Abstract
IN the preface the author tells us that although graphic methods are often used by the general mechanical engineer, they have up to now been neglected by the railway engineer. This book is intended to show how such methods may be applied to the solution of nearly all problems in connection with the working of trains on railways. In this object the author has well succeeded, and it may safely be predicted that any reader who has once used graphics irt the very easy and simple manner represented in this-book will never again have recourse to analytical methods. Indeed, there are cases where analysis becomes so complicated that its use by a busy engineer, even if he has the required mathematical ability, is out of the question; as an example may be cited the acceleration diagram of a train drawn by a steam locomotive. Tractive effort and resistance vary in a very complicated manner with the speed, and this, again, being the time integral of acceleration, which in turn depends on the difference between tractive effort and resistance, it is easy to see that a purely analytical treatment leads to almost hopelessly involved formulæ. Yet the author is able to solve this and many other problems by his graphics in a comparatively easy way, and with a degree of accuracy quite sufficient for practical purposes.
Problemi grafici di Trazione Ferroviaria.
By P. Oppizzi. Pp. viii + 2O4. (Milan: Ulrico Hoepli, 1909.) Price 3.50 lire.
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KAPP, G. Problemi grafici di Trazione Ferroviaria . Nature 81, 303 (1909). https://doi.org/10.1038/081303a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/081303a0