Reed water tube boiler

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a Reed water tube boiler
A Reed water tube boiler built for HMS Janus of 1895:[1] the incomplete casing allows a view of the arrangement of the steam-generating tubes. The two large, external tubes at the near end, and another pair at the far end, known as "down-comers", passed cooler water from the top chamber to the two bottom chambers, thereby enhancing circulation.

The Reed water tube boiler was a type of

water tube boiler developed by J. W. Reed, manager of the engine works at Palmers Shipbuilding and Iron Company of Jarrow, England, where it was manufactured from 1893 to 1905. At this time, Palmers was a vertically integrated business: in its shipyard at Jarrow, using iron ore from its own mine in North Yorkshire
, it produced the iron and steel needed for its ships, and engines and boilers of its own design.

Intended for use in the

Admiralty
.

Design

The Reed water tube boiler was developed and

Belleville boiler, besides steam engines.[7][Fn 2]

It was similar to its antecedent the

fire tube boilers" or, when used in ships, as "marine boilers". In these, water was contained in a single drum through which tubes carried exhaust gases from a furnace: a locomotive boiler had to be constructed from heavier gauge materials, since the greater size of the single drum required a thicker shell, and, while the tubes in a water tube boiler were subject only to tension from the steam and pressurised water within, a locomotive boiler's tubes were subject to compression from without, again requiring thicker materials.[11][Fn 4]

torpedo boat destroyer HMS Lightning
of 1895: the black lines adjacent to and above the steam-generating tubes in the cross section are baffles designed to optimise the passage of hot gases around the tubes. Both diagrams illustrate the designed water level in the top chamber, below which the steam-generating tubes were connected.

In the Normand boiler, the tubes were comparatively straight and a portion of those in the inner and outer rows of each bank were formed into "tube walls" to direct hot gases generated by the furnace through the boiler.

Thornycroft, the steam-generating tubes joined the top chamber above the water line, and their tops were "observed to get red-hot when the water was low."[18] Overheated tubes were liable to fail.[19] Large, external "down-comer" tubes transferred water from the top chamber to the two bottom ones.[20][21] The down-comers thus promoted convection within the boiler, which needed to be rapid because of the small diameter of the tubes, and formed "a substantial part of [its] framework."[19][22][17]

Steam was collected inside a

pure water was essential for this type of boiler, as a shortage of water would rapidly result in an empty boiler liable to severe damage from the furnace, and the deposition of any contaminant, such as limescale, would result in a significant loss of efficiency and could block tubes.[27][28][Fn 6] To surmount this problem, boiler feedwater circulated in a closed system from the boiler as steam to the engines and then to condensers, from which it returned as water to the boiler, thus completing a cycle. However, some incidental loss of water from the system was unavoidable, and the French naval engineer Louis-Émile Bertin regarded a 5% loss of water per cycle as the maximum that could be sustained in a water tube boiler installation.[31] Therefore, additional feedwater was required, and it was supplied by apparatus such as an evaporator, as was fitted in HMS Spiteful, built by Palmers and launched in 1899.[32][33] Each boiler had its own feedwater pump, and a feedwater regulator also of Reed's design.[17]

diagrams of the connections between water tubes and water chambers
A cross section and plan of the connection between water tubes and a water chamber in a Reed boiler. The spheroidal ferrules "3" are screwed onto the tubes, which are then inserted into holes in the water chamber wall that are of slightly larger diameter than the tubes; the tubes are then secured by nuts "N" on the inside of the chamber.

Another type of boiler similar to and later than the du Temple boiler was the Yarrow boiler, which usually dispensed with external down-comer tubes after its designer,

indicated horsepower (IHP) per ton (1016 kg) of boiler at full power, by the same measure the Yarrow boilers in a slightly earlier Swordfish-class torpedo boat destroyer produced 73 IHP.[41] But, whereas for example a Star-class torpedo boat destroyer of 1896 required four Reed boilers to achieve its specified top speed of 30 knots, a similar Swordfish-class vessel required eight Yarrow boilers to achieve its specified top speed of 27 knots.[42][43] As fitted to torpedo boat destroyer HMS Lightning in 1895, a dry Reed boiler weighed 13.25 tons (12.44 tonnes).[17]

A Reed boiler could be designed to operate at internal pressures of up to 300 

kilowatts).[45][Fn 10]

Production and use

A view inside the boiler shop at Palmers
Most major boiler components in this view of the boiler shop at Palmers in about 1900 are for Reed water tube boilers.

Reed water tube boilers were a "speciality" of the engine works at Palmers, which was capable of producing one "heavy marine boiler" a week, besides "a large number of water tube boilers".

locomotive boilers installed by their builders.[53][Fn 11] Similarly HMS Niger, a torpedo gunboat built by the Barrow Shipbuilding Company of Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, in 1892, had her boilers replaced with Reed boilers in 1902.[55] Production of the Reed water tube boiler ceased in 1905.[4]

