Chris's Build of Battleship Ohio Engine

[tghs]

the 1890's cruisers USS Brooklyn and USS New York were both 4 engine two shaft ships, cruising on 2 engines for economy, but "coupling" the engines for speed and power.. never found direct info on the "coupling" method except that it took 30 minutes at a minimum..at a dead stop, sounds like bolting to me!!! During the battle of Santiago and the chase that took place the Brooklyn was "caught" on 2 engines with no time to link the engines.. send cold beer from the wardroom down to the stokers, fire guns even when out of range to inspire the stokers, make all the steam you can and send it to the 2 engines...helped that the Spanish ships had fouled bottoms, low grade coal, and all their Scottish and Welsh contract engineers left the ships when war was declared..

[Vixen]

Chris and all,

I find this background information about the Big steam driven battle wagons absolutely fascinating. It's so interesting to hear all about the way they did things back then and what they had to 'make do' with. They understood steel and how to work it, but somehow they did it without the precision machinery of today. All in all, they did a pretty good job.

Some things were a bit crude. It'd hard to imagine having to stop for 30 minutes to 'bolt up' the other two engines, just to get the ship ready for 'battle stations'

Mike   

[crueby]

Some more info regarding the inboard/outboard locations of things on this engine. Been studying the different plan views on the frame and cylinders some more, to get a better grasp of what all the protrusions/flanges/fittings they show are. The section views get fun since a number of them do things like go across the cylinder from one side to the middle, then angle over at 45 degrees to a support column flange. Shows a lot in one section view, but it can be disorienting till its figured out.

One thing I have noticed is that the reversing engine, which is a cylinder/piston that hangs vertically and actuates the Stephenson links to move from forward to reverse (rather than having the big hand lever common on smaller engines), is hung off the rear (outboard) side of one of the frame pillars that goes from the cylinder to the base. I'm used to seeing it on the 'front' or inboard side of the engine. The control levers for the reversing engine is just below that engine.


At first, I thought that meant that to reverse both engines at once requires two people, one on either side of the two main engines. I had based my original assumption on the one label on the engine bed page where the view from the side with the thin posts is labelled 'Front Elevation'. Turns out that is just to differentiate it from the other view called 'Side Elevation'. I had assumed it referred to the inboard side. Nope!


However, after closer inspection of how the frame mounts were labelled on the cylinder drawings, I reallized that I had been thinking of the engine backwards!  The thin vertical posts are on the outboard side of each engine, and the thicker cast frames are on the inboard side of each engine. That puts the controls back between the two engines where one engineer can see and operate them all from the central catwalk or floor.

This doesn't change any of the CAD drawing I have done so far, other than I need to re-label parts I had been calling 'front' and 'rear'!


Also, the discussion from the other day stands - the condensers ARE on the outboard side of each engine.

Fun stuff, huh?  It will be very interesting to see if the National Archives does have drawings that include the top and plan views of the engineering spaces, sounds like that may not be viewable on their website till later in the year. If I was going to be closer to Maryland I'd visit in person to find out sooner, but the only other option is to hire a researcher in that area to dig into things sooner, and thats not worth the money.
I did get a start on the vertical pieces of the frames. Here is the quarter view that I had thought was from the inboard side. Turns out the long side here is the outboard side of the engine:

And here is a view from the other side, actually the inboard side. This is the side that will have the reversing engine, controls, etc.

Dizzy yet?   

[steamer]

The other thing to keep in mind, is I bet this engine has steam jacketing on the cylinders and the cylinder heads.   Lots to digest!!!

Dave

[crueby]

The other thing to keep in mind, is I bet this engine has steam jacketing on the cylinders and the cylinder heads.   Lots to digest!!!

Dave

Yes!  Fortunately they give dimensions on the jackets, cylinder liners, passages, etc. The cross sections on those areas are very busy drawings! Some (well, most) of the views take a while to figure out where there are brackets sticking out, that sort of thing. I can do one piece of a part at a time, then need time for my brain to cool off and reset.   

[cnr6400]

2D dwgs to 3D CAD will do that. They should sell each CAD licence with a brain cooler! 

[kvom]

You'd expect the heavier side of the engine to be inboard for stability.

[crueby]

You'd expect the heavier side of the engine to be inboard for stability.

Good point! And the lower the better.  These ships were so large that I don't know if that was a design issue or not, the bank of boilers probably was the biggest fixed weight? The thinner posts are removeable to take the crankshaft sections in and out if ever neccessary, and having the controls and reversing engine on that side would have been a problem. Also, with the condenser tanks and pipes on that side, there was room underneath them for access to the cranks.

[internal_fire]

My guess is that the weight of the engines and boilers is pretty low impact for a battleship. I do not know any details for the Ohio BB-12, but later battleships had armor belts up to 18 inches (?) thick.

This ain't your grandfather's Chris-Craft. 

Gene

[crueby]

My guess is that the weight of the engines and boilers is pretty low impact for a battleship. I do not know any details for the Ohio BB-12, but later battleships had armor belts up to 18 inches (?) thick.

This ain't your grandfather's Chris-Craft. 

Gene

   grand dad would have needed a BIG trailer to tow that one!!

[Mcgyver]

'Steamer' Dave very kindly gave me a copy of the set of plans he has of the engine from this ship.

Where do these drawings come from?   I doubt I'll tackle this project, but Chris, I share your enthusiasm for just getting to pour over the drawings.  They'd have to be out of copyright at this point....if they only exist in they physical form, I'd happy to volunteer to produce large format high res PDF's and make them available; I'd just like to see them.

[crueby]

'Steamer' Dave very kindly gave me a copy of the set of plans he has of the engine from this ship.

Where do these drawings come from?   I doubt I'll tackle this project, but Chris, I share your enthusiasm for just getting to pour over the drawings.  They'd have to be out of copyright at this point....if they only exist in they physical form, I'd happy to volunteer to produce large format high res PDF's and make them available; I'd just like to see them.

They came from a big old book he has, most of its missing but for the plans. A friend of mine has a large format scanner, I'm going to be seeing him this weekend and will ask if he can scan my copy of the prints, if that's ok with Dave?

[crueby]

All the plan sheets are labeled Union Iron Works in San Francisco. Just did some searching for that, lots of info on them, a bunch of the buildings still exist in a historic district and a bunch of interesting history about the yard...

[john mills]

i would have thought it would have been good to have the open side of the engines to the centre to give lots of room for oiling but the side for the thrust face on the column would be determined buy direction or rotation and load on the cross head which way they prefer the propellors to turn when going forward.?
John

[10KPete]

John, those are, around here anyway, known as stiff leg engines. The pipe leg is removable to allow rod removal. I have a 6 hp. compound twin made exactly the same way. And with out that feature the cylinders would have to come off the get the rod out!

On that battleship engine the crank shaft is made in sections, each of which can be lifted out through the space left by removing the pipes which gives access to all the bearings.

Pete