Tube

Tube (pronounced toob or tyoob)

(1) A hollow (usually cylindrical or oval) body of metal, glass, rubber or other material, used especially for conveying or containing liquids or gases.

(2) A small, collapsible, cylinder of metal or plastic sealed at one end and having a capped opening at the other from which paint, toothpaste, or some other semi-fluid substance may be squeezed or pumped.

(3) In anatomy & zoology, any hollow, cylindrical vessel or organ:

(4) In botany, the lower part of a gamopetalous corolla or gamosepalous calyx, below the lobes but used generally of any other hollow structure in a plant

(5) As “inner tube” a rubber, synthetic or composite construction in the form of a torus (doughnut-shaped) which sits inside the tyres of bicycles, motorcycles and certain other vehicles for the purpose of sustaining inflation (now rare on passenger vehicles which tend to use “tubeless” tyres.

(6) In semi-formal use (originally UK colloquial but now trademarked), the London RTS (rapid transit system) railway system (should use initial upper case).  The name comes from the tube-like tunnels drilled for most on the original underground sections but “The Tube” is used of the whole network (which does extend beyond London) including the above-ground sectors.  “Tube” is used variously of (1) the service, (2) of the cylindrical tunnels and (3) the rolling stock (the trains and carriages).  The term is also used in other places to describe underground railways.

(7) In electronics as “electron tube” (clipped usually to “tube”); as the “vacuum tube”, the predecessor of the transistor.

(8) In materials, as “nanotube”, small carbon constructions some 50,000 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair.

(9) In fashion variously as (1) “tube top” (a tight-fitting, sleeveless garment extening from the armpits to the waist or hips, (2) “boob tube” a shorter type of tube top which covers only the breasts (often labeled as “bandeau tube top”) and (3) “tube skirt” (a close fitting skirt which differs from the similar “pencil skirt” which is tapered).

(10) In slang, a television set (also used as “boob tube” with “boob” used in the sense of “someone stupid or foolish”, an allusion either to the inanity of much of what was broadcast or slur upon the audience).  Historically, television screens (like pre-modern computer monitors) used a “cathode-ray tube” and this was the original source of the idea of televisions as “on the tube”.

(11) In the slang of surfers, the curled hollow space formed when a cresting wave pitches forward when breaking.

(12) In the slang of clinical medicine, to intubate.

(13) In Australian Slang, a can of beer.

(14) In slang, a telescope (now rare and used usually as a deliberate archaism).

(15) To furnish with a tube or tubes.

(16) To convey or enclose in a tube.

(17) To form or render into the shape of a tube; to make tubular.

1590-1600: From the Middle French tube, from the Latin tubus (tube, pipe), related to tuba (long trumpet; war-trumpet), of obscure origin, but possibly connected to tībia (shinbone, reed-pipe).  The idiomatic for “down the tube(s)” (into a ruined, wasted, or abandoned state or condition; lost, finished) dates from the early 1960s and carries the same meaning as “down the drain”.  Despite the similarity of the words and the shapes of the structures, etymologists believe tub (open vessel used for liquids or other substances) was unrelated to tube.  Tub was from the late fourteenth century Middle English tubbe & tobbe, from a continental Germanic source such as the Middle Dutch tubbe, the Middle Low German tubbe & tobbe or the Middle Flemish tubbe, all of uncertain origin.  Tube, tubage & tubing are nouns & verbs, tubulure is a noun, tubed is a verb, tubular, tubey, tubiform, tubesque, tubeless, tubelike, tubish, tuboid & tuboidal are adjectives; the noun plural is tubes.

Squeezed from a tube: The toothpaste one squeezes onto a toothbrush is called a "nurdle".

The original use in the 1590s was of the observed structures in anatomy and zoology (a hollow organ or passage in the body) and this was extended by the 1650s to mean “pipe or hollow cylinder” (especially a small one used as a conduit for liquids).  The use to describe a “sealed container in tubular form” began in 1859 with the vacuum tube, later extended in electronics to a sealed tube containing electrodes (in wide use until the 1950s when transistors achieved mass-production).  The use to describe televisions dates from 1959 and seems to have been as clipping of “cathode ray tube” (CRT, the technology use of pre-modern screens) or “picture tube”.  “The Tube” was also late nineteenth century for wired telephones, the use derived from ships where voice traffic between places was sometimes carried by “speaking tube”, the same technology also used in horse-drawn carriages and early motor vehicles where the passenger compartment was sealed and separated from the drive or chauffeur.  In limousines (with a glass partition or divider), speaking-tubes were still sometimes fitted as late as the 1960s because it was simple, reliable technology and over such short distances an electronic apparatus offer little advantage.  London’s underground railway (an early London RTS (rapid transit system)) came to be known as “the Tube” in 1847, based on the tubular tunnels drilled to created the network; in 1900, in the press, it was dubbed the “Twopenny Tube” (a reference to the basic fare).  “Tube” has come to be a slang for RTS systems in various places, even those with no tubular tunnels (a similar linguistic process to “wire” or “cable” for electronic transmission).

Tube maps (sort of):  The London Underground maps, 1908 (left), 1933 (centre) and 2014 (right).

Although referred to almost universally as the “London Underground Map”, pedants like to point out (1) it’s a schematic (or diagram) rather than a map and (2) over half the “Underground” is above ground.  The now familiar concept of the “map” was in 1931 devised by Henry Beck (1902–1974), then a 29 year old electrical draftsman, who envisaged the rail lines as wires, the stations as connectors and the whole network as an integrated and interconnected diagrammatic system, much like the electrical circuit boards he was accustomed to drawing.  What was revolutionary about Mr Beck’s concept was he understood the purpose was different from a conventional map where scale mattered, rail lines had to be drawn in exactly the shape the assumed and topographic features were included.  What people wanted in a map of “The Tube” was a navigation aid, something which made as simple as possible the task of working out the matter of getting from station-to-station. 

