"alfred montestruc" wrote in message
om...
"Keith Willshaw" wrote in message
...


Hogwash.

Any IC engine that I can give a WWI machine shop the plans for that
does not use late 20th century solid state electronics can be build in
WWI so long as the alloys specified are available. Very little
changed in basic machine shop technology from the lat 19th century
till the introduction of electronic chips.


Apart from the alloys available, lubricants, cooling systems
and ignition systems

The fact is you couldnt get the materials to manufacture the
engine from, most engines of WW1 were cast iron, the
lubricants were simple mineral oils or vegetable oils,
cooling was a major problem , hence the rotary engine
and ignition systems were extremely crude

The issue is were the alloys used in the engine available in the
1914-1918 era, or were reasonable substitutes available. If yes, then
it can be built.

Point of fact, I am very sure that alloys needed either existed, or
reasonable substitutes did.


Evidence please

Note that commonly in design of machines where the engineer wants to
allow the potential builder to substitute materials when that
originally specified is not available or the price rises, will spec
the required material properties like hardness, and yield strength and
minimum percent elongation in a tensile test, a range of chemistry, a
specification of acceptable processes (forging, casting, hot or
cold-rolling), and sometimes Charpy impact tests and sometimes more
exotic tests to prove the quality of the material.


None of those tests were in common use in WW1, steel production
was still more of an art than a science.

Sometimes one goes whole hog and specifies the chemistry of the steel
and tolerences on that chemistry, and all the processes used to make
it from the steel mill on.


They didnt have gas chromatographs in 1914

I work as a mechanical engineer and have designed many machines, and
reviewed the designs of many more.


So have I

Basically your statement is flat wrong, given the plans for the engine
and material specifications for the steels and other materials used in
the engine, which would fit in a shoebox and weigh very little, any
industrial society in WWI era could build them.

Yet first rate engineers like Harry Ricardo were severely constrained
in their engine designs by the technology available. Some of his designs
could not be manufactured until the 1940's, his sleeve valve engines
required techniques that were still difficult to master in 1939

Keith