Ocean Steam Navigation and the Ocean PostRainey, Thomas
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Ocean Steam Navigation and the Ocean Post
Rainey, Thomas
Mail steamers; Steam-navigation
IV. High speed and power require more watchfulness, a more prompt
action, and consequently more persons:
V. High speed and power require more fuel, more engineers, more
firemen, and more coal-stokers.
1. These propositions are nearly all self-evident to every class of
mind. That a high speed attained through the exertion of a high power
will require stronger parts in every thing that exerts a force or
resists one, is as manifest as that a force necessary to remove one
ton of weight will have to be doubled to remove two tons. In the prime
construction of the hull this is as requisite as in any other part.
The resistance to a vessel, or the concussion against the water, at a
low rate of speed, will not be very sensibly felt; but if that speed
is considerably increased and the concussion made quicker without a
corresponding increase in the strength of the frame and hull of the
ship generally, we shall find the ship creaking, straining, and
yielding to the pressure, until finally it works itself to pieces, and
also disconcerts the engines, whose stability, bracing, and keeping
proper place and working order depend first and essentially on the
permanence and stability of the hull. If the resistance to a vessel in
passing through the water increases as the square of the velocity, and
if in addition to this outward thrust against the vessel it has to
support the greater engine power within it, which has increased as the
cube of the velocity, then the strength of the vessel must be adequate
to resist without injury these two combined forces against which it
has to contend.
The same increased strength is necessary also in the engines and
boilers. It is admitted by the ablest engineers, and verified by
practice, as will be shown in another part of this Section, that to
increase the speed of a steamer from eight to ten knots per hour, it
is necessary to double the power, and so on in the ratio of the cubes
of the velocity. Suppose that we wish to gain these two knots advance
on eight. It is evident that, if the boilers have to generate, and the
engines to use twice the power, and exert twice the force, they must
have also twice the strength. The boiler must be twice as strong and
heavy; the various working parts of the engine must be twice as
strong: the shafts, the cranks, the piston and other rods, the beams,
the cylinders, the frame work, whether of wood or iron, and even the
iron wheels themselves, with every thing in any way employed to use
the power, overcome the resistance, and gain the speed. There is no
working arrangement in any way connected with the propulsion of the
ship that does not partake of this increase; every pump, every valve,
every bolt connected directly or indirectly with the engine economy of
the ship.
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