Titanic's Boilers
As you know from previous blogs, coming from Northern Ireland and working for a time close to the dock where RMS Titanic was built. I am fascinated by many aspects of this ship’s history. One of these relates to the Titanic’s boilers.
This great ship had 25 double ended, triple furnace boilers and 4 single ended boilers – giving a grand total of 162 fireboxes/furnaces. These massive boilers were 20 feet/6m in length and almost 16 feet/5m in diameter. They all burnt coal with the smoke and waste gases being expelled through three funnels (the fourth funnel was only a dummy!). Each of these furnaces had to be manually stoked by a total of 150 stokers. Backing them up were a team of ‘trimmers’ whose job was to bring the coal to the boilers for the firemen to use. A key part of the trimmers job was to ‘extract’ the coal evenly from both the port and starboard sides of the ship so as the ship remained ‘trim’ in the water and did not list. It was understandable therefore that this army of stokers and trimmers were known as the ‘Black Gang’!
These great boilers consumed around 600 tonnes of coal per day and of course when coal is burnt, ash is left behind. This had to be manually brushed from the tubes and shovelled out from the boiler – 100 tonnes of ash per day! Because the boilers were below sea level this ash had to be brought to the water level by high pressure water devices called Ash Ejectors which pumped the ash slurry into the sea.
I suppose thanks to innovative companies such as our Primasonics International, such old fashioned and ineffective devices, including steam soot blowers have been replaced by innovative Acoustic Cleaners which use sound waves to prevent the build up of ash within all key areas of the boiler – and without causing any damage whatsoever to the boiler tubes of structure. The result? Continuously cleaner boilers, lower maintenance costs and increased thermal efficiency. Take a ‘promenade’ through our acoustic cleaning web site especially the page on power plant cleaning applications.
This great ship had 25 double ended, triple furnace boilers and 4 single ended boilers – giving a grand total of 162 fireboxes/furnaces. These massive boilers were 20 feet/6m in length and almost 16 feet/5m in diameter. They all burnt coal with the smoke and waste gases being expelled through three funnels (the fourth funnel was only a dummy!). Each of these furnaces had to be manually stoked by a total of 150 stokers. Backing them up were a team of ‘trimmers’ whose job was to bring the coal to the boilers for the firemen to use. A key part of the trimmers job was to ‘extract’ the coal evenly from both the port and starboard sides of the ship so as the ship remained ‘trim’ in the water and did not list. It was understandable therefore that this army of stokers and trimmers were known as the ‘Black Gang’!These great boilers consumed around 600 tonnes of coal per day and of course when coal is burnt, ash is left behind. This had to be manually brushed from the tubes and shovelled out from the boiler – 100 tonnes of ash per day! Because the boilers were below sea level this ash had to be brought to the water level by high pressure water devices called Ash Ejectors which pumped the ash slurry into the sea.
I suppose thanks to innovative companies such as our Primasonics International, such old fashioned and ineffective devices, including steam soot blowers have been replaced by innovative Acoustic Cleaners which use sound waves to prevent the build up of ash within all key areas of the boiler – and without causing any damage whatsoever to the boiler tubes of structure. The result? Continuously cleaner boilers, lower maintenance costs and increased thermal efficiency. Take a ‘promenade’ through our acoustic cleaning web site especially the page on power plant cleaning applications.
posted by Don Cameron at
9:04 AM
