THE CONSTANTINESCO GEAR AS APPLIED TO CARS.
TO the new possessor of a car the gear box invariably presents the greatest difficulty, for a certain skill, which can only be acquired by practice, is needed to manipulate. the changing of speeds successfully. For many years designers have been working upon the problem of an infinitely variable and automatic gear, requiring no skill in its operation, to replace the existing gear box unit. The gear box is incidentally the source of a considerable loss in power between the engine and driving wheels, due to friction.
Mr. Constantinesco, the inventor of the well-known " C.C." Interrupter Gear for machine guns, has been working upon this problem for a number of years, and has now perfected a variable and automatic speed gear which may be described as-being the nearest approach to the ideal which has yet been attained.
It would be outside the scope of this article, which is written for the ordinary motorist and not for the engineer, to explain technically the extremely ingenious devices which have been employed in applying the fundamental principles of inertia to obtain these results. Much IMs already appeared in the daily Press, and the engineering papers have given minute technical descriptions, but it remains for the uninitiated person to work out how the gear would function if applied to the average motor-car. The following two examples, which assume•the existence of everyday conditions, will show this.
Suppose, first, that you are approaching a steep hill with your car. Normally you would wait until the engine began to labour and then change down. With the Constantinesco gear you would keep your foot on the accelerator pedal ; the engine speed would remain constant (at its maximum R.P.M: and on the peak of its power curve, providing the throttle was fully -open), while the car would gradually slow up, as it breasted the hill, until it found the exact maximum road speed at which the engine, developing its maximum power, could propel it.
Suppose, secondly, that you are in traffic. You come to-a -block and you are obliged to stop. To do this with the Constantinesco gear you merely take your foot off the accelerator pedal and apply. your brakes. Your engine is now running slowly, as in neutral on an ordinary car. To start again you release the brakes and open the throttle slightly: As the engine R.P.M. increase so Um power output increases till a point • is reached where the power output is sufficient to move the car, which begins to glide forward with a total absence of noise or harshness.. If the throttle is now opened still, more, the power output of the engine is correspondingly increased, until the car is travelling at the maximum speed at which its engine, developing its maximum power, can propel it, Where Mr. Constantinesco's gear differs from all others so far produced is that there is no direct mechanical con- nexion between the engine or "prime mover" and the road wheels. . .
A statement such as this requires explanation. Take the case of an ordinary, car driven very slowly in first speed against a brick wall. When the car actually touches the wall the engine immediately stops or stalls, because it has neither the power to push the wall down nor to spin the back wheels.
If the Constantinesco gear is fitted the engine would not stop when the car reached the wall, but would continue to run while the car would steadily keep its maximum pressure exerted against the wall. In an ordinary car the engine stops because the engine itself is directly connected to the road wheels, and the latter are checked, thus stopping the engine ; but in the case of the Constantineseo gear, there being no direct connexion, even though the road wheels are checked the engine is still able to run.
Mr. Constantinesco has some twenty models on view in his laboratory, and he has also experimentally fitted a Singer light car engine to a standard Sheffield-Simplex chassis, and with this latter obtained results confirming the foregoing statements.
The gear has been fitted to motor-cars because this was the easiest method of giving a convincing demonstration of its possibilities. It is, however, not the intention of the Company who have the controlling rights to interest themselves at the moment in the automobile industry, their reason being that, though the gear would render the motor-car considerably more efficient by lowering running costs, and also by enabling engines of smaller capacity to be fitted to obtain the required results, yet the existing gear box meets immediate needs. There arc other fields where the gear may be of even greater importance, as, for example, in connexion with the internal-combustion engine on the locomotive, and in steamship practice, &c.
In conclusion, it may almost be said that Mr. Con- stantinesco has discovered the "Fourth Dimension" in
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