The level of engineering is astounding, no CAD in those days, not even a calculator, all this was done with brain power and put down on paper. Just mind blowing.
The turbine is what I found great. The machining and fluid dynamics involved in the turbine is amazing for the time. It's very similar to a modern day jet engine. The stationary blades directing airflow into the moving blades is brutally simple but getting your head around it back then and making it was anything but. "Theoretically" they were mostly into the jet age with the turbine alone.
Can we mention how much of a legend the guy who created this video is, being that 6 years down the road, he is still liking and replying to comments. Props to you brother.
All those hours of craftsmanship that would last for decades, literally brand new, to be sent to the bottom 2 1/2 miles down in total darkness forever.
@@rbarger71 Don't think she would have split the berg but it has been proven that she would have been much better off to hit it head on. The first and maybe the second compartment would have flooded but not enough to sink her.
Working down there must've been like hell. Crazy to see the transition from a heaven-like luxurious place on the upper decks, and having a living hell just a few decks below all the fun and laughter.
Man all that engineering, all that work, all the iron and materials used, all brand new and sitting at the bottom of the sea rotting away. Beyond incredible.
Exactly 💯 💯, so sad and terrible that beautiful brand new ship was only 3 days old after being built for 3 years and then sinks and everything is underwater to waist away😔
This is probably the first UA-cam video I have watched in which the comments section wasnt blown up by idiots and trolls, and likewise filled with nothing but knowledgeable people explaining things further. 100+ years after her demise, and she still brings us together.
110 years passed, Titanic and its related any topic which is informative still attracts me. Something always tickles in my heart, like the sad event shouldn't have taken place. At the last of the video, the oops with bubbling water fillings sounds which indicates the tragic fate that all of the hard work gone underwater, to the bottom of ocean. Poor 1500 souls, rest in peace!!
Those stokers had no eye or ear protection, no hard hats. They probably got treated like shit, constantly getting yelled at. And, god only knows how hot it was in those boiler rooms along with all the coal dust. Alot of men nowadays would quit after a few hours.Those were not ordinary men, much respect.
They were well paid and well respected. Until Oil fired boilers came around, a stoker strike meant ships won't sail. And operating on tight schedules and slim profit margins (the ship had to pay for it's construction and operation. Took 10-20 years for it to turn a profit), stokers could stop the world if they wanted. But it was a hard, short life. Breathing coal dust caused silicosis and being an industrial setting you were subjected to stuff falling from height occasionaly. A cloth mask and a helmet would eliminate these hazards completely. But we simply didn't know any better. And it probably was HOT. Being under the waterline though, maybe it was not as hot as we might think. They had plenty of ventilation by air bled through the furnace air intakes.
Yes i think you have summed that up very well, they would have worked their asses off, heat well you surrounded by boilers it is going to be HOT!! Similarly the fire men on steam loco,s summers day 25--30 deg C outside, 50++ inside the cab, driver wants MORE steam Big hill coming up, better get shoveling!
Not entirely, the builders of Titanic used hydraulic riveters and steel rivets on MOST of the hull, but in areas that were very curved, they had to install the rivets by hand, and that forced them to use wrought iron rivets instead of steel rivets.
A matter of interest only, and something many viewers probably know: The engine room scenes in James Cameron's Titanic were filmed in the engine room of the Jeremiah O'Brien, a WW2 liberty ship open to visitors at the San Francisco Maritime Museum. That ship has one engine, and it is smaller than the ones in the Titanic, but similar enough for the movie. The O'Brien is still seaworthy, and accepts paying passengers for short trips.
@@patsematary That is correct. Warships had priority on steam turbines, so the Liberty ship used obsolete expansion steam engines. But they were easy to build and very reliable.
The Jeremiah O'Brien steamed from San Francisco to Europe and back to celebrate the 50th anniversary of D-Day. There and back under her own power using the original equipment. And this after sitting in mothballs in Suisun Bay for over 30 years. Well built, well maintained. I wonder how long the Titanic could have lasted?
I am happy you got the engines right. Most people make the mistake and think that the titanic had "two reciprocating three-cylinder, triple-expansion steam engines", they were a common engine at the time. When in fact it had "two reciprocating FOUR-cylinder, triple-expansion steam engines" This was cause at the time there was no cylinder boring machine large enough to bore the low pressure cylinders diameter. So they used two cylinders the same size as the intermediate pressure for the low pressure stage, so they could build these bigger engines (30 000 horsepower, 22 000 kW). Making these engines four-cylinder, triple-expansion steam engines with the one centrally placed low-pressure Parsons turbine. This centrally placed low-pressure Parsons turbine is one of the reasons the owner wanted to go at full speed, even with "pack ice and iceberg warnings", if the two reciprocating engines were not run at full speed the low-pressure Parsons turbine could not be used. Dropping the efficiency of the ship a lot and increasing the amount of coal burnt for the whole trip, costing the owner more money in burnt coal as well as the ship might not arriving on time.
Wonderful! I am a American Ex-Navy and Merchant Marine engineer. I served on a few steam ships. The Raleigh LPD 1, the Denebola TAKR. They had Foster Wheeler boilers and Babcock & Wilcox boilers. Then various ships with Mann diesels, EMD 645 20 cylinder diesels, Sulzer six cylinders 121 rpm diesels. Love steam and this video!
1912 felt more like the future than 2020: not only the technology was incredible, but they did it in style and luxury. Now everything is plastic and meant to be as cheap as possible.
@@nstl440 That's true for many objects, there is still quality now but it is expensive, but I was thinking about how many things could be built with the purpose of not only being practical, but also beautiful. For example a street lamppost, there's a big difference between a decorated metallic one and a plastic one, yet they both work. The same goes for the houses. And what about modern luxury cars? The infotainment systems are very helpful, but in less than 15 years they will be outdated. The train could be one of most glamour means of transportation, but today they have bad interiors, and depending on the country they might be dirty and inefficient. We are losing that "WOW factor" past people wrote about, when they saw a huge ocean liner, a Zeppelin or a passenger plane going twice the sound of speed. And it is so hard to find everyday objects made from durable and ecological materials, even if you're not looking for luxury. Mine was not a rant about the nostalgia for a time I've never experienced, but a desire for a more humanistic world: not one built around the economy and the corporations, but around nature and our needs as humans, our duty as part of this planet, as we are animals and not machines.
@krvnjrcbs What do you mean? The Titanic was an engineering marvel, the best ship of the time. The incident had nothing to do with how the ship was built.
@krvnjrcbs Oh, you're one of "those" guys. I would like to remember you that the Titanic was insured for just a fraction of her value. There are many arguments disproving the "insurance fraud" theory, I suggest you look them up.
@@litamtondy calling someone one "those" people is very condescending of you. Get off your high horse and hear people's beliefs out for a change. Its not uncommon to want to doubt written events especially in a world where history is written by a dishonest few. You sir are a tarnish in human debate
I have to say as a licensed high pressure stationary steam operating engineer, every thing portrayed on this video is ENTIRELY accurate! Very nicely done. I really enjoyed that little insertion of the donkey steam engine employed to get the larger machine rotating. I am retired, but I sure miss operating large high pressure steam boilers and the associated machinery!
+heffo and juff I keep telling those pesky boiler operators the same thing my gramma told me: ''Don't you know that a watched pot doesn't boil?'' How can you tell a well seasoned steam operating engineer? His boots hit the desk before his ass hits the chair. Ain't it nice being retired?
+heffo and juff A gentleman I knew many years ago (he had to be in his 70's or older when he worked for my father) was a master toolmaker, who had 2 hobbies; history and building (working) model steam engines. Pretty much anything he did was a work of art, but his steam engines were amazing. I'm also a fan of steam locomotives, and right now I'm closely following Union Pacific's rebuilding of Big Boy 4014. If you've never seen a Big Boy it is hard to comprehend just how huge a locomotive it is - weighing around 250k pounds; I look forward to seeing it in operation in a couple years, first time in nearly 60 years that one will operate. Of course, I really like steam ships; my favorite is the SS United States, which if finally brought back to life soon will certainly lose its aircraft carrier based steam. This ship could do somewhere approaching 40 or so knots without all boilers lit off.
+Ron Troy The Old Town Railroad Museum in Sacramento, Ca has a HUGE Forward Cab Baldwin, No. 4294 that was operated by Southern Pacific. I have never seen a Big Boy close up but this Baldwin 4-8-8-2 is absolutely massive. I hope the SS United States will be saved by its new sponsor. The interior was gutted to remove asbestos. I worked for GE Marine Department and had some pretty big steam turbines and gearboxes apart on carriers, container ships, oil tankers, and subs and still have an interest in such propulsion. Every October I ride the SS Jeremiah O'Brien still operating liberty ship in San Francisco Bay. Its on UA-cam for those interested in watching the engine in operation.
Mr. Andrews was primarily responsible for designing the topside fittings - he was a high-ranking and important designer for Harland & Wolff, but he was not the person who designed the engines.
