Overview of development work and testing carried out at the national machinery testing institute
The objective of the development work, which started in 1957, has been to develop a standard type of wood gasifier system which could be made in a limited range of sizes and be used for vehicles currently operated in Sweden. Later, the development was focussed on the utilization of wood chips as fuel for the reasons explained earlier.
The development of a gasifier system for passenger cars was carried out-by the Swedish car manufacturer Volvo. The results of this work are proprietary.
The development of gasifier systems suitable for farm tractors, buses and lorries, was carried out by the National Swedish Testing Institute for Agricultural Machinery.
This work included the following elements:
1. Development of a downdraught gasifier suitable for wood chips and establishment of design rules for such gasifiers.
2. Development of a fibre glass fabric filter system for wood gas.
3. Studies of conversion of direct injection diesel engines to dual fuel operation and preparation of guidelines for conversion of such engines.
4. Field testing of a limited number of vehicles.
The results of the work carried out up to 1962 have been reported (in Swedish) by Nordstrom (33). There is no official report from the work done thereafter. In the latter part of this section, the results of the equipment development work will be summarized. The results from the field tests are summarized in Section 3.2.