See also

References

Footnotes

  1. ^ Palmers supplemented its own supply of iron ore with higher grade, hematite ore from Spain.[6]
  2. ^ "[I]t is worth noting that the first set of triple-expansion engines used in the British Navy were made in these works."[8]
  3. torpedo boat destroyer HMS Lightning of 1895, provision is illustrated for 694 steam-generating tubes.[10]
  4. ^ A more comprehensive assessment of the advantages of water tube boilers in naval vessels was published in Page's Magazine in 1902: "On making a careful comparison between water-tube and [fire-tube] boilers, we find that the former will raise steam more quickly and maintain it more evenly and at much greater pressure. They can be much more easily renewed or repaired, without having to lay up the ship or pull up her decks for this purpose. They are not so dangerous in action, and will not suffer so seriously from small projectiles. The effect on the ship's company will not be so disastrous in the event of an explosion, because they contain only a very small amount of water for steam generation. They are very much lighter and produce more horse-power per ton of weight, and thus enable advantages to be secured either in speed of vessel or in the amount of armour, armament, or coal supply. They can be "forced" or made to produce a greater quantity of steam for longer periods, and can therefore continue steaming at higher powers, and in this connection also they are assisted by a larger fire-grate area, which enables them to maintain steam for their maximum powers with greater facility."[12]
  5. ^ In HMS Lightning and HMS Janus, both of 1895, "there [were] in all upwards of 30,000 [of these] joints, and though they [had] been many times under steam, not a single leak ... occurred."[17]
  6. ^ HMS Pegasus, built by Palmers and launched in 1897, had eight Reed boilers, and was disabled when her condensers leaked and allowed sea water into her boilers.[29][30]
  7. ^ In Yarrow boilers groups of tubes were sometimes screened by baffles to create internal down-comers, or tubes might be used as stays that served the same purpose.[35]
  8. ^ The issue was contentious: while the inventor Hiram Maxim regarded down-comers as "utterly superfluous", the shipbuilder John Thornycroft regarded them as "indispensable".[37]
  9. ^ A plan of 1901 corrected to 28 September 1905 for the torpedo boat destroyer HMS Spiteful shows the arrangement and proportions of her four Reed boilers.[33]
  10. kilowatt hours of electricity per year.[46]
  11. ^ "The firm had originally offered to fit water tube boilers of their own design, but the Admiralty, presumably wary of an untried type of boiler, had offered for locomotive boilers instead. However, [they] proved quite inadequate ... on trials in the late summer and autumn of 1895. ... The builders [again] offered their own design but the Admiralty preferred to order Reed boilers from Palmer's."[54]

Notes

  1. ^ McFarland 1898, p. 427.
  2. ^ Dillon 1900, pp. 32–4.
  3. ^ Robertson 1901, p. 38.
  4. ^ a b "Model of a Joseph W. Reed water-tube boiler". Science Museum Group. n.d. Archived from the original on 13 February 2017. Retrieved 13 February 2017.
  5. ^ Cuthbert & Smith 2004, pp. 5 & 40.
  6. ^ a b Cuthbert & Smith 2004, p. 9.
  7. ^ Dillon 1900, pp. 31–6, esp. 32.
  8. ^ Dillon 1900, p. 36.
  9. ^ Robertson 1901, pp. 38, 126, 130, 136.
  10. ^ "Reed water tube boiler cross sections". Wikimedia Commons. 2017. Retrieved 17 February 2017.
  11. ^ Robertson 1901, pp. 2–3.
  12. ^ Anon. 1902b, pp. 423–5.
  13. ^ Robertson 1901, p. 130.
  14. ^ a b c Robertson 1901, p. 137.
  15. ^ Robertson 1901, pp. 136–7.
  16. ^ Busley 1902, p. 570.
  17. ^ a b c d e f g h Anon. 1896, p. 172.
  18. ^ Busley 1902, p. 563.
  19. ^ a b Robertson 1901, pp. 59–60.
  20. ^ Robertson 1901, pp. 126, 130, 136–7.
  21. ^ Busley 1902, p. 569.
  22. ^ Busley 1902, pp. 537, 568–9.
  23. ^ Liversidge 1906, p. 319.
  24. ^ Sennett & Oram 1899, p. 96.
  25. ^ Bertin 1906, p. 533.
  26. ^ Liversidge 1906, p. 367.
  27. ^ Robertson 1901, pp. 191–2.
  28. ^ Ritchie Leask 1892, pp. 189–91.
  29. ^ Robertson 1901, pp. 138–9.
  30. ^ Anon. 1899, p. 427.
  31. ^ Bertin 1906, p. 520.
  32. ^ Ritchie Leask 1892, pp. 191–2.
  33. ^ a b c "Plan of the ship HMS Spiteful (1899)". Royal Museums Greenwich. n.d. Archived from the original on 27 January 2017. Retrieved 13 February 2017.
  34. ^ Robertson 1901, pp. 55, 58, 152–4.
  35. ^ Robertson 1901, pp. 153–4.
  36. ^ Robertson 1901, p. 327.
  37. ^ Busley 1902, pp. 568–9.
  38. ^ Bertin 1906, p. 473.
  39. ^ Robertson 1901, p. 138.
  40. ^ Bertin 1906, p. 470.
  41. ^ Robertson 1901, pp. 139, 157.
  42. ^ Lyon 2005, pp. 78, 85.
  43. ^ Robertson 1901, p. 157.
  44. ^ Dillon 1900, p. 34.
  45. ^ Robertson 1901, p. 139.
  46. ^ "Typical domestic energy consumption figures" (PDF). ofgem. n.d. Archived (PDF) from the original on 21 January 2017. Retrieved 16 February 2017.
  47. ^ Dillon 1900, pp. 30–4.
  48. ^ Anon. 1893, p. 38.
  49. ^ a b Anon. 1932, p. 303.
  50. ^ Lyon 2005, pp. 77–81.
  51. ^ Anon. 1904, p. 27.
  52. ^ Anon. 1902a, p. 615.
  53. ^ Lyon 2005, pp. 75–6.
  54. ^ Lyon 2005, p. 75.
  55. ^ NID 1902, p. 413.

Bibliography

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