Reciprocating piston steam engines built for ships are the absolute best. Diesels, turbines,nuclear,electric are fine, but boring compared to marine steam piston engines. Kronprinzessin cecilie ship was said to actually have the largest built.
No computers, just paper pencil, and mathematics and the confidence to put it all together wow just wow.. I don't think we could ever grasp how much went into this the tolerances of the machinery, the machinery that built the machines. I often think of all the little pieces in between that is just mindblowing.
Simply amazing technology, engineering and skill even today! Given the machine tools available at that time I am nearly speechless at the enormous amount of imagination and hard work required to build such massive (and very heavy) structures. All I can say is people back then possessed a different work ethic and a desire to overcome seemingly impossible tasks. The men who built and stoked the massive engines earned my deepest respect. Many engineers remained at their posts even as the Titanic was about to founder. I wish I had their courage.
fuck yeah yer right! To me they are the most beautiful ships ever made. You seen the vid on the tube where they blow the Titanic's horns? And you seen the video on youtube "the Olympic arrives in new York 1934"?? check thses out!ua-cam.com/video/6r0u5hhcU0U/v-deo.html
I'd argue Lusitania's propulsion plant was more ahead of her time, largely thanks to turbines instead of triple expansion steam engines. The turbines Lusitania used were precisely what the Navy of WWI used for its capital ships. Now if you're talking about furnishings and luxuries, Titanic put them all to shame.
Lol. Right? It's soothing in some manner. If I wanted to I'd put on headphones and go to sleep to the sound of a steam engine or large diesel engine. Large engines make for some good music.
I’ve always admired the cleverness of the Harland & Wolfe engineers that came up with adding a low pressure turbine to run on exhaust from the triple expansion engines. Squeezing just a bit more work out of steam that was already at less than atmospheric pressure before running it through the condensers. (Which are themselves quite impressive, given that they were effective enough to draw a vacuum in the steam lines...
I suspect the 9 psi quoted as input pressure to the turbine is in fact gauge pressure, not absolute pressure. So that would be 9 psi *above* atmospheric pressure. :) Otherwise I struggle too to understand how one could maintain steam flow towards the turbine with a partial vacuum at the input when its outlet, at least on start up, would be at atmospheric pressure!
Ah, but the outlet from the turbine, and engines themselves when bypassing said turbine, isn’t to the atmosphere. The steam is routed to a set of large condensers that turns the steam back in to fresh water to be returned to the boilers. Keeping the whole boiler feed system a mostly closed loop instead of an open system. These condensers used seawater as coolant, and especially in the North Atlantic where it’s quite cold they were quite effective at drawing down a vacuum in the steam system.
That's simply incredible. The ability of a small 2 cylinder steam engine that I could build at home, through gearing, to be able to turn that massive fly wheel to start the mains is absolutely incredible.
+Matt Schuette I'm not sure that's actually a steam engine, it looks (and sounds) like it might be a petrol powered one. Lighter and more compact for moving by hand against the huge flywheel, for the same power, and no need to deal with setting up flexible pipes etc for it. Be quite easy to turn over and get going by hand, especially in a warm environment like that, and a heck of a lot safer to be around. Open crank etc because a lot of cars were still made like that, and when it's only going to run for mere minutes on a typical voyage, you can just hand-oil it. And it only needs a very small fuel tank as well. Not the greatest amount of torque of course, but that's been demonstrably compensated for by ultra-low gearing... which turns a lot of power at high speed into a lot of torque at low speed. Just a pity no-one had quite managed to crack making a really big one of the type a ship like the Titanic needed. Nowadays of course they're all diesels and need a team of maybe 5 or 10 guys to look after them at most despite developing a hell of a lot more power...
mspenrice Nah, its a steam engine, I seen a video of a replica of the Titanic's engines. It is a small steam engine that gets the larger ones moving. I'll find it and post it here
+Matt Schuette Fair enough then. Suppose when you have that much live steam knocking around you may as well use it. Just seen little auxiliary petrol engines used for getting other large machines moving before.
Using an army of 15,000 of skilled workers from all over Europe and beyond, but most of them were among my Irish ancestors. They worked night and day for nearly four years to build all three Olympic class ships.
Flying cars didn't arrive until 2045 as preference was given to the development of a clock work engine. With the spring being wound up by an exactly matched key. The exact matching of this key to each engine was to prevent unauthorised starting and theft. Once available power/weight ratios were sorted out the flying car was placed into production. One wind of the spring would give you enough energy to fly the car 100Kms. It could also be wound up whilst in flight giving it great versatility. And best of all no carbon foot print.
I've been wondering for years how the propellers were actually turned. I knew steam was the driving force, but I wanted to know what was actually turning the propellers. This video is a gem!!!! Thanks for the upload!!!!
This is one of the best videos of UA-cam , I've seen this multiple of times and always appreciate Mr.Andrews work simply a legend 💗 , the engine sound is horrifying yet beautiful , it's a horrifying melancholy hitting you with the reminisce of that tragic incident 😥 , R I P all of those souls that met death that fateful day
Outstanding explanation. I am truely amazed. Without any of the tools we have these days, these guys must be extraordinarily intelligent, dedicated and diligent to create such a masterpiece of a ship. How greatly would all the engineers today fail, receiving such a hughe task. An how well must alle these people be managed and coordinated to put all this together. No one today could imagine the necessary means. Thank you for this!
I stumbled across this video and was fascinated. I watched it 3 times. It's a very clear depiction but after the mechanics are understood one starts to think about life in the black gang or how they engineered and build this stuff in 1909. Amazing work. Adding the photographs was a great touch.
The britannics engines although of the same size and dimensions used piston valves on all cylinders instead of slide valves as used on the titanic and Olympic and developed 16,000hp at 77rpm as opposed to 15,000hp at 75rpm and are the largest and most powerful steam reciprocating engines ever constructed.
Note that, in 1911, Olympic's chief engineer stated her engines had developed 59,000 horsepower at maximum revolutions. Britannic would be capable of even more. A 1940s report of H&W's tonnage completed in 1914 put it at 60,000 horsepower.
I suspect they need to qualify their statement and refer to both triple expansion (as opposed to quadruple expansion) reciprocating engines and for marine, rather than on shore, use. In the case of either Olympic or Britannic's reciprocating engines, they could work well over 80 rpm and develop more power than quoted here. Your mention of rolling mill engines reminded me of a quote. "I do not think many people who have not been there, realise the enormous power that there is got from the steam pressure in these engines; they move comparatively slowly even when at full power, and the power behind them is, I think I am correct in stating, larger than the power behind the biggest rolling mills in the world. That is, the biggest mills that are used anywhere for the rolling of steel plates, as distinct from the forging of armour plates," - Harland & Wolff ’s Edward Wilding, spring 1912. I don't know of any specific examples or whether they used quadruple expansion engines in rolling mills for steel plating?
It's amazing to see such ingenuity from so long ago. Amazingly we still use the same techniques of warming up water to drive turbines for almost all out power sources. This was the start of a great era in engineering.
@@123Chevyman I already know the location of the electric engine room. It was was just aft of the turbine engine room, and contained four dynamos which I think were piston style engines, but not 100% on that. What I meant by "how they fit into the plan" is that I'd like to know how they fit into the steam pipe network specifically, and also the interior workings of how the engines themselves functioned
No they werent towards the front. That was the reason why the Titanic did have electricity up until the very end The Dynamos were dry in because the aft flooded last
@@Rudeljaeger yeah, the electric engine room was far aft on tank top level, just aft of the turbine engine. And then also there were the back up dynamos about 2/3 or so aft on D-deck, around about where the ship split. It's not likely that either saw much flooding before the break up, and the break up probably crushed both rooms anyway, so flooding was the least of their worries at that point
Big Titanic enthusiast have been for over 65 years and this video is just awesome absolutely fantastic,very well DONE.The sound of the engines give's you an idea of what it must have been like working with the noise, the heat, and the dust, and of cause the sweat.Brilliant thanks for sharing.
Imagine if the Olympic’s engines hadn’t been scrapped. They would have been the largest triple expansion steam engines ever existed. Larger than the Kempton engine.
I love this!! I love the sound of those engines too. I understand that they are building a replica of the Titanic, but they're going to have a modern day propulsion system. I think that they should still have the same propulsion plant, however, the original style Harland And Wolf boilers should be modified to be fired wth natural gas instead of coal. Tanks for the natural gas would be in place of the coal bunkers. I have been a big time Titanic buff since Jame's Cameron's movie came out. I have adopted the terms "Port" and "Starboard" to refer to my left and right, and use those terms universally for everything. Last year, I had a knee replacement, and it was the starboard knee. I work as a dishwasher in a retirement home, and the kitchen that I work in, I like to refer to it as the "galley".
Actually, that's a "barring engine". For smaller engines, to put the engine in starting position (high pressure piston just past Top Dead Center) an engineer would have used a crowbar to adjust it. Also, before the engine was started, it was necessary to make sure no water had condensed in the cylinders, which would severely damage the engine. So, the engineer would "bar it over" one full revolution. When engines became too large for this, the barring engine was added.
