EFFICIENT USE OF ENERGY

This article reports on the work of the American Physical Society Study Group on Technical Aspects of Efficient Energy Utilization, whose purpose was to point out areas where scientists and engineers may contribute to the invention or improvement of the technical structure of the energy economy. The automobile, one of the three categories of end-use studied, was somewhat difficult to evaluate because much of the energy waste is attributable to social choice of transportation. Among the recommendations are that automobile efficiency could be improved considerably by better matching of the engine and transmission to the load, that energy dissipated in the brakes could be recovered and stored, that air-drag coefficients could be reduced, and that newly designed tire-suspension systems could yield large reductions in the power requirements of road vehicles.

• Corporate Authors:

  American Institute of Physics

  One Physics Ellipse
  College Park, MD  United States  20740-3843
• Publication Date: 1975-8

Media Info

• Pagination: p. 23-33
• Serial:
  • Physics Today
  • Volume: 28
  • Issue Number: 8

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Automobiles; Braking performance; Dissipation; Drag; Economic efficiency; Energy; Fuel consumption; Improvements; Power; Suspensions; Transmissions; Utilization; Vehicle power plants
• Uncontrolled Terms: Efficiency
• Old TRIS Terms: Automobile engines
• Subject Areas: Economics; Energy; Highways; Research; Safety and Human Factors; Vehicles and Equipment;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00099732
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Sep 30 1975 12:00AM