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oy A Description of Alquist Gearing With a Discussion of Its Advantages—Gear 18 Built-Up of Flexible Plates HE designs described in this ; article are based upon the in- ventions of Karl Alquist. Mr. Alquist was formerly connected with the turbine department of the Eng- lish branch of the General Electric Co., the British Thomson-Houston Co. His gear inventions were first brought to the attention of the writer early in the year 1911. For some time pre- vious, Mr. Alquist had endeavored to arouse interest in his methods in England and on the continent but had accomplished nothing. At that time the General Electric Co. had not be- gun the commercial manufacture of high-speed spiral gears, but had for some time been conducting experi- ments to determine the limits of speed, pressure, etc., which were prac- ticable with such gearing. The im- portance of high-speed gearing in con- nection with turbine and electrical ap- plications is obvious and we were working with a view to development A paper presented at the twenty-fourth gen- eral meeting of the Society of Naval Archi- tects and Marine Engineers, New York, Nov. 16-17. 1916. The author, W. L. R. Emmet, is associated with the General Electric Co. FIG. 1—DIAGRAM OF ALQUIST GEARING By W. L. R. Emmet of the best standards. Certain features of Mr. Alquist’s proposals appealed strongly to the writer, and arrange- ments were made with him to come to America and assist in experimental developments along the line of his in- ventions. Many Sets Built The result of this undertaking has been that many sets of gearing have been built and experimented with ex- haustively under a variety of condi- tions, and by these experiments cer- tain standards of practicability have been established and extensive com- mercial developments have been un- dertaken. Gearing of this character has been applied to about 72 sets where steam turbines drive electric generators of various types. Contracts have been closed for machinery for the propulsion of 70 ships aggregat- ing 215,200 horsepower. Some of these electric generating sets have been in service 14% years and about seven of the ship sets are in service, some of them having made many long voyages. Among these are high-pressure cruis- FIG. 2—CURTIS TURBINE AND ONE-PLANE FLEXIBLE-TYPE SPEED-REDUCTION GEAR FOR SHIP PROPULSION —TOP HALF OF GEAR HOUSING REMOVED 15