Mark Stockman that's awesome thank you for the extra information, hydraulicing is never a good thing and I didn't think about that being an issue but it makes complete sense! I have a Cat conrod that is bent into an S shape because an injector leaked causing the cylinder to flood.
Only non-reversable engines had a small ("barring") engine, it was to bring the pistons to the correct positon for starting. Reversable engines did not need it, they could start in any position.
So much detail and planning and thinking and backbone was put into making these magnificent ships. I loved listening to the sounds of the engine as if it were a large set of heart and lungs beating and breathing.
It's amazing to imagine that there still may be small cavities somewhere inside the engines, maybe in holes where bolts went in or inside the piston cylinders perhaps where the sea water still has not gotten to since it sank. Still preserved surfaces of this machine. Also incredible to imagine just how much space of the ship was taken up by the engines and boilers.
It seems insane to think about how you could design something like this without CAD and calculators. But then an old engineer told me that it really is easier than most people think. Why? Because where nowadays you have one or few engineers assigned to do a thing, they had whole hundreds of engineers, armies of technical drawers, lots of people doing calculations and paperwork. There was so much more collective brain power to solve problems.
Thank you very much for such a fantastic job in showing the engines of the Titanic. I was stationed on the USS Kitty Hawk which weighed about 85,000 tons, a bit bigger than the Titanic, except we didn't sink. Only once did I get to go into the engine room. It was fantastic to see the four prop shafts turning and even being able to touch them as they turned. It was fantastic, but after looking at your video, it wasn't anything like the Titanic. With all of the stokers working and the coal dust and noise, the Titanic was not fantastic, but insane, but really fantastic too, especially for those days. Thanks again for such a great video. C. Jeff Dyrek, Webmaster, Disabled Vet. Polar Explorer.
different boiler setup on the Kitty Hawk because Titanic was coal and Kitty Hawk was diesel fired boilers. Either way I wish I had the experience you did. I never made into the fire room on USS Guam to see the engineering plant.
From what I understand the 3 White Star Ships built at that time we’re very conventional in design . The Cunard ship were at the cutting edge of technology at the time not only being faster but using state of the art propulsion systems based around Steam Turbines.
All coal-fired steamers of the era are black because of this. Check it out for yourself. Pretty much all of them. Coal is a dirty, and streaks. It also causes ash. Watch videos of the Britannic in hospital configuration. It's paint scheme will give away just how dirty these vessels got from the coal. Crew would spend a better part of a week just cleaning them between trips.
I think I saw that one. It also said that it could take up to 24 hours to reload the ship with coal; it was a very complex, dangerous, dirty, labor-intensive process; and you couldn't do much of anything else while coaling. No wonder oil caught on quickly even though it was considerably more expensive.
@@williamwingo4740 It was more expensive, but the energy density of fuel oil is much better than coal. That was why Olympic was converted to use fuel oil, which doubled her range because the coal bunkers were turned into fuel tanks. Fuel oil has twice the energy density of coal, so instead of burning over 600 tons of coal a day, Britannic burned about 250 to 300 tons of fuel oil a day.
Great explanation, explained a lot that I have never understood before, makes a lot more sense to me now when I see a layout drawing. Thank you for sharing, very much appreciated.
This video reinforces my belief that Titanic's reciprocating engines did not reverse in advance of the allision with the iceberg, as depicted in the Cameron film. They would be incapable of starting in reverse until the weigh came off the ship as the flow of the sea through the screws would keep them turning and create a large opposing torque against reverse movement.
its a Hollywood film. Great film, I seen it twice. You have to realize that nobody really knows what happened on the bridge as the entire bridge crew did not survive that night. It is assumed and often suggested that the officer on the bridge ordered all back full and hard left rudder. YES I SAID LEFT. WE DON'T SAY PORT AND STARBOARD with rudder orders. Certified Master Helmsman US NAVY. Although military, the orders are the same in the civilian world as well. It is to avoid confusion because Engine orders on a multiple shaft ship are port and starboard. The problem with that even if the engines went to reverse is that it would have been more like a twist than a turn. It isn't so much about torque as it is momentum. GRAVITY. first law of motion states that an object in motion stays in motion until acted upon by an equal an opposite reaction force. That means the force opposite has to be equal to make them go in reverse. the engines on a steam ship don't just reverse. Someone has to turn a valve and reverse the steam flow. Train engine and ship engine both work in the same basic idea that a valve has to force steam flowing the opposite way. This is one of the reasons steam is so inefficient.
@@robertbenoit5374 The orders from the bridge or the telegraph indication has no bearing on whether the screws reversed, it defies the laws of physics if they did. This is because: a) As long as the ship makes headway, the screws will continue to turn forward unless sufficient opposing torque is applied to halt them, much like the wheels on a motor vehicle b) There was no brake on the propeller shafts to provide this torque c) The reciprocating engines were not self-starting, they had to be turned with a starting engine to a certain position to start d) On the first half-revolution, only the high-pressure cylinder acts, so the torque is low. On the next half-turn, the intermediate cylinder begins to act, less the losses due to "cold" cylinders at the start. Then the low-pressure cylinders after one full turn, after even more losses. So, the reciprocating engines could not be rapidly brought to a halt in the right position for reverse starting and would be incapable of immediately producing the torque necessary for reverse rotation. And of course, the turbine had no reverse capability.
@@robertbenoit5374 The orders from the bridge or the telegraph indication has no bearing on whether the screws reversed, it defies the laws of physics if they did. This is because: a) As long as the ship makes headway, the screws will turn forward unless sufficient opposing torque is applied to halt them, much like the wheels on a car continue turning unless enough torque is applied to make them slip (or cavitate) b) There was no brake on the propeller shafts to provide this torque and the reciprocating engines were permanently connected to the screws c) The reciprocating engines were not self-starting, they had to be turned with a starting engine to a certain position to start d) On the first half-revolution, only the high-pressure cylinder acts, so the torque is low. On the next half-turn, the intermediate cylinder begins to act, less the losses due to cooling/condensation. Then the low-pressure cylinders after one full turn, after even more losses. So, the reciprocating engines could not be rapidly brought to the right position for reverse starting and could not immediately produce the torque necessary for reverse rotation. And of course, the turbine had no reverse capability.
Fun fact about the movie’s engine scenes: those were the engines of a different ship, the Jeremiah O’Brien. The engines were mirrored and scaled up to size, which is why they appear HUGE in the film. However, in reality, the engine is about the size of your standard human.
It really is AWE INSPIRING TO LOOK AT!!!!!! Even today in 2021 110 years later, it still looks highly technical & futuristic. It must have been out of this world in it's prime. . .
Very good animation. The Titanic was a ship ahead of her time. The tragedy could have been avoided if.... navigation technology had been equal to the powerplant technology.
+davida1hiwaaynet Also if "decision making technology" had realised the limitions of the navigation technology of the day, this tragedy could have been avoided.
+davida1hiwaaynet if they hadn't reversed the engines when the iceberg was spotted she would have made it. You cant steer a ship of that size with little propulsion going past the rudder.
Zachary Lagler Yes, very true. Reversing the centre propeller made the already-too-small rudder ineffective. Amazing (with the luxury of hindsight) that this design was operational.
@ annanoli: 5:25 you can see how the engine is started. In that time the electric engines didn't have enough power, so they used a small steam engine, as shown. It is not only to bring them into a special position for maintenance, as you think, it is the spinning once to start the big engine.
The condesers did a bit more than simply condense the steam into water because in doing so the pressure was reduced to signifcantly below atmospheric pressure. This meant the centre turbine had a larger diffential pressure accross it than just the 9 psi of the LP cylinder exhaust. As a result the turbine generated significant power once steady state running was achieved. The combined engines were in effect running in a quadruple expansion mode. For its time the Titanic was quite effcient.
I'm curious how efficient steam engines were back then. How much of the energy was wasted out the exhaust stack? An internal combustion engine only uses about 20% of it's fuels energy, the rest is wasted as heat going out the tail pipe or radiator.
@@johneckert1365 It all to do with the temperature and pressures involved. A boiler has a limited pressure and temperature it can withstand. Internal combustion can reach much high pressures and temperatures but of course it is a cyclic process whereas a steam turbine is a continuous cycle. The higher temperature and pressure of internal combustion may give it a better heat efficiency than a steam plant but the products of its combustion are more toxic to the planet.
For non engineers: At the time steam turbines were already in use and replacing the reciprocating engines, but on the Titanic it was decided to use 2 traditional reciprocating main engines because they had been proven in service and well understood by engineers. In effect Titanic's complete propulsion system was an early hybrid as it incorporated one small low pressure steam turbine, along with the reciprocating main engines, to drive the smaller central propeller as shown in the animation. The small steam turbine could not be reversed so it would be disabled when the ship was moving astern
Further note: The first geared turbines were developed in 1911, well after Titanic had been designed. By 1917, all new naval construction used geared turbines. Titanic's turbine being fed by waste gas from the main engines was an energy recovery method; the turbine was the last stage before the spent steam reached the condensers for reuse as feedwater.
