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TRAE Marine. REVIEW : | 19 THE BELLEVILLE BOILER. A meeting of the Institute of Marine Engineers held in London on April 23, was noteworthy from the fact that a paper on "The Belleville Boiler" was read by Mr. F. J. Kean, B. Sc. Mr. Kean in the course of his paper said that proba- bly only those who had been actually engaged upon the con- struction of Belleville boilers or had gone to great trouble in searching through back numbers of periodicals and en- gineering text books would be able to follow very closely what was the precise nature of the questions at issue. In the first place, they had to find out how it came about that the Belleville boiler was adopted as the standard 'pattern of steam generator for the British navy. Although the cylin- drical type of marine boiler had always proved itself a good servant in practice, still it had one or two features which were undesirable from a naval point of view. The chief ob- jections against it were its large size and its slow steaming properties, which were due to the large quantity of water that it contained. When the importance of having a quick steam- ing boiler first became apparent, the only type of boiler in éxistence which looked any thing like the right sort was the water tube boiler designed by M. Belleville. There did not 'appear to have been any other type which had been tested under working conditions at that particular time, and which had proved:so satisfactory; hence the admiralty adopted this boiler as their standard type, and caused it to be fitted on board a large number of Britain's largest warships. THE BOTLER DESCRIBED. The Belleville boiler of today, continued Mr. Kean, con- . sisted of two principal parts--(1) the generator or boiler proper, and (2) the economizer or feed water heater. The generator was formed of a number of sets of tubes placed side by side over a fire grate with a steam drum fastened across the top, and a water collector across the bottom. The generator was so placed that the bottom tube of each set, or element, was about two feet above the bars of the fire-grate. Just above the top row of tubes there was a free space which was called a combustion chamber, and then above that came the economizer. The economizer was arranged in a similar manner to the generator, and had a cold water collector across the bottom, and a hot water collector across the top. The passage of the flames and hot gases on their way up through the tubes was guided by baffle plates and they met together in the combustion chamber preparatory to passing up through the economizer, whence they passed away up the funnel. ITS DEFECTS. It was in the year 1903 that a special committee which had been appointed by the British admiralty to inquire into the working of the Belleville boiler in the ships of the Royal Navy, and to report as to a suitable type of boiler to be fitted in future warships, presented its report. The report contained an account of:a series of trials on two vessels, the Hyacinth and Minerva, which were specially .selected for the purpose, the Hyacinth having Belleville water tube boilers and the Minerva cylindrical return-tube boilers. Among the defects which were noted in the Belleville boilers were the following: (1) The circulation was defective and uncertain ; (2) an automatic feeding arrangement of a delicate and complicated kind was absolutely necessary for the safe working of the boilers; (3) the great excess of pressure over that in the boilers which was requiréd in the feed pipes and pumps; (4) the considerable excess of boiler pressure over that 'at the engines; (5) a separator with an automatic drain was required to get rid of the water carried over from the boilers when any sudden excessive demand for steam was made; (6) there was a constant and excessive loss of feed water. Mr. Kean then referred in detail to certain of the disadvantages of the boiler. ITS ADVANTAGES, Coming to a consideration of the advantages, Mr. Kean said the Belleville boiler was superior to the cylindrical boiler in the following properties: (1) It had a higher thermal ef- ficiency; (2) it raised steam quicker; (3) it was not so heavy. It would be sufficient to state that steam could be raised from "all cold," in about 40 minutes in a Belleville boiler, to show that the boiler was a very rapid steamer. There was "perfect freedom from injurious strains, because the tubes were quite - free to expand in every direction. It was astonishing how deceptive the weight of a Belleville plant was. One would naturally expect that when only such a small quantity of water was contained in it, the boiler would be extremely light, but it was the weight of the fire-brick settings, the separator, the air-blowing engines, etc., which had all to be taken in account, so that compared as a: whole with an ordinary boiler equipment, the saving in weight was greatly reduced. As an off-set against the above advantages must be set the disad- vantages already named, together with the fact that the man- agement of the Belleville boilers required far more skill and experience than cylindrical boilers. Even the government contractors found it advantageous only to employ those men who had had previous experience in that class of work in order to facilitate the erections of those boilers in the shop as well as on board ship. The coupling-up of mud-drums to down cast pipes and feed collectors was a job which called for men of great skill if it was to be done expeditiously. An- other thing to note was the large amount of spare gear re- quired for a Belleville plant compared with that for an equally powerful cylindrical boiler plant. Each boiler had to have at, least one complete spare element for the generator, and one for the economizer, because it was found to take far less time to put in a complete element, than to replace a damaged tube. Then, in addition, they had spar rings, sleeves, nipples, tubes, float gear, etc. An interesting discus- sion followed the reading of the paper. SHIP BUILDING DURING APRIL. The bureau of navigation reports eighty-one sail and steam vessels of 17,136 gross tons were built in the United States and officially numbered during the month of April, 1906, as follows: WOOD STEEL Sail Steam Steam No.}Gross|No.| Gross |No.| Gross ||No.| Gross Atlantic and Ce 6| 3821 39| 1,984 | 2| 3,804 || 47] 6,170 Rerte RICO 6s 6 ves llocballiie oles eae adlweenl aes eee wae oa Mento ke "T1 4gy te | tae i5| 1.044 Mie@avradi.. 26 ics fens paged ale. case ae Soe eGR ile oo ba ole Great Lakes Oa oe | ogo 12845 cer | mae ee Western Rivers........ alleviate. 11 BOB go 11 Pei oo 7| 423169| 3,842 | 5 | 18,871 || 81) 23,136 The navy department will remove all penalties which have been standing against the Union Iron Works of San Fran- cisco for delay in the construction of the armored cruisers California, South Dakota and Philadelphia. This action on the part of the navy department is both gratifying and com- mendable. At the recent meeting of the board of directors of the Har- lan & Hollingsworth Corporation, Wilmington, Del., the fol- lowing officers were elected: Wm. G. Coxe, president; Persi- for Frazer, Jr., vice president; Henderson Weir, secretary and treasurer; Samuel K. Smith, assistant secretary and _ treasurer. The dry dock Dewey, enroute to the Philippines, passed through the Suez canal on May I.