Evening star., 1899-11-25
WONDERFUL SPEED
What is Claimed for the New British
Torpedo Boat Destroyer.
At LEAST FORTY Miles An HOUR
This is Made Possible by the
Use of Turbine Engines.
AND LIGHTN ESS

| copyrighted by the >. ). Mcclure Co., 1881
! Special Correspondence of The Evening Star
CASTLE -uPON-TYNE, Nov. 20, 1899.
! In the yellow waters of the Tyne now
lies an unpretentious-lookin craft which
| Is practically certain within the next few
| days to win the distinction of being the
! fastest steamship ever constructed. She
is a naval vessel, her majesty's torpedo
boat destroyer Viper. She has been built
by the Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Com
| pany, of which the Hon. Charles A. Par
sons. the originator of the turbine engines,
| IS managing director If she fuifils the
| expectation of Mr.. Parsons and the experts
or the British admiralty office she will
| oring about an important change In the
| construction of torpedo boat destroyers
! Therefore the interest of naval men in
all parts of the world is centered upon
| the boat and upon her impending trial
| trip.
| The Viper Is the first vessel of any prac-
| teal Importance to be built on the turbine
! principle 1t is true that the Turbinia was
| hardly more than toy boat. She was
! Dulit as an experiment to prove the feast
bility of the turbine for marine propulsion
| What Mr.. Parsons learned from the Tur-
! binia he has embodied in practical form in
| the Viper
i In external appearance the new boat does
! not dlffer greatly from others of her class
now. i'll use. Her four short wide tunnels
| susgest a tremendous draught across her
ilre CRATES Her lines the lines of the
! last steam yacht. She has d turtle-back
protective deck forward, where the wash
OF the waves will come when sne strikes a
| lorty-mile gait. Otherwise she does nor
I differ from her sister ships of less sneed
| Her length is 2l0 feet her beam twenty
feet ana her draught between five and six
feet-the latter an evidence of tho eytrer,a
S,1Ints7 iiI oi hef working machinery. Her
| displacement in fact is only 325 tons.
VI iileIiof arrangement, however. the
viper Is very different from the ordinary
FeSseI OF her class. Her boilers are much
larger, her engines and shafting much
smaller and the whole working mechanism
d o. me n9at seems much more simple than
tiat OF the ordinary steam vessel.
How the New Boat Works.
10 understand the operation of the new
vessel it will be necessary to explain briefly
| the turbine engine on which her claims to
superiority rest. In ordinary engines of
the rec!procating type such as are used
generally in steamships, the steam passes
from the boilers through cylinders of high
ana low pressure, and thence is applied to
! tne shafts which drive the vessel by means
or plstons. In applying the power the mo-
ton Is changed from the vertical move
ment of the piston head to the revolving
movement of the shafts. The same thing
may be observed any day by watching the
piston rod that drives the wheels of a To-
comotive
BY this method of applying the power
me piston changes its direction with every
revolution of the machinery it drives, and
this continue! change Of direction with
every stroke of the engines causes the VI
Dration which Is always present in this
Hethod OF driving machinery.
The Turbine Engine.
In the turbine engine, which Mr.. Parsons
has perfected after fifteen years of expert
mental work, the steam is applied directly
to the shafts which 1t drives. There are
no cylinders and no pistons. The only gear
used Is carried by the shaft itself and by
the chest which incloses it.
This gear consists simply of hundreds of
small steel blades projecting from the shaft
inside the chest and fixed at such an an
gle that the steam as Il enters the chest ex-
erts its power against them and turns the
shaft. Similar blades are fixed to the in
ner walls of the chest in a stationary po-
sition. These interposed between the
rows of revolving blades and slant in the
opposite direction IN order to turn the full
force of the steam directly upon the lat
ter. The steam passing through the chest
strikes the face of the hundreds of little
blades and turns the shaft. The action is
the same as that of water in driving a
turbine water wheel The device seems
simplicity Itself. although 1t has taken If
teen years of experimental work on ths
part of Mr.. Parsons to bring about its sue
cessful application to steam propulsion.
1t is easy to see that by applying the
steam in this manner that the motion
is steadily in direction a much higher
rate of speed is possible than could be OBJ
tained even with the best appliances un-
der the reciprocating system. In fact, the
only limit of speed is the amount of steam
power that can be applied. The Turbinia's
screws were run at 2,5o0 revolutions per
minute, which is ten times the rate at
tanned in vessels of the ordinary type.
Another advantage Of the turbine system
is that 1t utilizes practically the whole
power of the steam. AS the steam travels
away from the boilers 1t constantly ex-
pands. of course, and therefore exerts less
pressure to the square inch. But by in
creaSing the size Of a shafts collar and Of
the blades which II carries the same num-
ber of evolutions per minute may be OBJ
tanned from steam of lower pressure. In
the Turbinia they passed through three of
these phases, beginning with a pressure of
225 pounds to the square inch, and emerg
Ing with pressure of less than q pound,
while by the arrangement described the
three shafts all reVolve at the same speed.
Enormous Steam Power.
The Turbinia had three propellers all
driven by one set of engines. The Viper
| carries a double set of engines-port and
starboard-each working two propellers.
| The horse power of her engines is 1O,OGO (in
! reality 1t is probably more than that
| against the 1000 horse power of the Turbi-
| MIA, and she Is expected to make something
| like forty knots an hour considerably sur
passing the Tnrbinia's record Of thirty-tive
| knots.
! The Viper has boilers one-ffth larger
| than those of the ordinary torpedo boat of
| her size; there are nearly 2OOO feet of ad-
| dltional heating area. When one reflects
| that by using turbines 20 per cent increased
| efficiency is obtained from the steam, it
| will be seen that in the matter of available
/ steam power the Viper possesses an i'm
mense advantage over other ships. An
| other factor which adds to this advantage
| is her extreme lightness; her tonnage is q
| third less than that Of other destroyers of
| her dimensions. She has twice the horse
| power of these thirtyknot boats 10 drive
| less body weight. Certainly that makes
| the claim of superior speed look reasonable
i From the Viper's boilers the steam passes
| to two htgh-pressure turbine motors which
| drive the two outer propeller shafts. From
| there it is conducted to two low-pressure
| and two reversing turbine motors driving
! the inner shafts. These propellers it
! should be borne in mind, do not project be-
| yOnd the stern of the vessel They leave
| the engine room at a slight downward
| angle, which carries them further below
| the surface than would be possible If they
! extended directly astern, and gives them a
| grip of the water which the light draft of
! the vessel would otherwise prevent. The