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Practical Ideas for the Engineer | Operating Costs of Large American Motorship— Shaft Repairing—New Tipple—Polyphase Fuse N HER maiden voyage from Puget sound to ‘Atlantic ports and return, the 6000-ton mo- torship Kennecott has _ established a record of which both © builders and owners are extremely proud. The KENNEcOTT. promptly loaded for a sec- ond voyage to Atlantic ports.. She has upheld every expectation of her builder, the Todd Shipbuilding & Drydock Corp. and of McIntosh & Seymour, who con- structed the twin 1200 horsepower en- gines. The vessel was completed at the Todd yards, Tacoma, Wash. on March 17 last and made her maiden run to New York with 3,500,000 feet of lumber. Figures reported of this voyage as to fuel consumption are surprising. They show that the saving in oil, figured at $1.70 per barrel, over a steamer of similar size, 8000 measurement tons, for ‘the entire voyage is $10,354. Some of this saving is offset by the greater con- sumption of lubricating oil by a diesel engine than by a steam engine. This difference is figured at $2500 so that the total saving is still large. In addition to the saving in fuel oil, the KENNEcoTT registered economy in the matter of labor and auxiliaries. Not once during the voyage did either engine of the motorship have to be shut down for any cause. The machinery worked perfectly and there was no cost for repairs off ship. Everything necessary was done in the ship’s machine shop aboard. On her run between Aberdeen, Wash., and the Panama canal, 3880 miles, she made the distance in 15 days averaging 10.7 knots. From Cristobal to ‘New York she averaged 10.1 knots, making the 1974 miles in eight days. On the return she made the 1903 miles between Baltimore and Cristobal in 7% days averaging 10.6 knots. Between Balboa and San Pedro, Cal., she did the 2919 miles in 10 days 20 hours, Against a strong averaging 11.2 knots. head wind between San Pedro and San Francisco she averaged 10.7 knots mak- ing the distance in 34% hours. According to statistics of the voyage, the actual saving in fuel consumption over a steamer was approximately 120 barrels per day. In the 43 days steam- ing, this saving at $1.70 per barrel totaled $8772. The saving in fuel consumption for loading, discharging and auxiliaries as compared with steam consumption of 40 barrels per day was no less than $1582 for this item alone in 14 full days work. Altogether the builder and owner, the Alaska Steamship Co., are greatly delighted with the KENNEcoTT’s per- formance. She is under charter to the Williams Steamship Co. for serv- ice in the intercoastal route. Difficult Shaft Repair A difficult repair and welding problem recently was performed by the Welded Products Co., Four bionze sleeves were shrunk on a heavy It was intended to have Birmingham, Ala. propeller shaft. the sleeves close enough in series to ad- mit of caulking the joints. On cooling, however, it was found that the sleeves lacked approximately half an inch of butting—a distance too great for effective caulking. The sleeves at either end of the series were of slightly greater diam- eter than the two intermediate sleeves, the former being designed to turn in bearings and the latter to serve merely as a protection for the steel shaft where it would otherwise be exposed directly to the corroding influence of .salt water in the section between the two bearings. ~ To have brought the sleeves together by removing and reshrinking them, even if it could have been succesfully accom- plished, would have involved considerable difficulty and expense; and it seemed more than probable that such an attempt would have. resulted in a repetition of the initial failure. For this reason it was decided to experiment with welding. It was not, however, deemed advisable to fill in the spaces by adding metal fused with the blowpipe while the sleeves were frozen to the shaft, as it seemed likely that the weld would pull apart on cooling. The problem, then became one of ap- plying preheat in a manner that would not result in disalignment of the shaft. First a special preheating hood was prepared to admit of uniformly heating a single one of the four sleeves. Then one. of the was expanded by preheating the area enclosed in the hood, when the preheated section was welded to the cold sleeve next This process was then applied to the succeeding instance heat- sleeves in series. sections serially, in each ing a single sleeve and welding it to the cold sleeve adjoining. Open Public-Owned Coal Tipple at New Orleans With appropriate public ceremonies, the new coal tipple constructed by the New Orleans dock board close to the public cotton warehouse and public grain elevator was dedicated in August. This adjoins the wharves assigned to the big transatlantic lines and Central American steamers. It is equipped to handle run-of-the mine coal with a loading capacity of 800 to 1000.tons per hour maximum. Although provided with a storage capaci- ty of 25,000 tons, the primary purpose of the plant is to move coal as fast as it can be handled. Beside the hopper house, the plant in- cludes three loading towers and one un- loading tower. ing towers travel along a track to give direct discharge into the hatches. loading tower is a steam operated, travel- ing, hoisting tower with a_ projecting PROPELLER SHAFT ON WHICH BRONZE BEARING AND PROTECTING SLEEVES WERE SHRUNK. COOLING LEFT AN OPENING APPROXIMATELY %-INCH BETWEEN SECTIONS 448 Two of the three load- The. ; : , <: ES