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Design and Simulation of Two Stroke Engines

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Acknowledgments<br />

As explained in the Foreword, this is a new book, but the acknowledgments in that first<br />

book are just as pertinent today as they were then. So here they are, with an important postscript<br />

added:<br />

The first acknowledgment is to those who enthused me during my schooldays on the subject<br />

<strong>of</strong> internal-combustion engines in general, <strong>and</strong> motorcycles in particular. They set me on<br />

the road to a thoroughly satisfying research career which has never seen a hint <strong>of</strong> boredom.<br />

The two individuals were my father, who had enthusiastically owned many motorcycles in his<br />

youth, <strong>and</strong> Mr. Rupert Cameron, who had owned but one <strong>and</strong> had ridden it everywhere—a<br />

1925 350 cc Rover. Of the two, Rupert Cameron was the greater influence, for he was a<br />

walking library <strong>of</strong> the Gr<strong>and</strong> Prix races <strong>of</strong> the '20s <strong>and</strong> '30s <strong>and</strong> would talk <strong>of</strong> engine design,<br />

<strong>and</strong> engineering design, in the most knowledgeable manner. He was actually the senior naval<br />

architect at Harl<strong>and</strong> <strong>and</strong> Wolff's shipyard in Belfast <strong>and</strong> was responsible for the design <strong>of</strong><br />

some <strong>of</strong> the gr<strong>and</strong>est liners ever to sail the oceans.<br />

I have to acknowledge that this book would not be written today but for the good fortune<br />

that brought Dr. Frank Wallace (Pr<strong>of</strong>essor at Bath University since 1965) to Belfast in the<br />

very year that I wished to do postgraduate research. At that time, Frank Wallace was one <strong>of</strong><br />

perhaps a dozen people in the world who comprehended unsteady gas dynamics, which was<br />

the subject area I already knew I had to underst<strong>and</strong> if I was ever to be a competent engine<br />

designer. However, Frank Wallace taught me something else as well by example, <strong>and</strong> that is<br />

academic integrity. Others will judge how well I learned either lesson.<br />

Pr<strong>of</strong>essor Bernard Crossl<strong>and</strong> deserves a special mention, for he became the Head <strong>of</strong> the<br />

Department <strong>of</strong> Mechanical Engineering at QUB in the same year I started as a doctoral research<br />

student. His drive <strong>and</strong> initiative set the tone for the engineering research which has<br />

continued at QUB until the present day. The word engineering in the previous sentence is<br />

underlined because he instilled in me, <strong>and</strong> a complete generation, that real "know how" comes<br />

from using the best theoretical science available, at the same time as conducting related experiments<br />

<strong>of</strong> a product design, manufacture, build <strong>and</strong> test nature. That he became, in latter<br />

years, a Fellow <strong>of</strong> the Royal Society, a Fellow <strong>of</strong> the Fellowship <strong>of</strong> Engineering <strong>and</strong> a President<br />

<strong>of</strong> the Institution <strong>of</strong> Mechanical Engineers (PS...<strong>and</strong> subsequently knighted..) seems no<br />

more than justice.<br />

I have been very fortunate in my early education to have had teachers <strong>of</strong> mathematics who<br />

taught me the subject not only with enthusiasm but, much more importantly, from the point <strong>of</strong><br />

view <strong>of</strong> application. I refer particularly to Mr. T.H. Benson at Larne Grammar School <strong>and</strong> to<br />

Mr. Scott during my undergraduate studies at The Queen's University <strong>of</strong> Belfast. They gave<br />

ix

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