The verb “to tube” (receive, enclose, or dispatch in a (pneumatic) tube) was in use by at least 1870 and was a clipping of pneumatic-dispatch tube (PDT), tubes first installed in 1859 in buildings for the rapid delivery of documents between floors or offices and propelled by air pressure; for dispatch, the documents were rolled and inserted in a small cylinder, the external diameter of which was slightly less than the internal diameter of the tube infrastructure.  The noun tubage (insertion of a tube into a cavity or canal) dates from 1880 and by 1896 it was being used as a collective nouns for tubes.  The adjective tubular (having the form of a tube or pipe) was from the Latin tubulus (a small pipe) and was in the early 1960s adopted in California’s surfing culture to describe the hollow, curling waves, most ideal for riding.

Lindsay Lohan in green-hooped tube top (left) and Coco Avenue's range of boob tubes in designer colors (right).

In pneumatic tyres, although still common on bicycles and motor-bikes, inner tubes are now rare in passenger vehicle use but they are still produced for a variety of commercial application and they have been re-purposed for the recreational pastime of “tubing” (riding on the inflated inner tube of a large (truck, tractor etc) tyre), undertaken both as a water-sport and on ski-slopes.  The jocular slang noun “tube-steak” emerged in 1962 to described “a frankfurter” (ie hotdog sausage), the term obviously a reference to the shape and given that, it’s remarkable it seems not to have been used as a slang for “penis” until the mid-1980s.  The test-tube (cylinder of thin glass closed in rounded form at one end) was so named in 1909 because it was used to test the properties of liquids.  Surprisingly, “test-tube baby” predates by decades modern IVF (In vitro fertilization) and was first used in 1935 in reference to artificial insemination.  In the 1980s, “test tube baby” became the popular descriptor of IVF, “test tube” used as a synecdoche of the process rather than any suggestion of the use of the glass receptacles.  The name “tube-top” (a women's close-fitting elastic top) made its debut in 1972 (although the style had been seen before); the “tube skirt” appeared the next season (again, a re-labeling) while the first “boob tubes” (a truncated version of the “tube top” which wraps only around the breasts) were advertized in 1977.  Being elasticized, some wear boob tubes without a bra but they're available also with a "built-in" bra (like all forms of structural engineering, physics does limit what's possible) and some are made with a thicker material so a strapless bra unobtrusively can be worn underneath.  

YouTube content.  

YouTube is a US social media and online video sharing platform now owned by Google.  It first appeared in 2005 and is now the planet's second most visited internet site, only Google search generating more traffic (as expressed in volumes of unique visits per day).  YouTube was emblematic of the way the internet evolved in a manner somewhat different to that futurists had in preceding decades predicted.  Although it was clear it would be an inter-connected world of databases with content from “content providers” available for download, few predicted the extent to which the terms “viewer”, “user” and “content provider” would overlap; the upload phenomenon generally was not predicted.  Substantially, this was technologically deterministic: with a high percentage of the world’s population carrying cameras able to produce HD (high definition) photographs and films which easily can be uploaded to a global distribution platform at only marginal cost, a new industry emerged and others were disrupted or destroyed.

OSCA S187 (750S).  The Italians dubbed these tubo di dentifricio (toothpaste tube), illustrating yet again how everything sounds better in Italian.

In 1937, facing bankruptcy, the three surviving Maserati brothers (Bindo (1883-1980), Ettore (1894-1990) & Ernesto (1898-1975)) sold their eponymous company to the Orsi Group in Modena, the arrangement including a decade-long consultancy for the trio.  It’s not known if there was “no compete” clause in place but the brothers waited until 1947 when the contract expired before returning to San Lazzaro di Savena (near Bologna) where they founded Officine Specializzate per la Costruzione Automobili Fratelli Maserati S.p.A. (O.S.C.A.), the intention being to build small runs of racing cars for customers and for more than a decade production continued.  Most of the machines built used small displacement engines to contest the various series for such things (then popular in Italy) although in 1951 there was a one-off, 4.5 litre (273 cubic inch) V12, soon rendered an orphan when the Formula One rules were changed. 

Accordingly, subsequent OSCAs were smaller and one of the most exquisite was the S187 which made its debut in 1956.  Built to contest the well-supported 750 cm³ (46 cubic inch) racing class, the name was derived from the displacement of each of the engine’s four cylinders, a convention used for years also by Ferrari.  The smallest engine O.S.C.A. ever made, it was of “square” configuration (the bore & stroke both 62 mm (2.44 inch)) with double overhead camshafts (DOHC) and a pair of twin-choke, side-draft Weber carburetors.  Modest the displacement may have been but the package generated an impressive 70 horsepower which, combined with low weight (a svelte 450 kg (990 lb)) and effective aerodynamics, delivered class-leading performance.  That was despite the S187 being a little heavier than had been envisaged because constraints in time & cash meant the planned multi-tubular space frame had to be abandoned, replaced with a more conventional ladder frame chassis.

OSCA 750S NART (North American Racing Team), one of four with a clamshell body.

