Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 92.djvu/894

 Driving Your Car Through a Stream of Oil

This new transmitter solves the dual prob- lem of power-waste and leakage of oil

��FLEXIBILITY of operation is the great outstanding factor of power transmission by means of fluids, so far as the automo- bile is concerned. Fluids transmit power through the pressure exerted by the fluid on the part to be moved. The fluid is pumped by some means into cham- bers containing the parts to be moved, and since the fluids used are practically in- compressible, the degree of pres- sure exerted is al- most proportional to rate of flow or the pressure rep- resented by that flow. It is a simple matter to change the pressure by merely changing the rate of flow. • This may be done by ordinary

control means and gives such a wide range of different speeds that when a hydraulic transmission is applied to an automobile, the latter can be run at the speed best suited to the condi- tions of load and road instead of the three or four speeds provided in the or- dinary sliding-gear transmission.

The hydraulic transmission sup- plies those speeds which the gear re- duction cannot be- cause the number of teeth in the meshing

���Parts of Power Transmitter

When engine is started, the blades of member at- taclied to engine force oil against blades of housing mounted on propeller shaft, turning this and finally rear wheels. The oil flows back into a chamber at inner circumference of two housings, whence it again reaches blades of engine member, thus continually circulating within housings. Gentle flow eliminates the jerks caused by the clutch in ordinary cars

of the oil. factors are Both of

���Showing the installation of a tur- bine as a substitute for the clutch

878

��gears necessarily always remains the same. Again, the hydraulic transmission enables the pressure to be increased gradu- ally from low to high speed. It also eliminates the clutch and does away with the at- tendant manual effort when chang- ing speeds.

The hydraulic transmission of power in motor vehicles is not new. In some of the sys- tems used a mas- ter pump is driven by the engine, and other smaller pumps drive the wheels, the oil reaching and leav- ing the smaller pumps through a series of pipes. Most of the pumps consume an ex- cessive amount of power because of skin friction in the pipes or leakage Sometimes both of these combined.

these difficulties seem to be solved in the power transmitter, which consists of a com- bination of a cen- trifugal pump and a turbine that can be inserted in place of the clutch in any car equipped with the ordinary gasoline- engine of the pres- ent day. There are no pipes. No changes need be made in the other power transmitting parts.

�� �