Turbine Engines.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 7729, 3 February 1905, Page 4

Turbine Engines.

CONFLICTING BESVLTS OUTAIXED THHOVGH jIKECENT EXPEKIJIENTS. lt The Victorian, the first of the two 12,000 ton steamships built at Belfast lor the Allan Steamship Comf- |iany, ei[uippeU with turbine engines, le failed on her trial trip to come up Id l ° the speed requirements. The Victorians sister sliip will bo launched this month. she has been n provided also with turbinu engines. J . The failure of tile Victorian to at- ™ to the <Hiui-unteed rate of speed. ' K means much to the Allan line. The 10 new Canadian fast mail contract, > l depended upon these ships coming up ■"" to the guaruntued tale of speed. « Having failed to mich the si)ral, the company is in danger of losing k- the mail contract. The company ig has probably protected itself, how- «• ,ever, against loss by obligating the U' shipbuilders and l'arsons.the rjr | inventor of the turl)inc engine, to jturn out ship and engines that |le jiWould fulfil the contract mruireIments, %vith a satisfactory penalty t in the event of a failure. I The signilicance of the Victorian's (failure lies in the bearing it has uplon the two new 29,000 ton Cunar- * rters which are being built on the tllydc. These ships were to havt been-equipped with turbinu engines J- jvith a guaranteed speed which "' w °uld wrest the broom from the ™ German transatlantic fleet. Tht Victorian exiieriment has raised the cn qjuestion anew—ls the turbine, suited for large steamships ? Her fai - °t ure to attain the speed expected has as Revived the doubt. Construction;on "1 ithe Cunard turbine engines h-as, con,m equentlj-, been suspended, awaiting further developments. aa When the Cunard steamships were Resigned, the designer was positive tit that the turbine engines wiuld perto form all that was expected oi them, and that ' the new vessels ph would attain the guaranteed rate oi ,s ~ speed. These conclusions were basE e, ed upon k[the performances of the vy Turbinia, the first vessel eciuippcd with turbine engines, which attain'g;. Ed a speed of thirty-live knots, and dy on tho results obtained in the cross he English Channel, steamer. Queen, a which makes an average speed of 22 ng knots in the passage)between Dover by and Calais. it was assumed by in- Parsons and his backers that nil ed ocean-going steainship of the lar'P-. gest type could be driven across thi ;h, Atlantic at an average rate of 4C A knots an hour. The two big Cunar'ly ders are expected to develop an nvct'ft rage speed of 20 knots. But an exen pert engineer writing in a recent ism- sue of a technical magazine predictis- ed that the turbine's performances Sir in a large vessel would be reduced ted proportionately with the size, owing An to the loss of power in the cooling steam as it passed through the enivn gine. The Victorian experiment lly seems to confirm his conclusions, tinsel less something radically whong ir tn- the construction of the "hull of the Is. Vessel or her engines is discovered, by The suspicion is strong that the :h, trouble with the Victorian is in a of defective design of the hull, which to militates against sliced. If so, the cy same failure in the attainment of or the guaranteed speed would have up occurred had her engines been of the reciprocating type instead of turhe bines. The evidence which confirms d- this suspicion of defective modelling tig or construction is found in the re- ." suits of experiments made by the he British Admiralty with two cruisers in- of the same class, built on the same plans in every respect, except in in- .," gino equipment. The displacement u- of both vessels is about 3000 tons. ' Their machinery was meant to rate- h'bit 9000 horse power. The Tojvot aze, after which the class has been ■ a . named, is equipped with reciprocatse ing engines. The Amethyst, a sisar ter ship, is provided with turMuc engines. In all other respects one !l e is a duplicate of the other. The tj Amethyst's engines weigh r,Hr, tons ; er those of the Topaze 537 tons. Both g. have the same boiler power a3 I These two ships were put under 10 ithe same kind of tests to determine V s ] their relative speed and cool con id ;sumption. The best showing of the ht |Topazc was 22.31 knots an hour ; l y .that of the Amethyst, under preciseid py the same boiler conditions, 23.(59 y j knots, or fully one and a quarter .knots more. At low speeds—say l, e ten or twelve knots—the Amethvs't er burned most coal ;at high speeds she was much the more economical ld of the two. With a consumption of gp 750 tons of coal, it was computed ,2 that her radius of action at 18 s i knots would lie , 3000 miles, while [g that of the Topaze would be onlv is 2770 miles, or 30 per cent less. At r _ a 20 knot speed the disparity betit ween the two vessels is still greater, is as the calculations made show that j, the turbine engines of the Amethvst ( ._ would carry her 3160 miles, while t _ the reciprocating engines of the ToQ paze would only propel her 2140 e miles. Another advantage found to ' be possessed by the turbine engines to in this test was a total absence af (s vibration produced in the ship when s tinning at the highest sliced. The racking effect of the vibration of reciprocating engines in vessels when " e running at high rates of speed is a well-known phenomenon. Total !_ freedom from vibration in a war- , ship, which turbfne engines assure r is regarded as a feature of the highest importance, because, in addition to the proimotion of the comfort of officers and crew, it insures greater <~ accuracy of aim in the handling of tho guns. The results thus obtained at the competitive trial of these • two English cruisers will go far towards off-setting the failure of the Victorian and disproving the alleged e inadaptability of turbine engines to l " large vessels. 8