The delicate aerodynamic body was by the coachbuilder Morelli and the S-187 (referred to usually as the 750S) was immediately successful, gaining a class victory at the 1956 Mille Miglia, followed the next year with a class win at the 12 Hours of Sebring.  Although in 1959 still competitive in the 750 cm³ class, the brothers produced a new cylinder head which raised the output by 5 horsepower which may sound slight but it was a 7% lift (it would be like adding some 30 hp to a 400 hp engine) and despite in competition being regularly run for sustained periods at the 7700 rpm redline, reliability continued to be outstanding and the 750S remained competitive until well into the 1960s.  Nineteen were built.

End of the line: 1963 OSCA 1600 GT2

Unfortunately, age caught up with the Maserati brothers and in 1963 they sold O.S.C.A. to Count Domenico Agusta (1907–1971) who, in 1945, founded the MV Agusta motorcycle company, a move necessitated by the post-war peace treaty which included a ban on Italian aircraft production which obviously rendered unviable the aviation business Costruzioni Aeronautiche Giovanni Agusta S.A. (formed in 1923 by Count Giovanni Agusta (1879–1927)).  The O.S.C.A. operation was closed in 1967.

Capillary

Capillary (pronounced kap-uh-ler-ee)

(1) Pertaining to or occurring in or as if in a tube of fine bore.

(2) Resembling a strand of hair; hair-like; slender.

(3) In physics, pertaining to capillarity; of or relating to the apparent attraction or repulsion between a liquid and a solid, observed in capillarity.

(4) In anatomy, pertaining to a capillary or capillaries; one of the minute blood vessels between the terminations of the arteries and the beginnings of the veins.  Capillaries form a network throughout the body for the exchange of oxygen, metabolic waste products, and carbon dioxide between blood and tissue cells.

(5) As capillary tube, any small-bore tube.

(6) A fine hole or narrow passage in any substance (technical use only).

1570–1580: From the Middle English, from the Latin capillāris (of or pertaining to hair), the construct being capill(us) (hair) + -ary.  The suffix –ary (of or pertaining to) was a back-formation from unary and similar, from the Latin adjectival suffixes -aris and -arius; appended to many words, often nouns, to make an adjective form.   Use was not restricted to words of Latin origin.  The etymology of the Latin capillus (hair (of the head)) is contested.  Although a relationship to caput (head) seems obvious, some doubt the connection "for formal reasons”, essentially because capillus is a diminutive, and would translate as “little head”, a perhaps tenuous relationship with “hair” but certainly not impossible and the dispute continues.  The Latin word was borrowed by early fourteenth century English as capillar (hair-like) to describe veins.

In the modern science of anatomy, used to describe “tube-like structures having so small a bore that water will not run through them”, use dates from 1742, an extension of the noun use from 1606 used to describe a “minute blood vessel”.  From 1806, experientialists used the word to describe the phenomena of the rise of liquids in tubes etc by the processes of surface tension; because the observational studies were conducted in capillary vessels, this came first to be called capillary attraction (1813).  Capillary as the "state or condition of being capillary" was first documented in 1806, from the French capillarité, from Latin capillāris.  In science, the derived terms include magnetocapillary, optocapillary & polycapillary.  The noun plural is capillaries and intercapillary is the adjective

The smaller, the bore of the tube, the greater the effect of the interaction of forces.

The process behind the counter-intuitive idea of water flowing uphill, even vertically, is called capillary action (and also capillary motion, capillarity, capillary effect, wicking or capillary attraction).  It describes the process by which liquids contained in narrow spaces are able, without the assistance of, or even in opposition to external forces such as pressure or gravity are able to move upwards.  It occurs because of the reaction of intermolecular forces between the liquid and surrounding solid surfaces; if the internal diameter of the tube is sufficiently small, then a combination of surface tension (caused by cohesion within the liquid) and adhesive forces between the liquid and wall will propel the liquid.  When the intermolecular attractive forces between the liquid and the solid surrounding surfaces (adhesive forces) are stronger than the cohesive forces within the liquid, the fluid will be pulled up the liquid column up until there is a sufficient mass of liquid for gravitational forces to counteract these forces.

The circular economy of botanical water management.

Plants use capillary action to draw water from roots and stems upwards to the trunk.  The molecules of the water are attracted to the molecules already  inside of the nominally solid stem from where they are dispersed throughout the plant.  Again, it’s the product of the relationship between adhesion and cohesion, and for plants, adhesion allows for the water to stick to their organic tissues while cohesion keeps the water molecules together.  Surface tension is the effect of intermolecular attraction that causes liquids to form a top or outer layer that behaves like a thin film of sorts.  Surface tension is responsible for the shape of water drops and for holding the structures together as plants soak up the water.  This is the circular economy of plants.

Capillary attraction and the Thorny Devil (from a BBC documentary).

Dwelling uniquely in central & western Australia, the thorny devil (Moloch horridus) is a lizard which is often seen when around 50-75 mm (2-3 inches) in length but can grow as large as 200 mm (8 inches).  Long-lived (up to 20 years), although fearsome in appearance, they are placid creatures with few apparent interests other than finding the ants and so voracious is their appetite that thousands can be consumed in a single meal.  The presence of people seems little to disturb them and thorny devils will sit on someone's shoulder for some time, apparently content and without any sign of distress.  Other than ants, their main need is for fresh water which is harvested through the channels formed in its skin between the spines.  It can collect moisture either from allowing dew to settle or by finding a water source and standing still, allowing gravity and capillary action to operate to let the fluid reach the mouth.  During rainfall events (which do happen in the Australian deserts), the process is rapid but in dry periods capillary action permits water to be taken up from damp sand and this can for months at a time be the creature’s primary method of intake.

