Measures for Progress: A History of the National Bureau of Standards

AUTOMOBILES AIRCRAFT 277
$100 million per year." 166 The phrasing was in terms of consumer savings,
but the objective was conservation.
Working largely with funds transferred from the Quartermaster
Corps of the Army, with the assistance of research associates from the
Society of Automotive Engineers, and the cooperation of the American
Petroleum Institute, the Bureau issued a series of papers establishing the
most efficient characteristics of motor engines, fuels, and oils. Among
other considerations, it became evident that more knowledge of engine start-
ing factors was necessary as use of closed cars over the new network of
paved roads greatly increased winter operation of automobiles. (The Bu.
reau refused to recommend any of the dozens of antifreeze solutions that
appeared, finding none better than plain alcohol and water.) 167 Previously
given little attention, extensive studies were made of fuel-air ratios, jet size,
spark advance, fuel volatility, throttling and choking, and air and water
temperatures in the engine.168
When Bureau technicians learned that laboratory and road perform-
ances of automobiles and trucks often differed widely, they constructed an
ingenious array of complicated apparatus that automatically recorded 18
different measurements of the performance of the engine and the vehicle
itself in operation. A Bureau investigation of brakes and brake linings for
the Army Motor Transportation Corps, begun as better engines and roads
made speeds above 25 miles an hour common, was used by the automobile
industry to induce parts manufacturers to improve these products. Out of
this work came the Bureau's recording and inspection decelerometer that
measured the braking ability of cars, and the Bureau's famous study of the
reaction time of drivers, as well as minimum stopping distances, when brakes
were applied on automobiles, trucks, or busses. A chart showing these
NBS Annual Report 1922, p. 8; Annual Report 1936, pp. 62-63. Inevitably, almost
as many "gasoline-savers" as there were household "gas-savers" came on the market,
the most spurious a device that was built into a Hudson Super Six touring car and alleged
to give 54 miles to a quart of gasoline. It proved to be a series of concealed spare
gas tanks. Memo, GKB for Department of Commerce, Sept. 17, 1923 (NBS Box 58,
PA).
NBS Annual Report 1920, p. 162; H. K. Cummings, "Anti-freeze solutions and com-
pounds," J. Soc. Auto. Eng. 19, 93 (1926).
NBS Annual Report 1925, p. 8.
It was while making an acceleration test at low temperature and atmospheric pressure
on a Ford engine using aviation gasoline—part of a Bureau investigation "to determine
the grade of gasoline for cars that would best utilize our petroleum resources"—that on
Sept. 20, 1923 a gasoline leak resulted in an explosion and fire in the altitude chamber
that caused four deaths and injured six among the test staff. Science, 58, supp. 12
(1923); file in NBS Box 40, AG.