{"id":33,"date":"2010-04-28T22:08:00","date_gmt":"2010-04-28T22:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fun-engineering.net\/blogs\/funeng\/2010\/04\/28\/on_a_proposal_not_to_remove_an_historic_gas_engine\/"},"modified":"2010-04-28T22:08:00","modified_gmt":"2010-04-28T22:08:00","slug":"on-a-proposal-not-to-remove-an-historic-gas-engine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fun-engineering.net\/blogs\/funeng\/2010\/04\/28\/on-a-proposal-not-to-remove-an-historic-gas-engine\/","title":{"rendered":"On a Proposal not to Remove an Historic Gas Engine from a Modern Thermodynamics Laboratory"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>

Crossley gas engine<\/p><\/div>\n

Currently, the majority of my colleagues in the Department of Mechanical Engineering would seem not to be in favour of removing an historic Crossley gas engine from the thermodynamics laboratory. A proposal to the effect of leaving it where it is, while making some major changes to the layout of the laboratory, is being drawn-up.
\n<\/p>\n

I like that engine. I admire and I value it. However, I find it hard to justify its continuing presence in the thermodynamics laboratory. It has probably not been run for thirty-five years, or, if it has been, it would have been run for only very few hours in that period and for the benefit of very few students. I know for certain that it has not been run since I joined the institute seven years ago. It no longer has the necessary connections to gas and water, so it would now take some effort to get it running again.<\/p>\n

Some of my colleagues believe the engine will serve as a showpiece in the, perhaps, not-too-distant future when the institute moves to a new campus. It has been suggested that it could form a\u00a0center-piece in a new building.<\/p>\n

My own enthusiasm for the engine falls a lot short of that. I acknowledge that it is an important historical engine. It is in excellent condition and I feel sure that not many of these were built for laboratory use, complete with a water-cooled friction brake and a mechanical device to produce indicator diagrams (plots of cylinder pressure versus volume). It is a true masterpiece of bad engineering.<\/p>\n

Yes, I did say masterpiece. The open mechanism on the top of the engine for lubricating the cylinder, one drop at a time, is a marvel. The sheer solidity and massiveness of the engine is impressive. The craftsmanship and attention to detail are excellent. It was not bad engineering in its day: it was leading-edge technology then. The cruel, harsh reality is that if this engine were to be used today it would be bad engineering. The power-to-weight ratio is very low and the efficiency is poor.<\/p>\n

The engine is worthy of study and is deserving of a good and suitable home where it would be cared for with a view to indefinite preservation. I just don’t see a place for it in a modern thermodynamics laboratory.<\/p>\n

As for a suitable\u00a0engineering showpiece, some of the biggest recent achievements are small low-cost objects such as coronary stents or mobile phones. Perhaps one or two such monuments could be displayed in the thermodynamics laboratory, on a window-sill, without taking up valuable floor space.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Currently, the majority of my colleagues in the Department of Mechanical Engineering would seem not to be in favour of removing an historic Crossley gas engine from the thermodynamics laboratory. A proposal to the effect of leaving it where it is, while making some major changes to the layout of the laboratory, is being drawn-up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[35,40],"class_list":["post-33","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-teaching","tag-crossley-engine","tag-engine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fun-engineering.net\/blogs\/funeng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fun-engineering.net\/blogs\/funeng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fun-engineering.net\/blogs\/funeng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fun-engineering.net\/blogs\/funeng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fun-engineering.net\/blogs\/funeng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fun-engineering.net\/blogs\/funeng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fun-engineering.net\/blogs\/funeng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fun-engineering.net\/blogs\/funeng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fun-engineering.net\/blogs\/funeng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}