Isolastic

Isolastic (pronounced ahy-soh las-tik)

An engine-mounting system developed for the Norton Commando motorcycle.

1967: The construct was iso- + e(lastic).  The prefix iso- is from the Ancient Greek, a combining form of ἴσος (ísos) (equal).

Elastic (also as elastik) was from the mid seventeenth century French (coined as part of the technical language of chemistry to describe gases “having the property of recovering its former volume after compression”), from the New Latin elasticus (expanding spontaneously), the construct being the Ancient Greek elast(ós) (a late variant of elatós (ductile, beaten (of metal)) and derivative of elaúnein & elân (beat out, forge, render from metal)) + -icus (-ic-).  The Greek elastos (ductile, flexible) & elaunein are of uncertain origin but some speculate the source was the primitive Indo-European base ele- (to go).  Elastic (and elastik) came to be applied to solids after the 1660s in the sense of "possessing the nature to return to the form from which it is stretched or bent after the applied force is removed".  Figurative use to describe things as diverse as the principles of politicians or statistical properties emerged by 1859 and the most widely used modern form, the noun meaning "piece of elastic material" (originally a cord or string woven with rubber) dates from 1847 as an invention of American English.  The noun elasticity (the property of being elastic) dates from the 1660s, either from the French élasticité or else as the ad-hoc construction from elastic + -ity.  The adjective inelastic began in 1748 as part of the jargon of physical science and engineering meaning “not restored to original shape after responding to strain" and was simply the technical antonym of elastic while the figurative sense of "rigid, unyielding" dates from 1867 but general use didn’t endure as the word became associated with fields such as economics.

In scientific use, the prefix iso- was used to indicate “equal (as in isometric, isobar, isocyanic acid et al); having equal measurements”.  As a word and abbreviation, iso had its quirks even before it became popular oral shorthand to refer to the various states of isolation imposed during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic.  The use to describe the specifications of standards (eg ISO 9001 et al) defined by the Organisation internationale de normalisation (International Organization for Standardization) leads many to believe ISO is an acronym or initializm.  However, the organization notes that when founded, it was given approved the short form “ISO”, a nod to the Ancient Greek ἴσος (ísos) (equal), the implication being the equalization (ie standardization) of rules and terminology across jurisdictions.  Despite that, there appears to be no documentary evidence to support the pedigree of the name and most folk who give the matter a moment’s thought probably assume it means “International Standards Organization”.

In film and television production, an “iso” is an isolated camera (a camera used to isolate a subject, usually for instant replay, a use dating from 1967 in sports broadcasting).  In executive salary packaging, tax minimization etc, an ISO incentive stock option) is a right extended to an employee to buy shares of company stock at a discounted price (the realized profit on which are taxed usually at a concessional rate).  In a number of sports, iso is used as a clipping of isolation to refer to tactical plays and in category theory it’s a clipping of isomorphism (morph a back-formation from morpheme, from the Ancient Greek μορφή (morphḗ) (form, shape).  In optics, isochromatic (iso- +‎ chromatic) refers to "possessing the same colour or wavelength; of or corresponding to constant colour".  Chromatic was from either the French chromatique (chromatic) or directly from its etymon the Latin chrōmaticus, from Ancient Greek χρωματικός (khrōmatikós) (relating to colour; one of the three types of tetrachord in Greek music), from χρῶμα (khrôma), (colour; pigment; chromatic scale in music; music), ultimately from the primitive Indo-European ger- (to grind; to rub; to stroke; to remove), presumably in the sense in which pigments were found.

1966 Iso Grifo Spyder (left), 1971 Iso Fidia (centre) & 1973 Iso Grifo 7 Litre (penthouse).

Iso Autoveicoli SpA (subsequently several times re-named) was an automobile and motorcycle maker in Italy, active between 1939-1974, their most fondly remembered cars from the 1960s & 1970s being sold under the Iso brand.  The Iso name was derived from the company’s pre-war origin in Genoa as a manufacturer of refrigeration units when it was called Isothermos, the construct being iso + thermos, from the Ancient Greek θερμός (thermós) (warm), the implied sense being "something which maintains the correct temperature".  In 2022, the corporate name is IsoRivolta and it continues to operate as a low-volume manufacturer.

The suffix -ic was from the Middle English -ik, from the Old French -ique, from the Latin -icus, from the primitive Indo-European -kos & -ḱos, formed with the i-stem suffix -i- and the adjectival suffix -kos & -ḱos.  The form existed also in the Ancient Greek as -ικός (-ikós), in Sanskrit as -इक (-ika) and the Old Church Slavonic as -ъкъ (-ŭkŭ); a doublet of -y.  In European languages, adding -kos to noun stems carried the meaning "characteristic of, like, typical, pertaining to" while on adjectival stems it acted emphatically; in English it's always been used to form adjectives from nouns with the meaning “of or pertaining to”.  A precise technical use exists in physical chemistry where it's used to denote certain chemical compounds in which a specified chemical element has a higher oxidation number than in the equivalent compound whose name ends in the suffix -ous; (eg sulphuric acid (H₂SO₄) has more oxygen atoms per molecule than sulfurous acid (H₂SO₃).

Norton's isolastic engine mounting

Norton Featherbed frame.

