Turbo

“ The tester will do well during the last hour of this trial run to station his recorders at their several posts and, for a short time at least, to have a complete set of readings taken at the correct test intervals. This more particularly applies to the electrical water, superheat and vacuum readings. In the case of a turbo-alternator the steadiness obtainable in the electrical load may determine the frequency of readings taken, both electrical and otherwise. ”

“ Fam. Purpurifera, Lam.—Descr. Turbinated, keeled, thin, umbilicated; aperture longer than the spire, entire; columella obliquely truncated; outer lip thin, sharp; epidermis horny, produced into long hairs at the angles of the shell; operculum horny, with the nucleus lateral.—Obs. Although the shells of this genus have something of the shape of Turbo, they are distinguished from that genus at once by the thinness of the shell. They are also known from Buccinum, by the absence of a canal. Only two or three species are known, which belong to the Northern and Arctic Oceans. T. bicarinata, fig. ”

“ The turbot, which rarely exceeds a length of two feet, has great width of body, and is scaleless, but is covered with conical bony tubercles. The eyes are on the left side of the body, the lower being slightly in advance of the upper; the mouth is large and armed with teeth of uniformly minute size. The turbot is found all round the coasts of Europe (except in the extreme north) , preferring a flat sandy bottom with from 10 to 50 fathoms of water. The broad banks off the Dutch coast are a favourite resort. ”

“ The Curtis turbine is somewhat simpler than the Parsons, and consists of elements each of which has at least two rows of moving blades and one row of stationary. The bucket velocity is lowered by fractional velocity reduction. Both the Parsons and Curtis turbines are suitable for driving dynamos and steamships directly. In efficiency, lightness, and bulk for a given power, they compare favorably with reciprocating engines.
Tur`bo*gen"er*a`tor (?) , n. [See Turbine, and Generator.] An electric generator or dynamo which is combined on one frame with a turbomotor, by which it is driven. ”

“ HOW A TURBINE WORKS.
In reciprocating—that is, cylinder—engines steam is admitted into a chamber and the door shut behind it, as it were. As it struggles to expand, it forces out one of the confining walls—that is, the piston—and presently the door opens again, and allows it to escape when it has done its work. In Hero's toy the impact of the issuing molecules against other molecules that have already emerged from the pipes was used. ”

“ Any engineer who is capable of running and intelligently taking care of a reciprocating engine can run and take care of a turbine, but if he is to be anything more than a starter and stopper, it is necessary that he should know what is inside of the casing, what must be done and avoided to prevent derangement, and to keep the machine in continued and efficient operation. ”

“ The present form of turbine, with an efficiency of about 62 per cent., was a great advance, but even in this form of machine scarcely more than 1 per cent. or 2 per cent. is used in actually generating power at a given moment. The only part of the great wheel that is used in actually making power is the outside edge where the steam pushes on the buckets.
"The new turbine offers a striking contrast using as it does practically the entire material of the power-giving portion of the engine. The result is an economy that gives an efficiency of 80 per cent. ”

“ With that much weight my turbine will develop twenty-five horsepower.
"That is not all, for the turbine is probably the cheapest engine to build ever invented. Its mechanical simplicity is such that any good mechanic could build it, and any good mechanic could repair such parts as get out of order. When I can show you the inside of one of the turbines, in a few moments, however, you will see that there is nothing to get out of order such as most turbines have, and that it is not subjected to the heavy strains and jerks that all reciprocating engines and other turbines must stand. ”

“ Referring to the difficulty of reversing the engines of the Turbinia, the Scientific American adds, that “by using a system of ‘butterfly’ reversing steam valves, a motor has been constructed in which the steam may be made to flow through the blades of the turbine in either direction, the whole horse-power of the engines being thus available for going astern.” Detailed drawings and descriptions of the Turbinia and the new motor may be found in the supplements of the Scientific American (New York) for June 26th, 1897, and March 12th, 1898. ”

“ Between the two, three white-painted turbine-trunks, like eel-baskets laid on their side, accentuate [23] the empty perspectives. You can hear the trickle of the liquefied gas flowing from the vacuum into the bilge-tanks and the soft gluck-glock of gas-locks closing as Captain Purnall brings "162" down by the head. The hum of the turbines and the boom of the air on our skin is no more than a cotton-wool wrapping to the universal stillness. And we are running an eighteen-second mile.
I peer from the fore end of the engine-room over the hatch-coamings into the coach. ”

“ As I told you before when we were talking of the wireless transmission of power, the mechanism will be a development of the principle on which my turbine is constructed. It will be so tremendously powerful that it will make a veritable rope of air above the great machine to hold it at any altitude the navigators may choose, and also a rope of air in front or in the rear to send it forward or backward at almost any speed desired. ”

“ This invention relates to turbine motors in which the turbine has a central supply and direct action, and in which the shaft or axle of the turbine wheel is geared by means of friction bevel-wheels with the driving-shaft to which the motion is to be transmitted. The turbine wheel consists of one, two, or more curved tubes, the inner ends of which have a direction corresponding with that of the axis of rotation, and are presented toward inlet-pipe for the driving-fluid. ”

“ Impulse turbines give efficient results with any head and quantity of water, but they give better results when the quantity of water varies and the head remains constant. Reaction turbines, on the contrary, give better results when the quantity of water remains constant and the head varies. These observations indicate in a general way the form of turbine which will best meet the particular conditions in each case. The number of turbines required, and their dimensions, will be determined in each case by the number of horse-power required and the quantity of water available. ”

