COMBUSTION OF FUELS IN INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINES

The automotive industry was considered a mechanical one until fuel difficulties caused a realization that the internal-combustion engine is only a piece of apparatus for the effective utilization of chemistry. The only great cloud on the horizon of the automotive industry today is the fuel problem, one way to dispel it being to increase the supply and the other to make the automotive device do what it has been designed to do.

The author reviews the production of oil and of automotive apparatus, considers the available fuels and states the two distinct parts of the fuel problem as being first carburetion and distribution, external to the engine and one of purely physical relationship, and, second, the combustion of fuel inside the engine cylinder. The subjects of regulating combustion by additions to the fuel, the chemistry of fuels and the burning of heavy fuels are discussed at length. Experiments to show combustion phenomena are described and specific suggestions made to the chemical industry regarding coal-tar production and its derivatives.