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MANY question whether a complete job of air-conditioning passenger cars for all weather conditions can be done at a price which most car buyers care to pay and with assurance that dependable and acceptable results can be guaranteed, Mr. Chase reports in prefacing this paper, a comparative study of existing heating, ventilating, and cooling systems. Some 1939 and many more 1940 car models, he believes, yield greatly improved results in heating the entire car and ventilating it well with all windows closed, but, he points out, the design of such systems is still in a state of flux. Mr.

“IN making these comments,” Mr. Chase says, “I am well aware that engineers are rarely given an opportunity to design a car incorporating even a large proportion of the improvements they would like to see included. “Unless some more or less ‘ideal’ types of construction are visualized, however, there may be no well-considered objective.” Visualizing these “more or less ideal types of construction,” Mr. Chase, in the following paper, throws a blanket indictment at the car designers, says what he thinks about current automobiles in no uncertain terms, and states specifically what he thinks ought to be done about it. Bodies, frames, springs, headlights, seats, engines-no unit of the modern car escapes Mr. Chase's stimulating criticism.

AFTER listing the advantages and disadvantages of front-wheel drive the author says that, although most American engineers who have given him their opinions seem to believe that the advantages of front-wheel drive are outweighed by its disadvantages, he has grounds for venturing the opinion that this form of drive is likely to have extensive use in this Country within the next few years. He bases this view more upon commercial than upon strictly engineering considerations; but the latter are not lacking altogether, as is evident from his subsequent analysis. The advantages and the disadvantages are specifically and separately discussed, existing designs of front-wheel drive being divided into three classes. Numerous illustrations of the different types of front-wheel-drive vehicle are presented, and their most important features are enumerated and explained.

Stating that automotive literature presents surprisingly little helpful information concerning the faults of the steering-systems used on automotive vehicles and that, in spite of the fact that so many of the faults are self-evident, they frequently are overlooked in actual practice, the author includes with the presentation of his own investigations summaries of the views expressed by numerous well-qualified automotive engineers and discusses these steering-gear faults in some detail. Beginning with the subject of safety, consideration is given successively to the causes of hard steering, the angular position of knuckle-pivots, knuckle-pivot location, the foregather or toe-in of wheels, castering or trailing effect, wheel-wabble, drag-link location, irreversibility, steering-gear type comparisons, tie-rods and tie-rod arms.

The objects of this paper are to (a) set down in convenient form for reference purposes particulars concerning American and British practice in clutch design, (b) compare the advantages and disadvantages of various types of clutch and (c) give some notes on the theory of design without attempting comprehensive treatment of the numerous factors involved. The descriptive portion deals almost entirely with clutches used on passenger cars and trucks, but some of the clutches described are applicable to other automotive uses. The notes on the theory of design apply in general to all automotive clutches. The clutches considered are divided into the four general classes of cone, single-plate, multiple-disc and shoe-or-band types, these being discussed at length and illustrated with drawings. After a consideration of the details of their design and a brief presentation of the subject of clutch brakes, the notes on the theory of clutch design are presented.

The authors first define the elementary conditions governing combustion efficiency, dividing these conditions into three main classes. They next compare engines operating on constant volume, constant temperature and constant pressure cycles, dealing specifically with the Otto, Diesel and semi-Diesel types. The main part of the paper is devoted to an outline of the constant pressure cycle, analyzing its advantages as compared with the merits of the constant volume cycle now used in internal-combustion engines. The paper is concluded with a detail description of a proposed constant pressure engine.