Turbine Electric Drive: Liners that Reverse in 45 Sec.
The atr, Archer, operated by the 8. Shipping Board, which port lant week, io. the latest equipped "with the steam-turbine ne shginearng, beng slectrie drive. Ships so fitted. ave cary and economical to run, their fuel "consumption. being' low. Officers of the Archer' stated. that zh. she had run over 160,000 rilles, engine Yepairs had not cost them' a cent, The propeller is driver from a shaft 225 feet long, coupled directly to @ motor 18 feet. in diameter, which generates 8,000 The steam-geared turbine drives" the motor has a motive power still greater—in the neighbourhood of 3,200 H. P. more, while the boilers are fired by 30 tons of fuel oil daily. Although superheated steam at a temperature of to 600 degrees Fahrenheit is used, by the time it has passed through the narrow and "short turbine, only a few feet long, it Thay Tost most of its heat." Tt returns to the condensers as steam still "ata temperature of 80 degrees Fahvenhelt. Although at "much a low temperature the steam does not condense as it passes through a vacuum, maintained to many. atmospheres, Thus the work of the condensers is mater lightened.
A big point in favour of this type of ship construction, is the ts ease with which the vessel can be reversed, this operation requiring Dut 45' seconds, the turn of the propeller being' reversed from full speed ahead to full speed western in that time, Another novelty is the oil feed to the furnaces. To each of the three boilers, capable of generating 215 Ib. at cruising speed, is fed crude oil through a' single aperture with a diameter of between 1/32 and yy of an inch, but under a very high pressure. This stream is projected with such a velocity that-it is vaporized immediately. Thirty tons of heavy oil issue from this minate orifice every 24 hours.
The governor on the turbine, state the officers, is fool proof, being double and if the first one fails to work, the emergency trips on with a crash that automatically stops further flow of steam to the blades, This governor functions so truely that should the propeller be completely lifted from the water it would not spin at a rate which would wreck the average engine. Instead it is immediately chokes' down to the number of revolutions it was turning when in the wi After a storm in the North Atlantic in January they ost three of the blades, but the governor kept the same rate just as before, though the ship made 199 miles' within 24 hours.
The Archer arrived in Shanghai nine days ahead of time, due mainly, the officers affirm, to the mechanical perfection of their equipment,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.