Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-02-24

has since come to be termed steam turbine, was
hardly thought of as prime mover until nearly
the close of the nineteenth century, and then when
the principle tested out it found that when
steam used instead of water to drive it the re-
volving element would have to turn at the rate Of
eighteen hundred and eighty feet a second or about
twenty-five miles minute, to make it effective.
There is metal known that Withstand
such enormous strain, and the idea of building
engine on the lines of the water wheel not
sidered feasible for long time, for it pointed
out that even if the speed could be slowed down
to point where steel could be used, it would be
impossible to balance the wheel accurately enough
that it would revolve without a side pressure
great enough to break the ordinary steel shaft.
AS mighty mechanical problem engineers be-
came interested in the old water wheel in its
role of steam engine and thus it came about that
Gustave De Loval concluded to try flexible shaft
which would counterbalance the inequalities of
weight. With the advent of the De Loval turbine,
the great value of employing high steam pressures
together with greater economy in fuel than was
ever known before was shown, and future for this
type of engine was promised
Steam turbines of the single wheel type have
been constructed capable of developing upward of
three hundred horse power, while other and
recent designs have enabled engineers to use
rigid instead of flexible shaft, reducing the
mously high speeds, and permitting the construc-
ton of larger turbines Charles A. Parson brought
out the first steam turbine which used a number
of wheels coupled to common shaft. By this
arrangement the steam used over and over
again, mpinging the blades of the first wheel,
then on the second, and SO to the last.
Over Million Blades
IN some of the recent turbines there
million blades quite increase the dozen
or two used in the primitive water wheels; and
steam is refinement of water it will be seen that
though is termed water wheel and the other
steam turbine, there is after all great difference
between them. In the large steam turbines, al
though the speed is much reduced, it is yet high
compared with the ordinary engine; but high
speeds well adapted for the generation of cleo
trc1ty and the propulsion of vessels.
The application of the steam turbine to marine
propulsion is being rapidly extended. The first
vessel to be thus equipped was the yacht Turbinia,
the last the great transatlantic liner Carnania.
After the trials of the Turbina in which this little
vessel made the remarkable speed of thirty -four
and one-half knots hour, commission ap-
pointed by the directors of the Cunard Steamship
Company to make comparative tests of the merits
of the reciprocating engine and the steam turbine
This accomplished by selecting two steam
ships of exactly the and power the Arundel
having engines of the old kind, and the Brighton
the engines of both were of the same horse power,
the Brighton showed her superiority in every way
Other turbine steamships built and put into
service before the Carmana completed, but
the latter is by far the largest turbine vessel aoat
This is briefly the history of the water Wheel its
rise a means of transferring water power into
electrical energy, and its metamorphosis into.
varied forms it remains still water wheel, not only
in design but in principle. 1t shows that we have
in reality gone back to the water wheel universal
prime mover; and, what is more striking, the work
ing out of a remarkable law, which, briefly stated
is that all things eventually return to the of
their origin, while the world advances a result
of their cycles