“ A turbine is a machine in which a rotary motion is obtained by transference of the momentum of a fluid or gas. In general the fluid is guided by fixed blades, attached to a casing, and, impinging on other blades mounted on a drum or shaft, causing the latter to revolve.
Turbines are classed in various ways as: 1, radial flow, when the steam enters near the center and escapes toward the circumference; and 2, parallel flow, when the steam travels axially or parallel to the length of the turning body. ”

“ We have spoken of the modern invention advisedly, for there is nothing new under the sun, and we shall see that the bare principle is hundreds of years old. In its simplest form, the turbine is similar to a water-wheel, a jet of steam taking the place of water. As far back as 1629, Giovanni Branca, an Italian engineer, had suggested much the same thing, and if the reader will now refer to the illustration opposite he will be able to gain some idea of the form in which his idea took shape. ”

“ There are certain specified qualifications which a machine must hold when running under its commercial conditions, among these being lack of vibration of both turbine and machinery driven, be it generator or fan, the satisfactory running of auxiliary turbine parts directly driven from the turbine spindle, minimum friction between the driving mediums, such as worm-wheels, pumps, fans, etc., slight irregularities of construction, often resulting in heated parts and excessive friction and wear, and must therefore be detected and righted before the final test. ”

“ The effective economy of the turbine appears to equal that of the overshot wheel. But the economy in the turbine is accompanied by some conditions which render it peculiarly valuable. In a water-wheel you cannot have great economy of power without very slow motion, and hence where high velocity is required at the working point, a train of mechanism is necessary, which causes a material loss of force. Now, in the turbine the greatest economy is accompanied by rapid motion, and hence the connected machinery may be rendered much less complex. ”

“ Some kind of a crank motion is necessary in all reciprocating engines, to convert the backward and forward movement of the piston to the rotary motion of the shaft, but this is done away with entirely in the turbine. What engineers call a "direct drive" is substituted in its place. In other words, the turbine wheels or disks, fastened to the shaft, turn it, and drive the machinery directly from the source of power. The speed of the machine is regulated by gears. ”

“ A modern impulse wheel, on the other hand, operates at an efficiency of 80 per cent and over. The loss is mainly through friction and leakage, and cannot be eliminated altogether. The modern reaction wheel, called the turbine, attains an equal efficiency. Individual conditions govern the type of wheel to be selected. ”

“ If the engine stopped unexpectedly when flying straight, he must instinctively push the stick forward, keep the nose down, and keep his flying speed. If it stopped during a turn, he must rudder into the turn and keep his flying speed. Always he must do these things instinctively when the motor failed.
Dad and Armbruster and Jack all had stories to tell of some spectacular experience when motors failed at crucial moments in the air. Always when in the air the pilot’s ear is attuned to the steady beat of the motor and he listens for its first missing stroke. ”

“ With a small speed of revolution blade velocity can be got only by increasing the diameter of the spindle, and a point is soon reached when this not only involves an unduly large size and weight of turbine, but also makes the blades become so short (by augmenting the circumference of the annulus) that the leakage loss over the tips becomes excessive. This consideration confines the practical application of turbines to vessels whose speed is over say 15 knots. ”

“ What engines interest you most?”
“No particular engine,” he said, “but more the nature of engines. I’m always thinking of all sorts of little engines which everybody could have. For instance, a little engine to sweep the floor of a room, or dust walls, or clean big glass panes like the windows of shops. Then, I expect you’ll think it very silly, but don’t you think one could have a little engine on a boat?”
“Oh, the engine on a boat,” Rosa said. “Hi is a lovely character, Carlotta. He would die for me or for you at a moment’s notice; but the engine on a boat is his mad streak. ”

“ This seems especially true of steam-turbine books, but the book which really appeals to the operating engineer, the man who may have a turbine unloaded, set up, put in operation, and the builders' representative out of reach before the man who is to operate it fully realizes that he has a new type of prime mover on his hands, with which he has little or no acquaintance, has not been written. ”

“ Enormous turbines are used, fifteen feet in diameter, and when the installation is complete there will be thirty units, [82] each yielding 10,000 horsepower, or a total of 300,000 horsepower. A turbine, it may be explained, differs from the ordinary water wheel in the fact that the water runs through the wheel instead of around it (Figure 32) . The water may enter at the center and then flow out at the periphery, or it may enter at the periphery and then be discharged from the center of the wheel, or it may run axially through the wheel. ”

“ But by restricting the turbine to the lower part of the pressure range and using a piston and cylinder engine for the upper part a higher economy is possible than could be reached by the use of either form of engine alone, the turbine being specially well adapted to make the most of the final stages of expansion, whereas the ordinary reciprocating engine in such vessels makes little or no use of pressure below about 7 ℔ per sq. ”

“ The wind blew facing the train; whitish clouds of steam, some singly, others mingled with other darker clouds of smoke, whirled in endless file past the window at which Litvinov was sitting. He began to watch this steam, this smoke. Incessantly mounting, rising and falling, twisting and hooking on to the grass, to the bushes as though in sportive antics, lengthening out, and hiding away, clouds upon clouds flew by . ”

“ The wheel and its heavy but simplified gears responded with slow speed and gradual pick-up of revolutions to a very deliberate cadence.
Again I was struck with the simplicity of the working of the turbine and wheel, and perhaps the economy of the whole affair was intriguing. One had only to look at the water pouring into the wheel pit to see the power of the stream and to reflect upon the fact that it cost absolutely nothing for this power. Gear grease, oil or other lubrication was absolutely unnecessary to maintain the operation. ”

“ If you want to be an expert you must begin with the throttle, therein lies the secret of the real expert. He feels the power of his engine through the throttle. He opens it just enough to do what he wants it to do. He therefore has complete control of his engine. The fellow who backs his engine up to the separator with an open throttle and must reverse it to keep from running into and breaking something, is running his engine on his muscle and is entitled to small pay. ”