This is amazing! We are so use to thinking about the romance of Jack and Rose and we forget about Titanic as a WHOLE.Mr.Andrews still surprises us 108 years later.What a genius.❤️❤️❤️
Not me. Jack and Rose are just an invention to sell movie tickets. The fascination of Titanic has always been in the real people who built, sailed and died.
Very , very cool . From an engineering standpoint , they were just massive . I lament all the work that went into that ship only to have it and the loss of life on it's maiden voyage .
I always think of that. All that iron, all the carved Mahogany, crystal, stained glass, and bronze. Jewels and fine clothing, artwork. All at the bottom of the ocean.
Thanks for this video - have always wondered how these HUGE engines propelled the ship (i.e where the coal goes in, exhaust, reciprocation, etc, etc). thank you again !
I agree about the spelling. It was an excellent video but I was distracted by all the spelling errors throughout. I understand spelling is not everyone’s strength but that’s the reason we have spellcheck. Lol Loved the audio, however, as it was very calming to me.
Nothing short of AMAZING, Brilliantly displayed,Steam Engineering in those days was particularly advanced,only Brains and a bamboo slide rule was used, no Computers and little similar machines to copy, it says a lot for the world of Engineering.An excellent production thank you.
Very, very impressive animation of the Titanic's engine layout, with all the stages of steam this ship had to produce from the boilers to the different steam engine cylinders to compensate for the differing psi's of the steam for pressure and temperatures. The amount of coal use was staggering to imagine how 159 men had to shovel this huge amount of coal into the boiler's fire boxes is exhausting just to imagine the labor involved. Cannot think how much just this team of laborers were paid on a daily basis. Also, how did Harland and Wolf work out the fares for the differing classes of passengers that traveled on this immense boat in 1912 just to make a profit? People had to eat, drink, and use their respective bathrooms, how did Titanic arrange the human waste? Did Titanic use waste tanks or just jettison the wastes into the ocean?
Les mécanismes étaient une telle complexité incroyable! Je suis très impressionné par la précision sans ordinateur ou calculette à l'époque! Merci pour le partage passionnant! Un abonné de France.
steam, under pressure, is immensely powerful. this just demonstrates the fact. although the usage of coal is so environmentally unfriendly nowadays, it was all they had back then. but wow, that must have been some boiler room. its bleddy obvious that one must have been only able to appreciate the true scale of it if they were to actually be in the place and soak up the vastness of it all. what an engineering masterpiece. lost forever. shame.
TheSmileyFacedPizza the usa is one of the biggest polluters on this planet, consuming 25% of the planets energy sources. such a selfish, wasteful nation. shame on the usa.
+DAVID Marshall possibly because they respond alone for a third of world's economy. If a tiny little country was responsible for these numbers I could say "shame on it!" but that's not the case.
+TheSmileyFacedPizza We still have an abundant supply of coal left in the US (close to 1000 years) as opposed to crude oil and natural gas. There is some research on how to make coal burning cleaner. It's dirty, but it might be our only power source in the future (renewable energy still forms a tiny fraction of our energy usage).
The Titanic at 22 knots was about as fast as reciprocating-engined ships got. The Royal Navy had some 23 knot armored cruisers that used recips but everything else that was faster used only turbines.
Excellent presentation and explanation! Also enjoy the replication of the sounds of the different parts of the engine complex. Thanks for putting this up.
The level of engineering is astounding, no CAD in those days, not even a calculator, all this was done with brain power and put down on paper. Just mind blowing.
Yes, that was really very clever!
Not that it got them far
Did they not have sliderules for calculations? Did they not have "computers" of the two-legged variety?
The technology was not that new then, they had had steam engines for over 100 years, so they knew what they were working with.
The turbine is what I found great. The machining and fluid dynamics involved in the turbine is amazing for the time. It's very similar to a modern day jet engine. The stationary blades directing airflow into the moving blades is brutally simple but getting your head around it back then and making it was anything but. "Theoretically" they were mostly into the jet age with the turbine alone.
Can we mention how much of a legend the guy who created this video is, being that 6 years down the road, he is still liking and replying to comments. Props to you brother.
I can tell you that this man enjoys showing a product that others are also interested in.
@@Hoeishetmogelijkgreatness - helping me recover from surgery. Many thanks
All those hours of craftsmanship that would last for decades, literally brand new, to be sent to the bottom 2 1/2 miles down in total darkness forever.
Shit happens y’know?
@@Boxscot49 haha
It would have been a brutal collision, but would have been better if she hit the iceberg head on. Maybe she splits the berg in half. Who knows.
@@rbarger71 maybe they should try it again
@@rbarger71 Don't think she would have split the berg but it has been proven that she would have been much better off to hit it head on. The first and maybe the second compartment would have flooded but not enough to sink her.
Working down there must've been like hell. Crazy to see the transition from a heaven-like luxurious place on the upper decks, and having a living hell just a few decks below all the fun and laughter.
good film on that subject: Saving the Titanic. An Irish German production. 2015. On Prime
Man all that engineering, all that work, all the iron and materials used, all brand new and sitting at the bottom of the sea rotting away. Beyond incredible.
Exactly 💯 💯, so sad and terrible that beautiful brand new ship was only 3 days old after being built for 3 years and then sinks and everything is underwater to waist away😔
brand new might be a strech now, but yes.
@@jasonyoung297it was not 3 days old bro lol
This is probably the first UA-cam video I have watched in which the comments section wasnt blown up by idiots and trolls, and likewise filled with nothing but knowledgeable people explaining things further. 100+ years after her demise, and she still brings us together.
+Raptor05121
That's why I am happy with it!!
Amen Brother.
Raptor05121 my best guess is that trolls would have a hard time stumbling across this lol
Well screw you too!
No shit, Sherlock
110 years passed, Titanic and its related any topic which is informative still attracts me. Something always tickles in my heart, like the sad event shouldn't have taken place. At the last of the video, the oops with bubbling water fillings sounds which indicates the tragic fate that all of the hard work gone underwater, to the bottom of ocean.
Poor 1500 souls, rest in peace!!
Those stokers had no eye or ear protection, no hard hats. They probably got treated like shit, constantly getting yelled at. And, god only knows how hot it was in those boiler rooms along with all the coal dust. Alot of men nowadays would quit after a few hours.Those were not ordinary men, much respect.
I agree with You. Respect and the safety of the workers has progressed a lot since then. Regards.
They were well paid and well respected. Until Oil fired boilers came around, a stoker strike meant ships won't sail. And operating on tight schedules and slim profit margins (the ship had to pay for it's construction and operation. Took 10-20 years for it to turn a profit), stokers could stop the world if they wanted.
But it was a hard, short life. Breathing coal dust caused silicosis and being an industrial setting you were subjected to stuff falling from height occasionaly.
A cloth mask and a helmet would eliminate these hazards completely. But we simply didn't know any better.
And it probably was HOT. Being under the waterline though, maybe it was not as hot as we might think. They had plenty of ventilation by air bled through the furnace air intakes.
Yes i think you have summed that up very well, they would have worked their asses off, heat well you surrounded by boilers it is going to be HOT!! Similarly the fire men on steam loco,s summers day 25--30 deg C outside, 50++ inside the cab, driver wants MORE steam Big hill coming up, better get shoveling!
life is all about choices
My dad was a stoker in 1930s and spent 50 years at sea, even in his 70s he was someone you wouldn’t mess with, those men were a different breed
150 men shoveled 600 tons of coal a day by hand, unbelievable. That's 4 tons per man.
Inside a hull riveted by hand. Different times..
@@pelnapkins4379 and it was hot hot hot!
Hot environment + physically demanding labour = HOT.
ThatGuy Ollie And didn't complain while doing it. No excuse, just produce.
Not entirely, the builders of Titanic used hydraulic riveters and steel rivets on MOST of the hull, but in areas that were very curved, they had to install the rivets by hand, and that forced them to use wrought iron rivets instead of steel rivets.
Not that hard, I have shoveled over a ton of sand in less than an hour, several times. At 63 yrs old, just part of the job.
A matter of interest only, and something many viewers probably know: The engine room scenes in James Cameron's Titanic were filmed in the engine room of the Jeremiah O'Brien, a WW2 liberty ship open to visitors at the San Francisco Maritime Museum. That ship has one engine, and it is smaller than the ones in the Titanic, but similar enough for the movie. The O'Brien is still seaworthy, and accepts paying passengers for short trips.
And other scenes were shot at Kempton Park and the whole thing stitched together digitally.
Fun fact the Liberty ship series was cylinders engineered , not steam turbine
@@patsematary That is correct. Warships had priority on steam turbines, so the Liberty ship used obsolete expansion steam engines. But they were easy to build and very reliable.
The Jeremiah O'Brien steamed from San Francisco to Europe and back to celebrate the 50th anniversary of D-Day. There and back under her own power using the original equipment. And this after sitting in mothballs in Suisun Bay for over 30 years. Well built, well maintained. I wonder how long the Titanic could have lasted?