Powerful as the engines were, much of the success in competition Norton’s motorcycles enjoyed in the 1950s were attributable to the “Featherbed” frame, introduced in 1950.  Designed with twin parallel rectangular loops, each formed from a single length of Reynolds steel tubing with crossed-over welded ends which met a securely braced headstock at the front and swinging arm mountings to the rear, the Featherbed frame was stiff, strong and surprisingly light and proved resistant to even sever road and transmission stresses.  It was state of the art but that state reflected the technology of the late 1940s and as the years went by, engine speeds, displacement and compression ratios increased so power and torque rose, imposing mechanical stresses and, most significantly, vibration levels became so pronounced that the big Norton twin-cylinder bikes were becoming less attractive to buyers; while all the power and torque was admired, for many it was rendered unusable by all the shaking which had to be endured at a wide range of engine speeds.

Norton Commando frame.

A new engine was the obvious solution but, despite years of success, by the early 1960s, the whole British motorcycle industry was under-capitalized and nothing emerged; Norton’s bankruptcy surprised few.  Re-structured in 1966 as Norton-Villiers Ltd, it was still obvious a new engine was needed to remain competitive and this was pursued but the engineers suggested a new frame might be a stop-gap solution while engine development proceeded.  Most attractive was that a new frame should cheap and fast to create.  Afforcing the engineering staff, even with a German nuclear physicist who had once worked for Rolls-Royce, work proceeded quickly even though the Featherbed’s box-frame approach was abandoned in favor of a single, large diameter top tube that ran from the top of the steering tube to the seat struts with a short, angled gusset (made from a tube of the same dimension) was incorporated to triangulate the steering/top tube connection.  Two smaller diameter tubes extended from the bottom of the steering tube, running underneath the engine-gearbox unit where, connected by the centre stand’s mounting tube, they curved upwards to meet the seat struts at the rear suspension top fixing brackets.  The frame was completed by a triangulation of the rear section, achieved by using two more tubes which ran from the rear engine-gearbox unit mounting bracket to midway along the large top tube.

As intended, the new frame was light and the torsional strength (the resistance to twisting) was even higher than the engineers’ theoretical calculations had projected.  The design imperatives had been surprisingly simple, a kind of “back to basics” approach which (1) ensured the relation between the front & rear wheels remained constant regardless of the roughness of the surface, and 2) the higher loadings were Imposed only on the straight tubes, the bent portions of the frame are stressed.  Most innovative was the isolastic mounting system for the engine-gearbox unit (which the factory initially dubbed “GlideRide”.  Although essentially an admission the vibrations inherent in big, twin-cylinder engines couldn’t (then) be fixed, they could substantially be isolated to the unit and not transmitted through the frame to the rider.  At the core of the problem was that as a crankshaft rotates, the engine’s centre of gravity describes a heart-shaped path around the crankshaft axis, the engine therefore tending to oscillate around that path.  What the isolastic system did was provide the engine with three suspension points: (1) at the front, (2) at the top-rear of the gearbox and (3) at the cylinder head.  The mountings were large because of the vibration they needed to absorb but with a torsional stiffness provided by a rigidity in the side mountings, the idea being that the engine must be free to move in the plane of the crankshaft but without twisting in the frame.

1972 Norton Commando 750 Combat.

When the Norton Commando was launched in 1967, the combination of frame and the isolastic engine-gearbox mounting system proved the inherent vibration problem associated with big twins, if not solved, had been artfully concealed.  The early implementations of both the isolastic plumbing and the frame did reveal some weaknesses but these problems quickly were solved and both enjoyed a decade long life, over 60,000 Commandos produced between 1976-1977.  However, the clever improvisation (driven by financial necessity) really just delayed the inevitable as the manufacturers from the Far East had proven their modern, four-cylinder concepts were a better direction for the high performance motorcycle.  In the ten years the Norton Commando was on sale, the Japanese improved their products while the British tinkered at the edges and by the time the last Commando was made, the superiority it once enjoyed in road-holding and handling had evaporated.  The British industry never recovered from the mistakes made during the 1960s and 1970s.

Alloy

Alloy (pronounced al-oi (noun) or uh-loi (verb))

(1) A substance composed of two or more metals, or of a metal or metals with a nonmetal, intimately mixed, as by fusion or electrodeposition.

(2) A less costly metal mixed with a more valuable one.

(3) A standard; quality; fineness.

(4) Admixture, as of good with evil.

(5) To mix (metals or metal with non-metal) so as to form an alloy.

(6) To reduce in value by an admixture of a less costly metal.

(7) To debase, impair, or reduce by admixture; adulterate.

(8) A slang term for aluminum, applied often to wheels made of the metal.

1590–1600: From the Middle French aloi (a mixture), from aloier (to combine) from the Old French alei, noun derivative of aleier (to combine) from the Latin alligāre (to bind up), the construct being al- (from the Latin adjective suffix -ālis) + ligāre (to bind) (from which English ultimately gained ligament).  It replaced the earlier Middle English allay from the Anglo-French allai.  An alloy is metallic substance made by mixing and fusing two or more metals, or a metal and a nonmetal, to obtain desirable qualities such as hardness, lightness, and strength. Brass, bronze, and steel are all alloys.  Alloys often have physical properties markedly different from those of the pure metals.

Tube Alloys

Tube Alloys was the code name of the UK’s World War II atomic weapon programme.  Work at Cambridge University during the 1930s had witnessed nuclear fission which underpinned the theory a nuclear chain reaction could be started, thereby making possible an atomic bomb.  While the science remained mysterious to most, the term “atomic bomb” had been known since 1913 when HG Wells used it to describe a continuously-exploding bomb in his novel The World Set Free.  The code name was chosen because it was vague enough to be associated with just about any engineering project.

