Principles of naval engineering - Historic Naval Ships Association

Chapter 1-THE DEVELOPMENT OF NAVAL SHIPSSad to relate, the Wampanog came to anignominious end. A board of admirals concludedthat the ship was unfit for the Navy, that thefour-bladed propeller was an interference togood sailing, and that the four superheaterboilers were merely an unnecessary refinement.As a result of this expert opinion, two of thefour propeller blades and all four of the superheaterboilers were removed. The Wampanogwas thus reduced from a superior steam-drivenship to an inferior sailing vessel, with steamused merely as an auxiliary source of power.The modern U.S. Navy may be thought of asdating from 1883, the year in which Congressappropriated funds for the construction of thefirst steel warships. The major type of enginewas still the reciprocating steam engine;however, the latter part of the 19th century sawincreasing interest in the development of internalcombustion engines and steam turbines.- PADDLE-WHEELSHAFTFigure 1-3.— Side-lever engine,USS Mississippi (1842).Figure 1-4.— Oscillating engine,USS Princeton (1844).147.3147.4Ship designers approached the close of the19th century with an intense regard for speed.Shipbuilders were awarded contracts with bonusand penalty clauses based on speed performance.In the construction of the cruisers Columbia andMinneapolis, a speed of 21 knots was specified.The contract stipulated a bonus of $50,000 pereach quarter-knot above 21 knots and a penaltyof $25,000 for each quarter-knot below 21 knots.The Columbia maintained a trial speed of 22.8knots for 4 hours, and thereby earned for herbuilders a bonus of $350,000. Her sister ship,the Minneapolis, made 23.07 knots on her trials,earning $414,600 for that performance. Othershipbuilders profited in similar fashion from thespeed race. And some, of course, were penalizedfor failure. The builders of the Monterey , forexample, lost $33,000 when the ship failed tomeet the specified speed.By the early part of the 20th century, steamwas here to stay; the ships of all navies of theworld were now propelled by reciprocating steamengines or by steam turbines. Coal was still thestandard fuel, although it had certain disadvantagesthat were becoming increasingly apparent.One of the problems was the disposal of ashes.The only practicable way to get rid of them wasto dump them overboard, but this left a telltalefloating line on the surface of the sea, easilyseen and followed by the enemy. Furthermore,the smoke from the smokestacks was enough toreveal the presence of a steam-driven ship evenwhen it was far beyond the horizon. The militarydisadvantages of coal were further emphasizedby the fact that it took at least one day to coalthe ship, another day to clean up— a minimum oftwo days lost, and the coal would only last foranother two weeks or so of steaming.Then came oil. The means for burning oilwere not developed until the early part of the20th century. C^ce the techniques and equipmentwere perfected, the change from coal tooil took place quite rapidly. Our first oil-burningbattleships were the Oklahoma and theNevada , which were laid down in 1911. All coalburningships were later altered to burn oil.While the coal-to-oil conversion was in progress,a tug-of-war was going on in another area.The reciprocating steam engine and the steamturbine each had its proponents. To settle thematter, the Bureau of Engineering made thedecision to install reciprocating engines in theOklahoma and steam turbines in the Nevada .Although there were still many problems to besolved, the steam turbine was well on its way