Turbinia
 The Turbinia at full speed
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The Turbinia was the first turbine ship in the world, i.e. the first steamship that was powered not by a steam (piston) engine , but by a steam turbine.
It was built in 1894 under the direction of the steam turbine inventor Charles Parsons to test the efficiency of the turbine drive and to demonstrate its superiority. The attempt was a complete success: the Turbinia immediately became by far the fastest ship in the world and thus heralded the generation change in ship propulsion from the steam engine to the steam turbine.
history
Development and construction
After Parsons had invented the Parsons steam turbine in 1884 , he founded the Marine Steam Turbine Company in Wallsend-on-Tyne in 1893 in order to develop the new turbine ready for the market as a propulsion system for ships. Until then, this field was firmly in the hands of steam piston engines. As a test vehicle, he had a small and light steel ship built by the Brown & Hood shipyard in Wallsend-on-Tyne. On August 2, 1894, the ship, which was initially simply referred to as the Experimental Run and later named Turbinia, was launched. The yacht was later named Parsons' Ocean Greyhound (German: "Parsons Ocean Greyhound") in honor of its builder because of its speed and slim shape .
With the test ship, Parsons, who had no training in shipbuilding, experimented with various turbine and propeller configurations. The first version had only one screw, which was driven by a radial flow turbine. With a speed of less than 20 knots, she fell far short of Parsons' expectations. The main reason was the previously unknown problem of cavitation , which reduces performance and quickly destroys the propellers. This problem did not occur with the significantly lower propeller speeds of the slow-running steam engines. Parsons investigated the phenomenon using scale models in a specially built water channel with an observation window, recognized the cause and adapted its design by increasing the number of screws and reducing their diameter (and thus the peripheral speed) at the same time.
The developers also optimized the flow resistance and studied the effect of the bow wave and stern wave , which, due to the speed, were higher than previously known for boats of this size.
Finally, after nearly two years of development, seven propeller designs and more than 30 testing was successful drive concept: Three axial flow Parsons turbines (a high pressure, a medium-pressure and a low pressure turbine) driven directly without transmission , one each wave at, on which had three propellers one behind the other, each about 1 m apart, and intermediate storage . On the shaft of the medium-pressure turbine, a reverse turbine could be engaged to change the direction of rotation.
Public demonstration and record drives
The Royal Admiralty was basically informed about the development of the turbine drive, but initially ignored the revolutionary results.
Parsons went public with his development in a spectacular way when he ran into the roadstead in Spithead with the Turbinia on June 26, 1897, unannounced at a fleet parade with 165 ships on the occasion of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee . The high point of the parade would be a race of the Admiralty's fastest destroyers. Under the eyes of the heir to the throne Albert Eduard , the Lords of the Admiralty and numerous dignitaries and invited guests from home and abroad, the Turbinia hoisted a red pennant , broke out of the order of the parade and took part in the race without permission as a civilian ship. With initial outrage about the improper behavior, followed by astonishment and admiration, the audience could watch how the Turbinia dominated the field. Thanks to its superior speed and maneuverability, the yacht easily distanced itself from the Navy patrol boats , which were deployed to chase and stop the Turbinia.
The surprising performance was followed by further tests monitored by the Admiralty, which confirmed the first impression. In the same year the Turbinia set the official speed record of 34.5 knots ; more than 4 knots faster than any other ship at the time.
In 1900 the Turbinia was sent to Paris for a demonstration and presented at the World Exhibition there ( Exposition Universelle et Internationale de Paris ), where it won a Grand Prize and a gold medal.
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Average and decommissioning
In 1907 there was an accident with the larger Crosby . While the ship was launched from the south bank of the Tyne , the Turbinia was rammed and badly damaged. It was repaired, but then had mechanical problems and was finally decommissioned and preserved on land.
Successor models
Spurred on by the success of Turbinia, Parsons founded his own shipyard Turbine Works in Wallsend-on-Tyne and was the first to build two turbine-powered torpedo boat destroyers , the HMS Viper and the HMS Cobra, on behalf of the Royal Navy . They were completed in 1899, and although both later sank in accidents, they finally convinced the Navy of the efficiency of the turbine drive. A few years later, in 1905, the Admiralty decreed that all future warships built for the Royal Navy should be turbine-powered. In 1906, the Navy's first turbine-powered battleship , the revolutionary HMS Dreadnought , entered service.
The first civilian turbine-propelled ship to leave Parsons' shipyard was the King Edward liner , which operated on the River Clyde and Firth of Clyde in Scotland. A short time later, the RMS Victorian and the RMS Virginian (built in 1905) followed the first ships with Parsons turbines to cross the Atlantic, and with the RMS Lusitania and the RMS Mauretania (built in 1907) the first large passenger steamers, both of them Were holders of the Blue Ribbon .
Remain in the museum
In 1926 the famous ship was sold to the Science Museum in London . Since the designated showroom in the South Kensington Museum in London did not have enough space, the Turbinia was cut up and only the stern with the drive was exhibited. The front part was from 1944 in an open-air museum in Newcastle upon Tyne .
From 1959, the damaged middle section was reconstructed by the Science Museum , the entire ship reassembled and exhibited in the Municipal Museum of Science and Industry in Newcastle. In 1994 the Turbinia was moved to the Discovery Museum in Newcastle, where it can still be viewed today. The original turbine has been removed and can be seen in the Science Museum in London.
Web links
- Detailed report on Turbinia at www.birrcastle.com (English)
- Radunz, Karl: 100 Years of Steam Shipping 1807–1907. Descriptions and sketches from the history of the development of the steamship , Rostock: Volckmann Nachf. 1907, VIII, 300 p. (PDF file; 1.71 MB)
- Frank Patalong: Speedboat revolution "Turbinia" The steam hammer , in one day on Spiegel Online from February 18, 2013. Retrieved on February 18, 2013