Trinity A-Bomb test, 1945, the world's first detonation of a nuclear weapon.  Trinity was a plutonium device, the uranium bomb used against Hiroshima not tested because the scientists and engineers were certain of its success.    

Because the development of an atomic bomb demanded vast resources, Tube Alloys was later absorbed into the parallel US research; the trans-Atlantic effort picking up its code name from the project’s first headquarters in Manhattan, NYC.  It was originally to be called Development of Substitute Materials but it was thought that might attract unwanted interest so Manhattan Engineer District was instead adopted.  A bit of a mouthful, before long, it was known to all involved as the Manhattan Project.

Of alloys and aluminium

One of the consequences of the ultimate success of the Tube Alloys project was the form the British Land Rover (1948-2016) took.  The Manhattan project was top secret and until well into 1945 it wasn’t certain either if the A-bomb was going to work or if it could be produced in volume as a deliverable weapon.  Accordingly, military procurement plans continued on the assumption the war in the Far East would continue perhaps until the end of 1946 meaning there were big orders in the pipeline for war-planes, notably medium and heavy bombers, both requiring much aluminium.  The sudden end of the war in August 1945 thus resulted in the cancellation of most of these orders but because of the lead-times in industrial production, huge stocks of sheet aluminium were in warehouses and elsewhere in the supply chain.  After the war, the UK was not exactly bankrupt but the economy was poor shape and there was much need to encourage exports, the official mantra at the time “export or die” and it was no idle treat; manufacturing concerns companies not orienting their production towards exports would quickly find they were unable to secure raw materials and had to either build for export or go out of business.

Series 1 Land Rover.  Note the panels fashioned with sheets of aluminium which needed only to be cut or folded.

So steel was in chronically short supply because of the need to re-build so much of the infrastructure which had been damaged or destroyed, mostly by the Luftwaffe’s gravity bombs and the later use of the V1 flying bombs and the big V2 rockets but aluminium was plentiful.  Sheet aluminium was also light, not susceptible to rust and importantly, could be folded into simple shapes, obviating the need for complex and tooling to be built, an expensive and time consuming process.  These qualities appealed to Rover’s engineers who, while working on their modernist range of post-war passenger vehicles and turbine engines, conjured up of the country’s most enduring exports, the Land-Rover which in its original form would remain in production until outlawed in 2016 by humorous European Union (EU) bureaucrats; it also in 1970 begat the Range Rover which didn’t exactly create the niche of the civilized four wheel drive (4WD) but certainly defined it.  Using a simple to build chassis and existing engines, the original Land Rover was developed at remarkably low cost, something helped by most of the external panels being fashioned from flat sheet aluminium, most requiring nothing more than cutting and folding.

In recent years, although more expensive than steel, aluminium remains an attractive metal for manufacturers, attracted by its light weight and ease of construction.  Before the advent of fibreglass and later more exotic composites, it was the material of choice for many high-performance cars, some special low-volume runs of “alloy bodies” even featuring in the production schedules of models constructed usually from steel.  Sometimes too there was a mix, components like doors, hoods (bonnets) & trunk (boot) lids used to lighten vehicles made substantially from steel, offering a significant weight-reduction without the large cost of re-tooling for the entire platform.  It was done not only to guarantee high-performance but also to do something about low-performance.  After the second oil shock (1979), Mercedes-Benz rushed into production the 300 SD (1978-1980), a diesel version of the S Class (W116 1972-1980) sedan in response to demand for diesel vehicles in North America.  However, even after bolting a turbo-charger to the (OM617) five cylinder 3.0 litre (183 cubic inch) engine, such was the lack of power compared to the familiar petrol V8s that performance was hardly stellar.  Aerodynamic improvements would have to wait for the replacement platform (W126 1979-1991) and the only practical solution was weight reduction so the hood and truck lid were replace with pressings using aluminium.  That helped but not by much and the acceleration offered by the 300 SD was never described as anything but leisurely although the offset was the famously durable OM617 would run for decades.  Priorities had however changed and the 300 SD became a best-seller in the US and was a major factor in helping the company meet the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, mandated in 1975, a reasonable achievement given the infamous thirst of the V8s.  In later years, lightweight parts also proved attractive to owners of the 450 SEL 6.9 which used the 6.9 litre (417 cubic inch) (M100), the diet regime making the Teutonic hot rod presumably just a little quicker and less thirsty.

Mercedes-Benz R230 construction (left) and Lindsay Lohan’s unfortunate SL 65.

Even in the age of carbon fibre and more modern alloys, aluminium remains widely used because it’s light, strong and it’s properties are well understood in manufacturing.  The Mercedes-Benz R230 (SL, 2001-2011) used aluminium for components such as doors (the inner skins the even lighter magnesium), trunk lid and front fenders (wings) and alloys such as high-strength steel for the platform.  Lindsay Lohan’s unfortunate low-speed event in a 2006 SL 65 afforded users an unusual view of the R230's construction via a gash torn in the aluminium door.  The SL 65 Black Series (2008-2012) Black Series was some 250 kilograms (551 lb) lighter than the 604 horsepower AMG SL 65 AMG and rated at about 10% more powerful (although some suggest that number is conservative).  The weight-loss programme included substituting some metal components with carbon-fibre units but of greater significance was the deletion of the folding aluminium roof, replaced by a fixed structure in carbon-fibre, something which produced the additional benefits of a lower centre of gravity and greater rigidity.  Only 400 were built, 175 for the US market and 225 for the RoW (rest of the world).  A production number of 350 is sometimes quoted but those maintaining registers insist it was 400.

