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TRANSMISSION Revolutionary
ROUMEN
ANTONOV is either a genius or a charlatan. If l am
right, and he is a genius, then you are going to hear a lot more of him.
For he is about to trigger a motoring revolution with a new automatic
transmission. Claims made for it, compared with conventional automatics,
include:
·
15 per cent more fuel efficient.
·
Fewer exhaust emissions.
·
Significantly lighter and smaller.
·
Better acceleration and top speed.
·
Cheaper to make.
Antonov's proposals for achieving this are, like many of the best ideas,
extraordinarily simple, and his clarity of explanation is highly
illuminating.
Today, he is an urbane, mufti-lingual citizen of the world, at ease in a
modern, computerised office in the heart of Paris, just off the Champs
Elysιes. Yet he arrived there from the outer darkness only five years ago,
after a lifetime of Communist repression.
Born in Bulgaria in 1944, he took a nuclear physics degree at Sofia
University. "But in my heart I always wanted to work with cars. So I also
started to study automotive subjects.
"In those days 1963-64 there weren't many companies manufacturing
cars behind the Iron Curtain. Very old-fashioned Moskviches were the norm.
"My own first car was a 1938 Fiat Topolino it was six years older than
me. And, in Bulgaria, we had not even seen an automatic car. "So, when I began looking at the question of automatics, I started with fantasies, rather than information I could check." Research
What Antonov hit upon in isolation was that expensive, energy-consuming
elements of conventional automatics torque converter and high-pressure
oil pump to operate clutches engaging the gear ratios could be replaced
by use of centrifugal force and axial force, the longitudinal reaction
generated by the meshing of the offset-cut teeth of helical gears.
It took him six months further research to convince himself that he was
the first to come up with such a simple idea and that it had not been
applied before. And, though diffident about his technical know-how, he
submitted a rudimentary patent application unsuccessfully.
"Nobody in Bulgaria understood what exactly I was saying. There was the
feeling that culture and education were not enough in the automotive
field. For my part, I considered my serious work to be my research into
quantum theory. I told myself that anything I did with cars was just a
hobby, so it didn't really matter.
"I never thought that, one day, it would be my profession and that, 30
years later, I would come to build a transmission."
More immediate issues loomed. Young Antonov scored considerable success
with a paper proposing a new mathematical model for use in nuclear
physics.
At that time, the Bulgarian government was recruiting large numbers of
scientists for weapons research. "Often, people like me were 'kindly
advised' to accept these jobs. If they refused, they came under pressure
which was impossible to resist. But I did resist. And, from then until I
came to Paris, my life was completely abnormal."
Antonov made 17 escape attempts in 21 years. Twice he got as far as
Yugoslavia's frontier with Italy, only to be arrested and repatriated,
once on the day after the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia's "Prague
Spring" in 1968. The price: he was either subject to surveillance while working, or under house arrest, or doing hard-labour, quarrying 1,000kg of rock a day. Resistance
"It was terrible. They were extremely cruel to anyone putting up
resistance. They had a very primitive way of thinking. They believed that,
with force, they could obtain anything.
"What was most destructive for me was that Bulgaria succeeded in keeping
this reality from world attention only two hours' flying time from Paris and people travelling abroad never told what was happening in their
country.
"I realised that police and prison warders would kill for nothing. But I
never stopped my resistance because I always believed that somehow I would
come through in the end.
"When things became especially difficult for me and my life was really in
danger, I escaped to the West German embassy. And, honestly, those people
saved my life by making a diplomatic intervention."
Today, he finds it a strain to recall his past. "I cannot believe that I
succeeded in surviving. It's so difficult to imagine, let alone explain,
just how much a human being can tolerate.
"If I do think about it, I find the one thing that kept me going was the
belief that it would soon be over, just some months more. It was never
true, of course. Then, one day, it was."
Antonov's troubles were by no means finished when, finally, he did make
his exit to Paris in 1988. For the Bulgarian authorities still held his
16-year-old son, and he had to ask the French government to intercede.
He didn't speak French. He knew nobody in France, and he was virtually
penniless. In his head, though, he had brought one major asset his idea
for an automatic gearbox and he was intent on pursuing it. Almost his first move in France was to apply for a patent, using what little money he could scrape together. "The people that saved me said, 'You are absolutely crazy. You have to go away, and do anything, but not this'." Scepticism
Antonov's next move was to buy a radio-controlled 5cc toy kit-car, and
install a miniature version of his gearbox. This he took to General
Motors' transmission establishment in Strasbourg. "The engineer was so
negative. He said that, in 15 years, he had looked at thousands of ideas,
and usually they were crazy. Though he was obliged to receive my proposal,
I should not try to convince him."
GM's scepticism was overcome, however. And, after running a series of
tests, engineers concluded that the principles worked, in theory at any
rate.
