, some authors become so immersed in it that they continue to reference it after the material has appeared in the open literature. Despite the obvious advantages of journal publication, some authors simply do not pursue it. On the other hand, many authors are stuck with intractably long and massive reports that defy condensation. The Noyes Data Corporation has leaped into this particular breach by taking a selected assortment of government reports (which, being in the public domain, do not cost them royalties), reproducing them by photo offset, and issuing them in hard covers. In such a context, the designation of an individual as
“editor” is somewhat inaccurate. The material in the book at hand was obviously selected, but it was certainly not edited. It comprises some, most or all of two reports. The first is a “design manual” for Stirling engines, authored by one W. R. Martini of the University of Washington, and prepared, apparently, through some sort of joint arrangement, for the Department of Energy and NASA. It was actually completed in April of 1978. The second half is a feasibility study of small automotive engines prepared by the Ford Motor Company for the Department ofEnergy. It is undated, but I believe that the contract number is one for the year 1976. The Stirling engine is one of those things that seems to have been lurking in the wings for a long time without ever quite making the grade for automotive purposes. As an external combustion engine, it has extremely interesting possibilities for low emissions, possibly lower fuel consumption, and certainly less finicky tastes in fuel. At least theoretically an external combustion engine can be powered by anything from a nuclear reactor to burning wood or tallow. Unfortunately, most of the information on such “unconventional” automotive power plants is securely locked up in the corporate archives of the auto manufacturers, and both the general public and the experts have little access to it. The problem can be circumvented in two ways. The first of these is to hire an excellent automotive engineer to synthesize all of the information available in the open literature, such as it is, and see if it adds up to something definitive. The second is to subsidize work by one of the major automobile companies and exact, as the quid proquo,the publication of the results of their study in the public domain. Those two approaches represent, respectively, how it was done in the two sections of this volume. The real meat of the “design manual” is a bibliography of some 800 items, together with step-by-step instructions for the critical engineering calculations in engine design. Unfortunately, a number of the calculations have been tested for correspondence with reality only in proprietary reports. The “feasibility study” is the report of precisely that - Ford actually built several Stirling engines and tested them. A
284
pocket
Book Review
inside the back cover of the book contains actual drawings of the engines and their installation in a pair of vehicles. Thus what may well be some important information has been made available to the general population of automotive design engineers. For better or worse, the material is no more accessible to the general public than it was before. Both reports are written entirely in the jargon of the trade. and no one bothers to explain it. Part of the price of attending a state university used to be two years of mandatory training in the Reserve Officers Training Corps. Since my first two years of college were in 1943 and 1944, the instructors available were clearly rejects from active fighting. We were taught map reading by an old sergeant who might well have been a skilled reader of maps, but was quite incapable of teaching anything to anyone else. I particularly remember his lecture on compasses. It began, “Now the U.S. Army has two kinds of compasses. It has prismatic compasses and lensatic compasses. Now this here is a prismatic compass and this here is a lensatic compass. This
engineering
is called a prismatic compass because it’s prismatic, and this is called a lensatic compass because it’s lensatic. Any questions?’ I could only think of that old sergeant as I tried to wade through the descriptions of the various parts of the Stirling engine. For the nonspecialist, it is just about that clear. In addition, the author of the “design manual’ 1, an adherent ofwhat I have heardcalled theEisenhower school of grammar, resulting in sentences like. “Three engines of this type were built and it worked well”. In justice to all concerned. it is not my impression that this constitutes a major barrier to comprehension: it is merely a distraction. In summary, the Stirling engine is clearly among the contenders for alternative means of transportation. while both decreasing pollution and avoiding excessive dependence on one cut ofpetroleum. Those specifically involved in engine design will probably find very useful information here. The first person requesting my review copy may have it if he will pay the postage. J,~M~:s P. l.Ot>(jr. Jw.
283
protection a luxury, and of no benefit to them. But it may be worth the price of some sheep to let coyotes control the rodent population rather than needing a rat trap on every acre (or hectare) of the American West. Humanity is indeed important. In many areas today the ecological impact of removing human intervention would be far greater than that ofcontinued management. I suspect that it will always be. true that the human mortality rate is one per capita. Many scientists are of the opinion that, if all other diseases were controlled, we should all die of cancer - i.e., of the ultimate breakdown of transmission of genetic information within the body. There is an acute need to understand the environment in quantitative terms, so that it can be consciously managed. There is always the offhand chance that we may conclude that it is preferable to let the mountain lion manage the deer population than to have to do it ourselves. In that case, it would be unfortunate if the mountain lion had become extinct and could not be recalled. In summary, there are good reasons to do most of the things we are now doing in the way ofconservation, and ifit requires a religious persuasion to get people to do them, I suppose that is all right. But we will continue to bungle until we understand the imperatives, get our priorities in order, and get on with the business of compensating accurately for the messes we have already made in our ignorance. Neither Cahn nor those that he has interviewed seem to understand this. To sum up, this is a fascinating book, but not quite what it starts out to be. JAMESP. LODGE, JR.
for Automotive Use, edited by M. J. Collie, Noyes Data Corporation, Park Ridge, N.J. 07656, 1979, x + 270~~. Price $36.00.