Why didn't the Titanic have mechanical stokers?
I am happy you got the engines right. Most people make the mistake and think that the titanic had "two reciprocating three-cylinder, triple-expansion steam engines", they were a common engine at the time. When in fact it had "two reciprocating FOUR-cylinder, triple-expansion steam engines" This was cause at the time there was no cylinder boring machine large enough to bore the low pressure cylinders diameter. So they used two cylinders the same size as the intermediate pressure for the low pressure stage, so they could build these bigger engines (30 000 horsepower, 22 000 kW). Making these engines four-cylinder, triple-expansion steam engines with the one centrally placed low-pressure Parsons turbine. This centrally placed low-pressure Parsons turbine is one of the reasons the owner wanted to go at full speed, even with "pack ice and iceberg warnings", if the two reciprocating engines were not run at full speed the low-pressure Parsons turbine could not be used. Dropping the efficiency of the ship a lot and increasing the amount of coal burnt for the whole trip, costing the owner more money in burnt coal as well as the ship might not arriving on time.
Very interesting story. Many thanks for that.
Would the stopped centre propeller have freewheeled in the flow, turning the turbine with it?
And boy, could those engines keep a beat. So satisfying to listen to.
Wonderful! I am a American Ex-Navy and Merchant Marine engineer. I served on a few steam ships. The Raleigh LPD 1, the Denebola TAKR. They had Foster Wheeler boilers and Babcock & Wilcox boilers. Then various ships with Mann diesels, EMD 645 20 cylinder diesels, Sulzer six cylinders 121 rpm diesels. Love steam and this video!
My grandfather was an instrument engineer for FW in glasgow
USS Epping Forest MCS7 Skinner Uniflow recip steam engines
1912 felt more like the future than 2020: not only the technology was incredible, but they did it in style and luxury.
Now everything is plastic and meant to be as cheap as possible.
There's enough quality now. But normal people can't afford it. Just like back then
@@nstl440 That's true for many objects, there is still quality now but it is expensive, but I was thinking about how many things could be built with the purpose of not only being practical, but also beautiful. For example a street lamppost, there's a big difference between a decorated metallic one and a plastic one, yet they both work. The same goes for the houses. And what about modern luxury cars? The infotainment systems are very helpful, but in less than 15 years they will be outdated. The train could be one of most glamour means of transportation, but today they have bad interiors, and depending on the country they might be dirty and inefficient. We are losing that "WOW factor" past people wrote about, when they saw a huge ocean liner, a Zeppelin or a passenger plane going twice the sound of speed. And it is so hard to find everyday objects made from durable and ecological materials, even if you're not looking for luxury.
Mine was not a rant about the nostalgia for a time I've never experienced, but a desire for a more humanistic world: not one built around the economy and the corporations, but around nature and our needs as humans, our duty as part of this planet, as we are animals and not machines.
@krvnjrcbs What do you mean? The Titanic was an engineering marvel, the best ship of the time.
The incident had nothing to do with how the ship was built.
@krvnjrcbs Oh, you're one of "those" guys.
I would like to remember you that the Titanic was insured for just a fraction of her value. There are many arguments disproving the "insurance fraud" theory, I suggest you look them up.
@@litamtondy calling someone one "those" people is very condescending of you. Get off your high horse and hear people's beliefs out for a change. Its not uncommon to want to doubt written events especially in a world where history is written by a dishonest few.
You sir are a tarnish in human debate
I have to say as a licensed high pressure stationary steam operating engineer, every thing portrayed on this video is ENTIRELY accurate! Very nicely done. I really enjoyed that little insertion of the donkey steam engine employed to get the larger machine rotating. I am retired, but I sure miss operating large high pressure steam boilers and the associated machinery!
+heffo and juff one point only it were not triples, but quadruples ..(temds???).for as far as y know
+MrBugsier5 You know what, I think you are correct. I know the engines ran on super heated steam.
+heffo and juff
I keep telling those pesky boiler operators the same thing my gramma told me: ''Don't you know that a watched pot doesn't boil?'' How can you tell a well seasoned steam operating engineer? His boots hit the desk before his ass hits the chair.
Ain't it nice being retired?
+heffo and juff A gentleman I knew many years ago (he had to be in his 70's or older when he worked for my father) was a master toolmaker, who had 2 hobbies; history and building (working) model steam engines. Pretty much anything he did was a work of art, but his steam engines were amazing. I'm also a fan of steam locomotives, and right now I'm closely following Union Pacific's rebuilding of Big Boy 4014. If you've never seen a Big Boy it is hard to comprehend just how huge a locomotive it is - weighing around 250k pounds; I look forward to seeing it in operation in a couple years, first time in nearly 60 years that one will operate. Of course, I really like steam ships; my favorite is the SS United States, which if finally brought back to life soon will certainly lose its aircraft carrier based steam. This ship could do somewhere approaching 40 or so knots without all boilers lit off.
+Ron Troy
The Old Town Railroad Museum in Sacramento, Ca has a HUGE Forward Cab Baldwin, No. 4294 that was operated by Southern Pacific. I have never seen a Big Boy close up but this Baldwin 4-8-8-2
is absolutely massive.
I hope the SS United States will be saved by its new sponsor. The interior was gutted to remove asbestos. I worked for GE Marine Department and had some pretty big steam turbines and gearboxes apart on carriers, container ships, oil tankers, and subs and still have an interest in such propulsion. Every October I ride the SS Jeremiah O'Brien still operating liberty ship in San Francisco Bay. Its on UA-cam for those interested in watching the engine in operation.
Mr Andrews craftsmanship as a ship builder, more than a hundred years to admire his work.
Too bad he ended up as fishfood
@@MrSvenovitch do you have absolutely no respect??
@@clf8965 Lol what? Where was he disrespectful? All he did is say the truth 😂
Mr. Andrews was primarily responsible for designing the topside fittings - he was a high-ranking and important designer for Harland & Wolff, but he was not the person who designed the engines.
Is it only me or are steam engines odly satisfying
MechaGaming not just you. They are satisfying. They sound like music to me. Large engines are some of the best music devices to me.
Like the beat of a mother's heart, heard from the womb.
No its not just you, they are almost like big animals in a way, as if they had a heartbeat and muscles! Sounds silly and maybe its just a male thing?
Reciprocating piston steam engines built for ships are the absolute best. Diesels, turbines,nuclear,electric are fine, but boring compared to marine steam piston engines. Kronprinzessin cecilie ship was said to actually have the largest built.
No it's not just you. Live steam speaks to me, reminding me of a by gone time. A time when men were real men and worked with their hands.
No computers, just paper pencil, and mathematics and the confidence to put it all together wow just wow.. I don't think we could ever grasp how much went into this the tolerances of the machinery, the machinery that built the machines. I often think of all the little pieces in between that is just mindblowing.
Simply amazing technology, engineering and skill even today! Given the machine tools available at that time I am nearly speechless at the enormous amount of imagination and hard work required to build such massive (and very heavy) structures. All I can say is people back then possessed a different work ethic and a desire to overcome seemingly impossible tasks. The men who built and stoked the massive engines earned my deepest respect. Many engineers remained at their posts even as the Titanic was about to founder. I wish I had their courage.
The more I research and learn about the Titanic, the more I am amazed at the scale of engineering and efficiency of her workings
I almost fell asleep listing to the engine sound, so soothing
it says Donald Trump, Donald Trump
Blue Star Industrial Arts 💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀
The original listeners drowned
it gave me a headache.
I wrote a song inspired by it. musescore.com/user/27997005/scores/5962779
The whole Olympic Class is a marvel of engineering
Jump N´ Run sad that 2 sank and the last was scraped
@@justanotherasian4395 iceberg... Submarine bombing... And scrapping. Nothing to do eith their enginuity
Laquinton Wagner never said it had anything to do with that. I just said it’s sad we lost marvels of engineering.
fuck yeah yer right! To me they are the most beautiful ships ever made. You seen the vid on the tube where they blow the Titanic's horns? And you seen the video on youtube "the Olympic arrives in new York 1934"?? check thses out!ua-cam.com/video/6r0u5hhcU0U/v-deo.html
I'd argue Lusitania's propulsion plant was more ahead of her time, largely thanks to turbines instead of triple expansion steam engines. The turbines Lusitania used were precisely what the Navy of WWI used for its capital ships.
Now if you're talking about furnishings and luxuries, Titanic put them all to shame.
The engines play a catchy tune
Lol. Right? It's soothing in some manner. If I wanted to I'd put on headphones and go to sleep to the sound of a steam engine or large diesel engine. Large engines make for some good music.
Boonk dookah shhhn (dookah)
It Does
Jon Mcalexander 😷
Cash-to-the-mere Cash-to-the-mere lol my comment was 2 years ago
I’ve always admired the cleverness of the Harland & Wolfe engineers that came up with adding a low pressure turbine to run on exhaust from the triple expansion engines. Squeezing just a bit more work out of steam that was already at less than atmospheric pressure before running it through the condensers. (Which are themselves quite impressive, given that they were effective enough to draw a vacuum in the steam lines...
