The British engineering system

The unit of mass in this system is known as the slug, and is the mass which is given an acceleration of 1 ft/s by a one pound force  

Misunderstanding often arises from the fact that the pound which is the unit of mass in the f]ps system has die same name as the unit of force in the engineering system. To avoid confusion the pound mass should be written as lb or even Ibm and the unit of force always as Ibf. 

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The volume of a body does not completely define the amount of material which it contains, and therefore it is usual to define a third basic quantity, the amount of matter in the body, that is its mass M. Thus the density of the material, its mass per unit volume, has the dimensions ML 3. However, in the British Engineering System (Section 1.2.4) force F is used as the third fundamental and mass then becomes a derived dimension. 

Limelights were a lighting system invented by the British engineer Captain Thomas Drummond in 1816 to use for surveying purposes. These novel lighting systems... 

Some useful guides to British patent practice are Patents for Engineers, by L. H. A. Carr (Chapman Hall, 1959) which gives an outline of the British patent system and a simple guide to the law of patents. Another very useful guide to British patent law and practice is Inventions, Patents and Monopolies, by P. Meinhardt (Stevens Sons, 1950). Terrell and Shelley on the Law of Patents, by K. E. Shelley (Sweet Maxwell, 1961) is the standard work on the procedure and legal side, while T. A. Blanco White has... 

This chapter presents two systems of units so that you can follow the examples ahead. These two systems of units are the metric SI and what is termed by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) as the U.S. Customary system of units, namely in the ASME Section II Part D [I], This system is also termed the American Engineering System (AES) by the U.S. government. I mentioned the latter term in my book Piping and Pipelines Assessment Guide [2], in how to use the two systems of units. In this book, we will discuss briefly the other variants of the metric SI system, but it is the prevailing metric system of units. Likewise, we will concentrate on the U.S. Customary system versus the British Imperial system. Even though the latter two are similar, there are some differences. 

Almost all commentators agree that there are two major features associated with the British education system and its treatment of and attitude towards engineering. The first is that engineering in industry... 

The Berlin City electrical engineer M. Kallmann reported in 1899 on a system for controlling stray currents of electric railways [64]. As early as 1894, the Board of Trade in London issued a safety regulation for the British electric railways which specified a potential differential of not more than 1.5 V where the pipeline was positive to the rails, but 4.5 V with the rails positive. Extensive research was undertaken on reducing the risk of stray current in the soil by metallic connections from pipes to rails. However, as one writer noted, a procedure on these lines should definitely be discouraged as it carries the seed of its own destruction [64]. 

The I.S.O. designations may be correlated directly with the British Standard General Engineering series and partially with the American Aluminium Association designations. The nearest equivalents for the three systems are given in Table 4.5, although differences in alloying practice in America... 

There have also been revivals of the steam car. Robert McCulloch, the chain-saw millionaire, spent part of his fortune on a steam prototype, called the Paxton Phoenix, between 1951 and 1954. William Lear of Learjet fame, spent 15 million in 1969 on a turbine bus and a 250-horsepower turbine steam car. Both used quiet, efficient steam engines although the bus had reliability problems and poor gas mileage. Lear also tried to enter a steam car into the 1969 Indianapolis 500. The British firm of Austin-Healey was also working on a steam car in 1969. It had four-wheel drive. However, even prosperous entrepreneurs like McCulloch and Lear found that they lacked the means and support structure to successfully mass market a competitive car. Alternative power systems would have to wait until air-quality regulations resulted in some breakthroughs with hybrid and even fuel-cell cars. 

Policymaking was not made any easier by the rapidity of technical change in nuclear warfare, on the one hand, and by the slowness of the development of British delivery systems, on the other. The first examples of Blue Danube, the production model of the British atomic bomb, were delivered to Bomber Command s Armament School in November 1953 to enable RAF personnel to be trained in their storage, service and use. It would have been possible to adapt the ageing Lincoln piston-engined bombers to carry Blue Danube, but the decision was taken to... 

Environmental Protection Agency policy is to express all measurements in SI units. When implementing this practice will result in undue costs or lack of clarity, conversion factors are provided for the non-SI units. This report uses British Engineering units of measure for some cases. For conversion to the SI system, use the following conversions ... 

With the current trend toward metrication, the question of using a consistent system of units has been a problem. Wherever possible, the authors of this Handbook of Environmental Engineering series have used the British system (fps) along with the metric equivalent (mks, cgs, or SIU) or vice versa. For the convenience of the readers around the world, this book provides a 55-page detailed Conversion Factors for Environmental Engineers. In addition, the basic and supplementary units, the derived units and quantities, important physical constants, the properties of water, and the Periodic Table of the Elements, are also presented in this document. 

The formation pressure gradient, expressed usually in pounds per square inch per foot (abbreviated by psi/ft) in the British system of units, is the ratio of the formation pressure, p, in psi to the depth, z, in feet. It is not the true gradient, dp/dz, but is strictly an engineering term. In general, the hydrostatic pressure gradient, Ph (in psi/ft), can be defined by... 

Engineering Feasibility Study of the British Columbia Research Hog Fuel Gasification system", H.A. Simons (International) Ltd., May 1978. 

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