Sonoramic

Sonoramic (pronounced sonn-o-ram-ick)

A form of enhanced induction for internal combustion engines; sometimes called cross-ram or long-ram induction.

1959:  A compound word constructed by engineers (apparently with no contribution from the marketing department), the construct being the Latin sonō (make a noise, sound) + the English ram + -ic.  Sonō was from the primitive Indo-European swenhe (to sound, resound) which was cognate with the Sanskrit स्वनति (svanati) (to sound, resound).  The more productive Latin derivative was Latin sonus (sound, a noise) from the primitive Indo-European swon-o, again from the root swenhe.  Ram was from the Old English ramm (in the sense of "battering ram", from the Old High German ram, thought probably related to the Old Norse rammr (strong) and the Old Church Slavonic ramenu (impetuous, violent).  The suffix -ic is from the Middle English -ik, from the Old French -ique, from the Latin -icus, from the primitive Indo-European -kos & -ḱos, formed with the i-stem suffix -i- and the adjectival suffix -kos & -ḱos.  The form existed also in the Ancient Greek as -ικός (-ikós), in Sanskrit as -इक (-ika) and the Old Church Slavonic as -ъкъ (-ŭkŭ); A doublet of -y.  In European languages, adding -kos to noun stems carried the meaning "characteristic of, like, typical, pertaining to" while on adjectival stems it acted emphatically; in English it's always been used to form adjectives from nouns with the meaning “of or pertaining to”.  A precise technical use exists in physical chemistry where it's used to denote certain chemical compounds in which a specified chemical element has a higher oxidation number than in the equivalent compound whose name ends in the suffix -ous; (eg sulphuric acid (H₂SO₄) has more oxygen atoms per molecule than sulphurous acid (H₂SO₃).  The engineers were influenced in their coining of sonoramic by the debut three years earlier of the sonogram (thereby creating sonogramic), a form of diagnostic imaging used in medicine.

Fluid dynamics and resonant conditions

1960 Chrysler 300F with long-ram Sonoramic 413 cid (6.8 litre) wedge V8.

All else being equal, increasing the volume of the fuel-air mixture (energy input) flowing through an internal combustion engine (ICE) increases power and torque (energy output).  This can be done with an external device such as a supercharger, or resonance can be created in the induction system by designing a passage which uses the physics of fluid dynamics to increase pressure in specific spaces.  Obviously uninvolved in the engineering, Chrysler’s marketing people claimed in 1960 that the Sonoramic was new technology but for many years the principle had been used in racing engines, the mathematical equations determining acoustics & resonance having been published by German physicist and physician Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz (1821–1894) in a scientific paper published in 1863.  Indeed, the concept had before been used on road cars but always in a discrete manner; what Chrysler did in 1959 with the long-tube ram-runners was make a dramatic fashion statement in designer colors.

Representation of fluid dynamics under specific resonant conditions.

Essentially, the Sonoramic is an implementation of Sir Isaac Newton's (1642–1727) first law of motion, more commonly known as the law of inertia: “An object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion” and it’s the second part which Sonoramic exploited.  During the intake cycle of an engine, the fuel-air mix flows through the intake manifold, past the intake valve, and into the cylinder, then the intake valve shuts.  At that point, the law of inertia comes into play: Because the air was in motion, it wants to stay in motion but can’t because the valve is shut so it piles up against the valve with something of a concertina effect.  With one piece of air piling up on the next, the air becomes compressed and this compressed air has to go somewhere so it turns around and flows back through the intake manifold in the form of a pressure wave.  This pressure wave bounces back and forth in the runner and if it arrives back at the intake valve when the valve opens, it’s drawn into the engine.  This bouncing pressure wave of air and the proper arrival time at the intake valve creates a low-pressure form of supercharging but for this to be achieved all variables have to be aligned so the pressure wave arrives at the intake valve at the right time.  This combination of synchronized events is known as the "resonant conditions".

Long (lower) and short-tube (upper) Sonoramic intake manifolds.

Most of the Sonoramics produced were long-tubes with a tuned internal-length of thirty inches (760mm), generating prodigious quantities of mid-range torque, ideal for overtaking under highway conditions.  These characteristics were ideal for road cars but also built were a small number of the so-called short-tube Sonoramics, a somewhat misleading term because they shared the external dimensions of the standard devices, the difference being that only a fifteen-inch (380mm) length of the internal passages were resonance-tuned and this, at the expense of mid-range torque, produced much more power high in the rev-range making them more suitable for competition.  Used by Chrysler to set a number of speed records, these were the most charismatic of the breed and a handful were built with manual gearboxes.  At auction, in November 2010, the sole 1960 Chrysler 300F short-tube Sonoramic convertible with the Pont-a-Mousson 4-speed gearbox, sold for US$437,250.

1960 Chrysler 300F long-ram Sonoramic 413 cid (6.8 litre) wedge V8.

The first four generations of the 300 letter series had used increasingly larger versions of the Hemi V8 and the 1958 300D (with a 392 V8) even offered the novelty of a very expensive fuel-injection option but, unlike the mechanical systems offered by Mercedes-Benz, Chevrolet and a handful of others, the Bendix "Electrojector" system used a rudimentary computer which proved unreliable and most were returned to the dealer to be retro-fitted with carburettors.  The Hemi, heavy and expensive to produce, was in 1959’s 300E replaced by the larger capacity, wedge-head 413 which matched it for power but lacked the mystique, something substantially restored in 1960 when the 300F debuted with the sexy Sonoramic.  Ram Induction today is common, although contemporary designs, integrated with fuel-injection systems, are not as photogenic as the original Sonoramics.  As well as raw aluminium, the tubes were available in the designer colors of the time, red, gold and blue; red ones are thought most cool.