I suspect the 9 psi quoted as input pressure to the turbine is in fact gauge pressure, not absolute pressure. So that would be 9 psi *above* atmospheric pressure. :) Otherwise I struggle too to understand how one could maintain steam flow towards the turbine with a partial vacuum at the input when its outlet, at least on start up, would be at atmospheric pressure!
Ah, but the outlet from the turbine, and engines themselves when bypassing said turbine, isn’t to the atmosphere. The steam is routed to a set of large condensers that turns the steam back in to fresh water to be returned to the boilers. Keeping the whole boiler feed system a mostly closed loop instead of an open system. These condensers used seawater as coolant, and especially in the North Atlantic where it’s quite cold they were quite effective at drawing down a vacuum in the steam system.
That's simply incredible. The ability of a small 2 cylinder steam engine that I could build at home, through gearing, to be able to turn that massive fly wheel to start the mains is absolutely incredible.
+Matt Schuette Not to start it but to warm it evenly and eventually blow the condensed water out of the cylinders. Steam engines are self starting.
+jibemorel oh and for lubrification purposes to.
+Matt Schuette I'm not sure that's actually a steam engine, it looks (and sounds) like it might be a petrol powered one. Lighter and more compact for moving by hand against the huge flywheel, for the same power, and no need to deal with setting up flexible pipes etc for it. Be quite easy to turn over and get going by hand, especially in a warm environment like that, and a heck of a lot safer to be around.
Open crank etc because a lot of cars were still made like that, and when it's only going to run for mere minutes on a typical voyage, you can just hand-oil it. And it only needs a very small fuel tank as well.
Not the greatest amount of torque of course, but that's been demonstrably compensated for by ultra-low gearing... which turns a lot of power at high speed into a lot of torque at low speed. Just a pity no-one had quite managed to crack making a really big one of the type a ship like the Titanic needed. Nowadays of course they're all diesels and need a team of maybe 5 or 10 guys to look after them at most despite developing a hell of a lot more power...
mspenrice Nah, its a steam engine, I seen a video of a replica of the Titanic's engines. It is a small steam engine that gets the larger ones moving. I'll find it and post it here
+Matt Schuette Fair enough then. Suppose when you have that much live steam knocking around you may as well use it. Just seen little auxiliary petrol engines used for getting other large machines moving before.
Marine Engineer here. Really appreciated this, good job :-)
it was year 1912, and they have capable of produced such amazing feats of engineering.
The ancient Greeks were capable of making mechanical computers.
Using an army of 15,000 of skilled workers from all over Europe and beyond, but most of them were among my Irish ancestors. They worked night and day for nearly four years to build all three Olympic class ships.
Please subscribe to my channel.
1912 was just seven years from the first non-stop Atlantic flight, the end of the liner era was almost imaginable.
@@piotrmalewski8178 greeks who?
A reminder. The Olympic, the eldest sister ship to Titanic and Britanic, kept active for 20+ years until was finally decomissioned and scrapped.
Not to mention survived multiple collisions and rammed a German U-boat! I absolutely adore the Olympic
All this engineering, technology and effort and they ran into a iceberg - amazing.
1980: by 2020 there will be flying cars
2020: me dancing in the living room to Titanic steam engine sound
Flying cars didn't arrive until 2045 as preference was given to the development of a clock work engine. With the spring being wound up by an exactly matched key. The exact matching of this key to each engine was to prevent unauthorised starting and theft. Once available power/weight ratios were sorted out the flying car was placed into production. One wind of the spring would give you enough energy to fly the car 100Kms. It could also be wound up whilst in flight giving it great versatility. And best of all no carbon foot print.
@@Becu1001a bro _what_
@@Becu1001a Are you ok?
@@Becu1001a _come again?_
I've been wondering for years how the propellers were actually turned. I knew steam was the driving force, but I wanted to know what was actually turning the propellers. This video is a gem!!!! Thanks for the upload!!!!
I really liked to only the steam engine noise... No stressing music....
That is true music to us
I was bobbing my head to this all time. nice music, yes
Oh some of that “music” they put over videos is horrid. I usually end up muting it.
That repeated sound got annoying fast.
Juna True, it should have been at least a minute or two sample rather than a small snippet that was repeated indefinitely.
This is one of the best videos of UA-cam , I've seen this multiple of times and always appreciate Mr.Andrews work simply a legend 💗 , the engine sound is horrifying yet beautiful , it's a horrifying melancholy hitting you with the reminisce of that tragic incident 😥 , R I P all of those souls that met death that fateful day
Outstanding explanation. I am truely amazed. Without any of the tools we have these days, these guys must be extraordinarily intelligent, dedicated and diligent to create such a masterpiece of a ship. How greatly would all the engineers today fail, receiving such a hughe task. An how well must alle these people be managed and coordinated to put all this together. No one today could imagine the necessary means. Thank you for this!
I love how everyone finds the steam engines satisfying and I'm here being overwhelmed by these massive machines...
I stumbled across this video and was fascinated. I watched it 3 times. It's a very clear depiction but after the mechanics are understood one starts to think about life in the black gang or how they engineered and build this stuff in 1909. Amazing work. Adding the photographs was a great touch.
The britannics engines although of the same size and dimensions used piston valves on all cylinders instead of slide valves as used on the titanic and Olympic and developed 16,000hp at 77rpm as opposed to 15,000hp at 75rpm and are the largest and most powerful steam reciprocating engines ever constructed.
16,000 hp per pair? or EACH? if the later, holy crap....
46,000hp for the titanic, a few thousand hp more for britannic.
Note that, in 1911, Olympic's chief engineer stated her engines had developed 59,000 horsepower at maximum revolutions. Britannic would be capable of even more. A 1940s report of H&W's tonnage completed in 1914 put it at 60,000 horsepower.
I suspect they need to qualify their statement and refer to both triple expansion (as opposed to quadruple expansion) reciprocating engines and for marine, rather than on shore, use.
In the case of either Olympic or Britannic's reciprocating engines, they could work well over 80 rpm and develop more power than quoted here.
Your mention of rolling mill engines reminded me of a quote.
"I
do not think many people who have not been there, realise the enormous
power that there is got from the steam pressure in these engines; they move
comparatively slowly even when at full power, and the power behind them is, I think I am correct in stating, larger than the power behind the biggest
rolling mills in the world. That is, the biggest mills that are used anywhere
for the rolling of steel plates, as distinct from the forging of armour plates," - Harland & Wolff ’s Edward Wilding, spring 1912.
I don't know of any specific examples or whether they used quadruple expansion engines in rolling mills for steel plating?
That is 16,000 shaft horsepower each.
It's amazing to see such ingenuity from so long ago. Amazingly we still use the same techniques of warming up water to drive turbines for almost all out power sources. This was the start of a great era in engineering.
Fascinating! I'd love to see how the electric engines/dynamos (aka the "generator room") fit in to this whole plan
Just some more turbines, driven directly on steam I guess. A lot of space, maybe towards the front.
@@123Chevyman I already know the location of the electric engine room. It was was just aft of the turbine engine room, and contained four dynamos which I think were piston style engines, but not 100% on that. What I meant by "how they fit into the plan" is that I'd like to know how they fit into the steam pipe network specifically, and also the interior workings of how the engines themselves functioned
No they werent towards the front. That was the reason why the Titanic did have electricity up until the very end
The Dynamos were dry in because the aft flooded last
@@Rudeljaeger yeah, the electric engine room was far aft on tank top level, just aft of the turbine engine. And then also there were the back up dynamos about 2/3 or so aft on D-deck, around about where the ship split. It's not likely that either saw much flooding before the break up, and the break up probably crushed both rooms anyway, so flooding was the least of their worries at that point
Big Titanic enthusiast have been for over 65 years and this video is just awesome absolutely fantastic,very well DONE.The sound of the engines give's you an idea of what it must have been like working with the noise, the heat, and the dust, and of cause the sweat.Brilliant thanks for sharing.
Damn this is amazing. it is such a shame it is all at the bottom of the ocean.
Yes, and all was brand new!
why don't they salvage the Titanic? They could restore it and make it a museum. I'd love to visit it.
Chris Keller also it's basically one big grave
But hey they built the Titanic II but I'm not sure if it has the steam engines like the Titanic had
Imagine if the Olympic’s engines hadn’t been scrapped. They would have been the largest triple expansion steam engines ever existed. Larger than the Kempton engine.
I love this!! I love the sound of those engines too. I understand that they are building a replica of the Titanic, but they're going to have a modern day propulsion system. I think that they should still have the same propulsion plant, however, the original style Harland And Wolf boilers should be modified to be fired wth natural gas instead of coal. Tanks for the natural gas would be in place of the coal bunkers.