Stirling Engine Design and Feasibility
As I have commented more than once, the so-called “gray literature” is a difficult problem for a journal editor. It covers all the vast complex ofcontractor reports made in response to the reporting requirements of government and foundation entities, circulated in numbers ranging from a few to a few thousand, and nowadays generally the form in which a large percentage ofall research is first reported. In some cases these reports have gone through extensive review and editorial processes within the originating institution ; in others, they contain every word, every typographical error, and every grammatical slip of the original authors, together with some occasional very bad science. Some ultimately see the light of day as journal papers; some die a merciful death; many consist of long data tables that are neither publishable in journals nor enough in demand to warrant book publication, but nevertheless valuable archival material. Aside from its uneven quality, the real difficulty with the gray literature is its obscurity, particularly for foreign readers. You simply cannot go into your neighborhood book store and buy it, nor can you subscribe to it. Its advantage is that it is frequently more up-to-date than the published literature. There are clearly times when it must be referenced; on the other hand, some authors become so immersed in it that they continue to reference it after the material has appeared in the open literature. Despite the obvious advantages of journal publication, some authors simply do not pursue it. On the other hand, many authors are stuck with intractably long and massive reports that defy condensation. The Noyes Data Corporation has leaped into this particular breach by taking a selected assortment of government reports (which, being in the public domain, do not cost them royalties), reproducing them by photo offset, and issuing them in hard covers. In such a context, the designation of an individual as
“editor” is somewhat inaccurate. The material in the book at hand was obviously selected, but it was certainly not edited. It comprises some, most or all of two reports. The first is a “design manual” for Stirling engines, authored by one W. R. Martini of the University of Washington, and prepared, apparently, through some sort of joint arrangement, for the Department of Energy and NASA. It was actually completed in April of 1978. The second half is a feasibility study of small automotive engines prepared by the Ford Motor Company for the Department ofEnergy. It is undated, but I believe that the contract number is one for the year 1976. The Stirling engine is one of those things that seems to have been lurking in the wings for a long time without ever quite making the grade for automotive purposes. As an external combustion engine, it has extremely interesting possibilities for low emissions, possibly lower fuel consumption, and certainly less finicky tastes in fuel. At least theoretically an external combustion engine can be powered by anything from a nuclear reactor to burning wood or tallow. Unfortunately, most of the information on such “unconventional” automotive power plants is securely locked up in the corporate archives of the auto manufacturers, and both the general public and the experts have little access to it. The problem can be circumvented in two ways. The first of these is to hire an excellent automotive engineer to synthesize all of the information available in the open literature, such as it is, and see if it adds up to something definitive. The second is to subsidize work by one of the major automobile companies and exact, as the quid proquo,the publication of the results of their study in the public domain. Those two approaches represent, respectively, how it was done in the two sections of this volume. The real meat of the “design manual” is a bibliography of some 800 items, together with step-by-step instructions for the critical engineering calculations in engine design. Unfortunately, a number of the calculations have been tested for correspondence with reality only in proprietary reports. The “feasibility study” is the report of precisely that - Ford actually built several Stirling engines and tested them. A
284
Book Review
inside the back cover of the book contains actual drawings of the engines and their installation in a pair of vehicles. Thus what may well be some important information has been made available to the general population of automotive design engineers. For better or worse, the material is no more accessible to the general public than it was before. Both reports are written entirely in the jargon of the trade. and no one bothers to explain it. Part of the price of attending a state university used to be two years of mandatory training in the Reserve Officers Training Corps. Since my first two years of college were in 1943 and 1944, the instructors available were clearly rejects from active fighting. We were taught map reading by an old sergeant who might well have been a skilled reader of maps, but was quite incapable of teaching anything to anyone else. I particularly remember his lecture on compasses. It began, “Now the U.S. Army has two kinds of compasses. It has prismatic compasses and lensatic compasses. Now this here is a prismatic compass and this here is a lensatic compass. This
engineering
is called a prismatic compass because it’s prismatic, and this is called a lensatic compass because it’s lensatic. Any questions?’ I could only think of that old sergeant as I tried to wade through the descriptions of the various parts of the Stirling engine. For the nonspecialist, it is just about that clear. In addition, the author of the “design manual’ 1, an adherent ofwhat I have heardcalled theEisenhower school of grammar, resulting in sentences like. “Three engines of this type were built and it worked well”. In justice to all concerned. it is not my impression that this constitutes a major barrier to comprehension: it is merely a distraction. In summary, the Stirling engine is clearly among the contenders for alternative means of transportation. while both decreasing pollution and avoiding excessive dependence on one cut ofpetroleum. Those specifically involved in engine design will probably find very useful information here. The first person requesting my review copy may have it if he will pay the postage. J,~M~:s P. l.Ot>(jr. Jw.