Republic P-47 Thunderbolt test-bed with XI-2200 V16 (1945).

Chrysler’s interest in ram tuning was an outgrowth of the desire to exploit the findings of research undertaken during the war developing very high-performance piston engines for fighter aircraft.  This had culminated in the XI-2220, a 2,220 cubic inch (36.4 litre) V16 aero-engine which, rated at 2450 horsepower, was tested in a Republic P-47 Thunderbolt, an appropriate platform given that the P47 was then the biggest, heaviest single-engined fighter ever to enter service (among piston-engined aircraft it still is).  Although the indications were that close to 4000 horsepower was achievable (at least for short durations), with the advent of the jet engine the days of the big piston-engined fighters were nearly done.  The V16 project was cancelled, a fate suffered also by the other outstanding big aero-engine of that last generation: the Napier-Sabre H24.

XI-2220, V16 aircraft engine (1944-1945).

The lessons learned however would be applied on the ground instead of in the skies because although big capacity piston engines had mostly been rendered obsolete for aircraft, a few generations of some just a bit smaller were about to start roaming American roads.  The cars and their engines would be like nothing before seen, Chrysler adopting for their new 331 cubic inch (5.4 litre) V8 in 1951 the V16’s hemispherical combustion chambers, a feature it would use for most of that decade and the next and such was the aura of the name that it’s used still, even if things are now a bit less hemispherical than before.

Chrysler A-311 V8 experimental engine.

The new Hemi V8 had obvious performance potential and the engineers experimented with the tuned-length induction system used on the V16 before the final supercharger/turbocharger combination was adopted.  So successful was the ram-tuned engine (named A-311) that attempts were made to contest the 1952 Indianapolis 500 but the race’s sanctioning body understood the implications the remarkable new powerplant would have on their carefully-curated ecosystem of owners and sponsors and declared it didn’t comply with the rules, even tweaking them a bit to ensure it never would.

Ramcharger Club’s 1949 Plymouth with extreme ram-charging.

The research however continued and, although it’s not clear to what extent their efforts received factory-support, in the late 1950s some young engineers formed the drag racing-focused Ramchargers Club using, somewhat improbably, a 1949 Plymouth business coupe fitted with a particularly extravagant implementation of the technology, a surrealistically tall intake manifold, a device built for dynamometer testing and never intended for a moving vehicle.  They dubbed the Plymouth "High & Mighty".  Bizarre it may have looked but the cartoon-like Plymouth achieved results which vindicated the approach and the system was introduced on 1960 Plymouths, Dodges and Chryslers, the highest evolution of Sonoramic offered on the Chrysler 300 letter series cars until 1964.  Interestingly, while it was only Plymouth which used the Sonoramic name, Dodge labelling the system D-500 Ram Induction and Chrysler simply Ram Induction, all of them are commonly referred to as Sonoramics.

Lindsay Lohan enjoying the effects of fluid dynamics.

Not content with applying the science of fluid dynamics only to the induction system, the Ramchargers used it also for the exhaust headers.  Rather than additional power, the commendably juvenile quest was for noise, the exaggerated, trumpet-like tubes using the megaphone principle which increases volume by raising acoustic impedance.  The desired result was achieved and although there's no record of anyone with a decibel-meter taking a reading, the old Plymouth was said to be spectacularly loud.  Megaphone exhausts were subsequently banned.    

Chrysler Slant Six with Hyper Pak.

Chrysler didn’t restrict the ram induction idea to the big-block V8s, using it also on the short-lived (1960-1962) Hyper Pak performance option for the both 170 cubic inch (2.8 litre, 1959-1969) and 225 cubic inch (3.7 litre, 1987-2000) versions of their Slant Six, the engineers taking advantage of the space afforded by the angled block to permit the curvaceous intake runners nearly to fill the engine bay.  The Hyper Pak wasn't seen in showrooms but was available as an over-the-counter kit (literally a cardboard box containing all necessary parts) from Dodge & Plymouth spare parts departments and its life was limited because it became a victim of its own success.  Although less suitable for street use because it turned the mild-mannered straight-six into something at its best at full throttle, in the race events for which it was eligible it proved unbeatable, dominating the competition for two years, compelling the sanctioning body cancel the series.

Although it was the longer lived 225 version which gained the Slant Six its stellar reputation for durability and the ease with which additional power could be extracted, there's always been a following for the short-stroke 170 because of its European-like willingness to rev, the characteristics of the over-square engine (unique among the slant-six's three displacements (170-198-225)) unusually lively for a US straight-six.  Despite some aspects of the specification being modest (there were only four main bearings although they were the beefy units used in the 426 cubic inch Street Hemi V8), for much of its life it used a tough, forged steel crankshaft and high-speed tolerant solid valve lifters, features which made a robust engine.  Despite that, after the Hyper Pak affair, Chrysler showed little interest in any performance potential, knowing the US preference for V8s, something which doomed also Pontiac's short-lived single overhead camshaft (SOHC) straight-six (1966-1969).  A version of the 225 with a two-barrel carburetor (rated at 160 horsepower, an increase of 15 over the standard unit) was offered in some non-North American markets where V8 sales were not dominant and it proved very popular in South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Central & South America but only when tighter US emission regulations forced its adoption did a 225 with a two barrel carburetor appear in the home market, installed to restore power losses rather than seek gains.