Antonov took those conclusions to a French government aid agency and,
within a month, he was awarded a 150,000-franc grant. "That was a
tremendous amount of money for a poor immigrant, without papers and
without an established working base.
"It was my first step towards success. And it tells us something about
the French mentality, which can be incredibly open in such matters. It
would have been difficult if not impossible in my case to obtain such
help in another country."
With this initial funding, Antonov was able to build his first full-size
prototype. The Lorraine regional development agency came to hear of it,
and despatched five engineers to Paris. After trying the car, they offered
a 500,000-franc grant.
Next came introductions to Jacques Calvet, president of Peugeot and
Raymond Levy, chairman of Renault. Back-to-back tests followed, indicating
the new transmission's advantages in economy, acceleration and top speed.
Yet, six months later, Antonov was turned down.
The reason, he concluded: "Not invented here." This would, in effect,
have left Antonov bankrupt. and he determined to give destiny a nudge. "I decided to make a strong public attack on the two companies. That was a big risk for an immigrant who scarcely spoke French and had no money. But I drew new credit for 100,000 francs from the bank. Prototype
"I hired the best conference room in Paris at Porte Maillot and I
bought the best suit I could afford with the money I had left.
"Then I staged a press conference. The result was an article claiming
that it was very shaming for France not to continue support development of
my ideas.
"The day the piece appeared, I met Dan Wijsenbeek (now marketing director
of Antonov Automotive Technologies). Three days later on November 7,
1990 in Rotterdam. we established a company with 12 million French
francs funding for the following year."
Antonov was asked to furnish another prototype as quickly as possible to
show to further investors. In three months, he established a workshop, and
produced the prototype from scratch. But, on the eve of the team's
departure for a demonstration at the Netherlands' Zandvoort grand prix
circuit in mid-March, the engine blew up.
We worked without sleep for the last three days. We arrived at Zandvoort
with a car that had not even run and had no reverse gear, because we'd run
out of time.
"But I was sure in my heart that our prototype would beat the standard
car. Four investors sat in the one car and four in the other. My car was
15 metres ahead in the first 400 metres, And, after they had driven round
the track for four hours, they declared themselves impressed.
"Then, in the September, we demonstrated two cars privately at the
Frankfurt Motor Show. The response was so encouraging that we were able to
attract more than 9 million guilders (£4 million) investment and begin the
real industrial development of the gearbox. And now evaluation by several
major car producers is under way."
AUTOMATIC FACTS
·
Half the world's cars today are automatics. 90 per cent of cars in the
USA have self-changing gears, thanks historically to cheap fuel
encouraging large engines.
·
75 per cent of cars in Japan are automatics, in response to overcrowded
roads, plus cultural interchange with America.
·
In Europe. only 7 per cent of cars are automatics, ranging from an
insignificant 1 per cent in car-mad Italy to 12 per cent in
technology-conscious Germany.
·
As Europe's roads become more congested, demand for automatics is
increasing. But, with a high proportion of smaller engines, the search is
on for an automatic that is light and, critically, does not sap
performance.
HOW
ANTONOV WORKS
THE UNIQUENESS of
the Antonov automatic gearbox lies in the way its basic components centrifugal clutches and helical-cut gear sets are designed to
co-operate.
Prototypes running now all employ a variety of off-the-shelf gears and
other components, suggesting that series production can be undertaken with
existing technology, practices and machine tools. Since it requires only
minor new investment, the Antonov gearbox should be inexpensive to make.
The trick will be to persuade the world's major car makers to abandon
their current plans in favour of adopting this simple concept.
It avoids the cost, weight and size penalties of conventional automatics.
Furthermore, it does not suffer from the parasitic power losses of a
torque converter between engine and gearbox, and of the hydraulic pump and
control valves used in engaging the various gear-sets.
Instead, Antonov uses centrifugal clutches to engage each of the
epicyclic gear-sets. Engagement of these clutches is commanded by "torque
signals" generated by the epicyclic gear-sets.
For quieter running, today's epicyclic gears are usually helical cut with the teeth at a small angle to the shaft axis.
A side-effect is generation of a small axial load. In a conventional
transmission, this is contained by end-thrust bearings, and is otherwise
redundant. It is this axial load that Antonov uses to promote up-shifting.
Under a light throttle, the thrust is low, allowing early up-shifts.
Under high loadings with a wide throttle opening while accelerating or
climbing hills the greater axial thrust delays up-changes.
In a nutshell, power and torque flow through the gearbox from one
gear-set to the next as the clutches engage.
The Antonov transmission can be built with three, four, five, six or more
speeds. First, most obvious, application is in small cars. Though, since
there is no limit to torque capacity or number of gears, sports cars,
racing cars, motorcycles, trucks and agricultural machines are also likely
candidates. Copyright © by Anthony Howard 1,927 words for Daily Mail Motor Review |
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