I have been a big time Titanic buff since Jame's Cameron's movie came out. I have adopted the terms "Port" and "Starboard" to refer to my left and right, and use those terms universally for everything. Last year, I had a knee replacement, and it was the starboard knee. I work as a dishwasher in a retirement home, and the kitchen that I work in, I like to refer to it as the "galley".
Nothing like the sound of these old steam engines. They were so cool.
Yes but slower and sometimes they failed
I think the best ones honestly.
they are so calming. a good earworm for someone who has bad anxieties.
This is one of best explanation of how a triple expansion steam engine with a low pressure steam turbine works. Brilliant!
I knew realised that large steam engines had a small steam "starter" motor! Thank you for such an amazing video
Actually, that's a "barring engine". For smaller engines, to put the engine in starting position (high pressure piston just past Top Dead Center) an engineer would have used a crowbar to adjust it. Also, before the engine was started, it was necessary to make sure no water had condensed in the cylinders, which would severely damage the engine. So, the engineer would "bar it over" one full revolution. When engines became too large for this, the barring engine was added.
Mark Stockman that's awesome thank you for the extra information, hydraulicing is never a good thing and I didn't think about that being an issue but it makes complete sense! I have a Cat conrod that is bent into an S shape because an injector leaked causing the cylinder to flood.
Mark Stockman also known as a pony engine.
Only non-reversable engines had a small ("barring") engine, it was to bring the pistons to the correct positon for starting. Reversable engines did not need it, they could start in any position.
The SketchUp model is incredible! Thank you for making it available for download.
So much detail and planning and thinking and backbone was put into making these magnificent ships. I loved listening to the sounds of the engine as if it were a large set of heart and lungs beating and breathing.
It's amazing to imagine that there still may be small cavities somewhere inside the engines, maybe in holes where bolts went in or inside the piston cylinders perhaps where the sea water still has not gotten to since it sank. Still preserved surfaces of this machine.
Also incredible to imagine just how much space of the ship was taken up by the engines and boilers.
It seems insane to think about how you could design something like this without CAD and calculators. But then an old engineer told me that it really is easier than most people think. Why? Because where nowadays you have one or few engineers assigned to do a thing, they had whole hundreds of engineers, armies of technical drawers, lots of people doing calculations and paperwork.
There was so much more collective brain power to solve problems.
Sir im confusing what is the meaning of CAD?
@@robinfernandez1992 Computer Aided Design.
Thankyou for that sir .
And when they worked, they worked. No distractions from phone calls or emails or zoom meetings.
Two thing: , a team of well dressed engineers. and No UA-cam !
Amazing how they managed to plan such an engine. Great engineering!
Thank you very much for such a fantastic job in showing the engines of the Titanic. I was stationed on the USS Kitty Hawk which weighed about 85,000 tons, a bit bigger than the Titanic, except we didn't sink. Only once did I get to go into the engine room. It was fantastic to see the four prop shafts turning and even being able to touch them as they turned. It was fantastic, but after looking at your video, it wasn't anything like the Titanic. With all of the stokers working and the coal dust and noise, the Titanic was not fantastic, but insane, but really fantastic too, especially for those days. Thanks again for such a great video. C. Jeff Dyrek, Webmaster, Disabled Vet. Polar Explorer.
different boiler setup on the Kitty Hawk because Titanic was coal and Kitty Hawk was diesel fired boilers. Either way I wish I had the experience you did. I never made into the fire room on USS Guam to see the engineering plant.
3258 dislikes? The video Is amazing. Can't understand people
From what I understand the 3 White Star Ships built at that time we’re very conventional in design . The Cunard ship were at the cutting edge of technology at the time not only being faster but using state of the art propulsion systems based around Steam Turbines.
In another video it’s mentioned that coal-fired steamships were painted black because of the dust spill from loading the coal.
Huh, I never even thought about that. Makes sense!
All coal-fired steamers of the era are black because of this. Check it out for yourself. Pretty much all of them.
Coal is a dirty, and streaks. It also causes ash. Watch videos of the Britannic in hospital configuration. It's paint scheme will give away just how dirty these vessels got from the coal. Crew would spend a better part of a week just cleaning them between trips.
I think I saw that one. It also said that it could take up to 24 hours to reload the ship with coal; it was a very complex, dangerous, dirty, labor-intensive process; and you couldn't do much of anything else while coaling. No wonder oil caught on quickly even though it was considerably more expensive.
@@williamwingo4740 It was more expensive, but the energy density of fuel oil is much better than coal. That was why Olympic was converted to use fuel oil, which doubled her range because the coal bunkers were turned into fuel tanks. Fuel oil has twice the energy density of coal, so instead of burning over 600 tons of coal a day, Britannic burned about 250 to 300 tons of fuel oil a day.
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Great explanation, explained a lot that I have never understood before, makes a lot more sense to me now when I see a layout drawing.
Thank you for sharing, very much appreciated.
Amazing skills 108 years ago.What a level of brilliance. How can 2.1k give thumb down?
Excellent work, thank you for taking the time to produce such an interesting video.
Absolutely fantastic work putting this together. Really enjoyed it!
This video reinforces my belief that Titanic's reciprocating engines did not reverse in advance of the allision with the iceberg, as depicted in the Cameron film. They would be incapable of starting in reverse until the weigh came off the ship as the flow of the sea through the screws would keep them turning and create a large opposing torque against reverse movement.
its a Hollywood film. Great film, I seen it twice. You have to realize that nobody really knows what happened on the bridge as the entire bridge crew did not survive that night. It is assumed and often suggested that the officer on the bridge ordered all back full and hard left rudder. YES I SAID LEFT. WE DON'T SAY PORT AND STARBOARD with rudder orders. Certified Master Helmsman US NAVY. Although military, the orders are the same in the civilian world as well. It is to avoid confusion because Engine orders on a multiple shaft ship are port and starboard. The problem with that even if the engines went to reverse is that it would have been more like a twist than a turn. It isn't so much about torque as it is momentum. GRAVITY. first law of motion states that an object in motion stays in motion until acted upon by an equal an opposite reaction force. That means the force opposite has to be equal to make them go in reverse. the engines on a steam ship don't just reverse. Someone has to turn a valve and reverse the steam flow. Train engine and ship engine both work in the same basic idea that a valve has to force steam flowing the opposite way. This is one of the reasons steam is so inefficient.
@@robertbenoit5374 The orders from the bridge or the telegraph indication has no bearing on whether the screws reversed, it defies the laws of physics if they did. This is because:
a) As long as the ship makes headway, the screws will continue to turn forward unless sufficient opposing torque is applied to halt them, much like the wheels on a motor vehicle
b) There was no brake on the propeller shafts to provide this torque
c) The reciprocating engines were not self-starting, they had to be turned with a starting engine to a certain position to start
d) On the first half-revolution, only the high-pressure cylinder acts, so the torque is low. On the next half-turn, the intermediate cylinder begins to act, less the losses due to "cold" cylinders at the start. Then the low-pressure cylinders after one full turn, after even more losses.
So, the reciprocating engines could not be rapidly brought to a halt in the right position for reverse starting and would be incapable of immediately producing the torque necessary for reverse rotation. And of course, the turbine had no reverse capability.
@@robertbenoit5374 The orders from the bridge or the telegraph indication has no bearing on whether the screws reversed, it defies the laws of physics if they did. This is because:
a) As long as the ship makes headway, the screws will turn forward unless sufficient opposing torque is applied to halt them, much like the wheels on a car continue turning unless enough torque is applied to make them slip (or cavitate)
b) There was no brake on the propeller shafts to provide this torque and the reciprocating engines were permanently connected to the screws
c) The reciprocating engines were not self-starting, they had to be turned with a starting engine to a certain position to start
d) On the first half-revolution, only the high-pressure cylinder acts, so the torque is low. On the next half-turn, the intermediate cylinder begins to act, less the losses due to cooling/condensation. Then the low-pressure cylinders after one full turn, after even more losses.
So, the reciprocating engines could not be rapidly brought to the right position for reverse starting and could not immediately produce the torque necessary for reverse rotation. And of course, the turbine had no reverse capability.
Fun fact about the movie’s engine scenes: those were the engines of a different ship, the Jeremiah O’Brien. The engines were mirrored and scaled up to size, which is why they appear HUGE in the film. However, in reality, the engine is about the size of your standard human.
It really is AWE INSPIRING TO LOOK AT!!!!!! Even today in 2021 110 years later, it still looks highly technical & futuristic. It must have been out of this world in it's prime. . .
Like the steam sound and engine design it is outstanding
Very interesting video. Thanks for making it.
Agreed - a great explanation.
I thought that was Pirates of the Caribbean music! Nice!!!
You're right!
A brilliant animation ! Thank you . And the background music and sound is amazing .
Very good animation.
The Titanic was a ship ahead of her time. The tragedy could have been avoided if.... navigation technology had been equal to the powerplant technology.
+davida1hiwaaynet Also if "decision making technology" had realised the limitions of the navigation technology of the day, this tragedy could have been avoided.
I think pride was a big factor. If they had not sailed with blind faith though an ice field the story might have been different too
+davida1hiwaaynet if they hadn't reversed the engines when the iceberg was spotted she would have made it. You cant steer a ship of that size with little propulsion going past the rudder.
+Zachary Lagler The reversing encouraged the ship to broadside the iceberg. Should have only steered.
Zachary Lagler Yes, very true. Reversing the centre propeller made the already-too-small rudder ineffective. Amazing (with the luxury of hindsight) that this design was operational.
My dad was a actual steam engineer for Lykes . He always thought that the triple expansion steam engine was never fully exploited.
@ annanoli: 5:25 you can see how the engine is started. In that time the electric engines didn't have enough power, so they used a small steam engine, as shown. It is not only to bring them into a special position for maintenance, as you think, it is the spinning once to start the big engine.
+Charlie K Maybe it was because electric motors need some sort of engine and generator to get electricity.
+Hoe ishetmogelijk ..Steam Engines are self starting...they don't need a Jack Engine to get under way....
Single cylinder steam engines are not self starting.
+KiwiPowerNZ ..what about Single Cylinder Traction Engines..
Brill39e Well they can self start from the right crank position, engines with 2+ cylinders will self start from any position.
thanks for this work !
wunderfull.
this is for the workers that have not see the light and the ocean at work.
Complicated very very complicated titanic you’ll sell forever in my heart❤️
The condesers did a bit more than simply condense the steam into water because in doing so the pressure was reduced to signifcantly below atmospheric pressure. This meant the centre turbine had a larger diffential pressure accross it than just the 9 psi of the LP cylinder exhaust. As a result the turbine generated significant power once steady state running was achieved. The combined engines were in effect running in a quadruple expansion mode. For its time the Titanic was quite effcient.
A very clear analysis. Thanks!
I'm curious how efficient steam engines were back then. How much of the energy was wasted out the exhaust stack? An internal combustion engine only uses about 20% of it's fuels energy, the rest is wasted as heat going out the tail pipe or radiator.
@@johneckert1365 It all to do with the temperature and pressures involved. A boiler has a limited pressure and temperature it can withstand. Internal combustion can reach much high pressures and temperatures but of course it is a cyclic process whereas a steam turbine is a continuous cycle. The higher temperature and pressure of internal combustion may give it a better heat efficiency than a steam plant but the products of its combustion are more toxic to the planet.
From 7:00 and forward that engine stroke sounds like its singing "I-am-powerful, I-am-powerful, I-am-powerful.
That must have been a sight being in that engine room. Feeling the power! Must have been amazing.
Wonderful feat of engineering. Back when there was pride and craftsmanship. So sad for her loss, as she truly was a marvel!
For non engineers: At the time steam turbines were already in use and replacing the reciprocating engines, but on the Titanic it was decided to use 2 traditional reciprocating main engines because they had been proven in service and well understood by engineers. In effect Titanic's complete propulsion system was an early hybrid as it incorporated one small low pressure steam turbine, along with the reciprocating main engines, to drive the smaller central propeller as shown in the animation. The small steam turbine could not be reversed so it would be disabled when the ship was moving astern
Further note: The first geared turbines were developed in 1911, well after Titanic had been designed. By 1917, all new naval construction used geared turbines. Titanic's turbine being fed by waste gas from the main engines was an energy recovery method; the turbine was the last stage before the spent steam reached the condensers for reuse as feedwater.
Great work on the animation and the research! Thanks!
I love this! The engines sound like Techno 🏭🚢
this tought me a lot about steam engine and how they work this video is very educational
Marvellous!!! The engineering was fantastic, and the manufacturing those days. Brilliant!!!
And I thought steam engines were something simple. :)
Thank you for animation and explanations.
Yes, it is complex.
The First ones were but this one
This is amazing! We are so use to thinking about the romance of Jack and Rose and we forget about Titanic as a WHOLE.Mr.Andrews still surprises us 108 years later.What a genius.❤️❤️❤️
Not me. Jack and Rose are just an invention to sell movie tickets. The fascination of Titanic has always been in the real people who built, sailed and died.
Very , very cool . From an engineering standpoint , they were just massive .
I lament all the work that went into that ship only to have it and the loss of life on it's maiden voyage .
+Ignignokt Mooninite Yes, I agree with that
I always think of that. All that iron, all the carved Mahogany, crystal, stained glass, and bronze. Jewels and fine clothing, artwork. All at the bottom of the ocean.
Imagine how the builders of the Death Star felt.
+Brian Merritt um they and he is dead in you watched rogue One
Thanks for this video - have always wondered how these HUGE engines propelled the ship (i.e where the coal goes in, exhaust, reciprocation, etc, etc). thank you again !
There are 2 stroke not 4 joke stroke crap!
I agree about the spelling. It was an excellent video but I was distracted by all the spelling errors throughout. I understand spelling is not everyone’s strength but that’s the reason we have spellcheck. Lol
Loved the audio, however, as it was very calming to me.
Exceptional video! Very informative! I enjoyed the sound effects! Very entertaining 10 minutes and 36 seconds! 😂
Thanks!
Nothing short of AMAZING, Brilliantly displayed,Steam Engineering in those days was particularly advanced,only Brains and a bamboo slide rule was used, no Computers and little similar machines to copy, it says a lot for the world of Engineering.An excellent production thank you.
Great video!!
Matsimus WTF how did i find you here lol
A truly sadisfying video being music to the ears!
Lmao that ending. Let's go sailing. Then oops.
Hi mat🙂
it is but only in mute mode
A lot of data and concept familiarization covered in an admirably short clip.
Good work.
Great animation! Crazy to think I actually have a nice little lump of coal from the Titanic.
Save it! It's worth a lot!
MrFang333333 how did you get to coal???🙄🙄
MrFang333333 Care to answer that for us Mr. Fang?
That engine sound has a beat to it. I like it.
I love the way every thing is explained it makes it so much easier to understand the Titanics engines
Good job. You put a lot of effort and time into this.
It was a pleasure for me.
Very, very impressive animation of the Titanic's engine layout, with all the stages of steam
this ship had to produce from the boilers to the different steam engine cylinders to compensate for the differing psi's of the steam for pressure and temperatures. The amount of coal use was staggering to imagine how 159 men had to shovel this huge amount of coal into the boiler's fire boxes is exhausting just to imagine the labor involved. Cannot think how much just this team of laborers were paid on a daily basis. Also, how did Harland and Wolf work out the fares for the differing classes of passengers that traveled on this immense boat in 1912 just to make a profit? People had to eat, drink, and use their respective bathrooms, how did Titanic arrange the human waste? Did Titanic use waste tanks or just jettison the wastes into the ocean?
What's funny is that coal tenders were actually paid pretty well but of course the conditions they were in would be unbearable
1912, I would venture to say , well, poopdeck comes to mind.
Harland & Wolf were the builders. White Star lines were the owners. They made a lot of money. (Profit)….waste feed the ocean…..
Les mécanismes étaient une telle complexité incroyable! Je suis très impressionné par la précision sans ordinateur ou calculette à l'époque! Merci pour le partage passionnant! Un abonné de France.
Totalmente. Incredibile 👀👀🇮🇹
steam, under pressure, is immensely powerful. this just demonstrates the fact. although the usage of coal is so environmentally unfriendly nowadays, it was all they had back then. but wow, that must have been some boiler room. its bleddy obvious that one must have been only able to appreciate the true scale of it if they were to actually be in the place and soak up the vastness of it all. what an engineering masterpiece. lost forever. shame.
+DAVID Marshall Coal is still the most common fuel. At least in the US.
TheSmileyFacedPizza the usa is one of the biggest polluters on this planet, consuming 25% of the planets energy sources. such a selfish, wasteful nation. shame on the usa.
+DAVID Marshall possibly because they respond alone for a third of world's economy.
If a tiny little country was responsible for these numbers I could say "shame on it!" but that's not the case.
+TheSmileyFacedPizza We still have an abundant supply of coal left in the US (close to 1000 years) as opposed to crude oil and natural gas. There is some research on how to make coal burning cleaner. It's dirty, but it might be our only power source in the future (renewable energy still forms a tiny fraction of our energy usage).
There's still Bio Diesel you can get from Algae, so it shouldn't be a massive problem
The Titanic at 22 knots was about as fast as reciprocating-engined ships got. The Royal Navy had some 23 knot armored cruisers that used recips but everything else that was faster used only turbines.
How much steam mass flow (kg/s)?
The steam is condensed to water. I don't know how much water is produced to return to the boilers. Perhaps someone else who knows?
216kg of steam per minute from the water inside Boilers. See Encyclopedia Titanica.
Are you an engineer?
@@LanaaAmor Yes, and analyze steam system but use modern SI units.
Excellent presentation and explanation! Also enjoy the replication of the sounds of the different parts of the engine complex. Thanks for putting this up.
I loved in the movie when the bridge called for full reverse how the ships engineer jumped as he knew it had hit the fan .
It's crazy that it produces a rhythm.
No! Machines make music!
Thank you. Wonderful!
Just watching again after 2 years and still find it great !