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Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company

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Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company
TypePublic
IndustryEngineering
Founded1897
FateAcquired
SuccessorC. A. Parsons and Company
HeadquartersNewcastle upon Tyne, UK
Key people
Charles Algernon Parsons

Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company was a British engineering company based on the River Tyne at Wallsend, North East England.

Discover more about Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company related topics

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was a sovereign state in Northwestern Europe that comprised the entirety of the British Isles between 1801 and 1922. It was established by the Acts of Union 1800, which merged the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland into a unified state. The establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922 led to the remainder later being renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in 1927.

Engineering

Engineering

Engineering is the use of scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad range of more specialized fields of engineering, each with a more specific emphasis on particular areas of applied mathematics, applied science, and types of application. See glossary of engineering.

River Tyne

River Tyne

The River Tyne is a river in North East England. Its length is 73 miles (118 km). It is formed by the North Tyne and the South Tyne, which converge at Warden Rock near Hexham in Northumberland at a place dubbed 'The Meeting of the Waters'.

Wallsend

Wallsend

Wallsend is a town in North Tyneside, Tyne and Wear, England, at the eastern end of Hadrian's Wall. It has a population of 43,842 and lies 3+1⁄2 miles east of Newcastle upon Tyne.

North East England

North East England

North East England is one of nine official regions of England at the first level of ITL for statistical purposes. The region has three current administrative levels below the region level in the region: combined authority, unitary authority or metropolitan borough, and civil parishes. They are also multiple divisions without administrative functions; ceremonial county, emergency services, built-up areas and historic county. The most populous places in the region are Newcastle upon Tyne (city), Middlesbrough, Sunderland (city), Gateshead, Darlington and Hartlepool. Durham also has city status.

History

Charles Algernon Parsons founded the company in 1897 with £500,000 of capital. It specialised in building the steam turbine engines that he had invented for marine use.[1] The first vessel powered by a Parsons turbine was Turbinia, launched in 1894.[2] The successful demonstration of this vessel led to the creation of the company and the building of engines for the first two turbine-powered destroyers for the Royal Navy, HMS Viper and HMS Cobra, launched in 1899. Although both these vessels came to grief, the new engines were not to blame, and the Admiralty was convinced. Parsons' son became a director in the company and was replaced during the First World War by his daughter Rachel Parsons.

The rotating blade assembly of a Parsons marine turbine
The rotating blade assembly of a Parsons marine turbine
Turbine reduction gearing of Vespasian, 1908
Turbine reduction gearing of Vespasian, 1908

Parsons turbines powered the Royal Navy's first turbine powered battleship, HMS Dreadnought, and the world's first turbine ocean liners, RMS Victorian and Virginian. 73,000 horsepower (54,000 kW) Parsons turbines powered the 31,000 GRT Cunard express ocean liners RMS Mauretania and RMS Lusitania.

All early marine turbines drove their propellers directly. Parsons developed helical reduction gearing for marine turbines, and in 1908 converted the cargo ship Vespasian to turbine propulsion with reduction gearing.[3]

Four direct-drive Parsons turbines powered battleship USS Arizona. They were designed to produce a total of 34,000 horsepower (25,000 kW), but achieved only 33,376 horsepower (24,888 kW) in Arizona's sea trials, when she met her designed speed of 21 knots (39 km/h).[4]

The Royal Navy, Royal Canadian Navy and Royal Australian Navy used Parsons turbines on their Tribal-class destroyers. The Invincible-class battlecruisers all used Parsons propulsion systems.

In 1944, Parsons was one of 19 companies which formed the 'Parsons and Marine Engineering Turbine Research and Development Association', usually known as Pametrada.

The destroyer HMS Glamorgan, launched in 1964,[2] had a Parsons propulsion system.

The Cunard liner Queen Elizabeth 2, launched in 1969, had Pametrada turbines.

The company was absorbed into C. A. Parsons and Company and survives in Heaton, Newcastle as part of Siemens, a German industrial conglomerate.

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Charles Algernon Parsons

Charles Algernon Parsons

Sir Charles Algernon Parsons, was an Anglo-Irish engineer, best known for his invention of the compound steam turbine, and as the eponym of C. A. Parsons and Company. He worked as an engineer on dynamo and turbine design, and power generation, with great influence on the naval and electrical engineering fields. He also developed optical equipment for searchlights and telescopes.

HMS Viper (1899)

HMS Viper (1899)

HMS Viper was a Viper-class torpedo boat destroyer built for the British Royal Navy in 1899 by Hawthorn Leslie and Company at Hebburn on the River Tyne.

HMS Cobra (1899)

HMS Cobra (1899)

HMS Cobra was a turbine-powered destroyer of the Royal Navy. She was built speculatively by Armstrong Whitworth and then offered for sale to the British Admiralty. She was launched on 28 June 1899, and purchased by the Navy on 8 May 1900 for £70,000.

HMS Dreadnought (1906)

HMS Dreadnought (1906)

HMS Dreadnought was a Royal Navy battleship whose design revolutionised naval power. The ship's entry into service in 1906 represented such an advance in naval technology that her name came to be associated with an entire generation of battleships, the "dreadnoughts", as well as the class of ships named after her. Likewise, the generation of ships she made obsolete became known as "pre-dreadnoughts". Admiral Sir John "Jacky" Fisher, First Sea Lord of the Board of Admiralty, is credited as the father of Dreadnought. Shortly after he assumed office in 1904, he ordered design studies for a battleship armed solely with 12 in (305 mm) guns and a speed of 21 knots. He convened a "Committee on Designs" to evaluate the alternative designs and to assist in the detailed design work.

Ocean liner

Ocean liner

An ocean liner is a type of passenger ship primarily used for transportation across seas or oceans. Ocean liners may also carry cargo or mail, and may sometimes be used for other purposes. Only one ocean liner remains in service today.

RMS Victorian

RMS Victorian

RMS Victorian was the world's first turbine-powered ocean liner. She was designed as a transatlantic liner and mail ship for Allan Line and launched in 1904.

Gross register tonnage

Gross register tonnage

Gross register tonnage or gross registered tonnage, is a ship's total internal volume expressed in "register tons", each of which is equal to 100 cubic feet (2.83 m3). Replaced by Gross Tonnage (GT), gross register tonnage uses the total permanently enclosed capacity of the vessel as its basis for volume. Typically this is used for dockage fees, canal transit fees, and similar purposes where it is appropriate to charge based on the size of the entire vessel. Internationally, GRT may be abbreviated as BRT for the German "Bruttoregistertonne".

Cunard Line

Cunard Line

Cunard is a British shipping and cruise line based at Carnival House at Southampton, England, operated by Carnival UK and owned by Carnival Corporation & plc. Since 2011, Cunard and its three ships have been registered in Hamilton, Bermuda.

RMS Mauretania (1906)

RMS Mauretania (1906)

RMS Mauretania was an ocean liner designed by Leonard Peskett and built by Wigham Richardson and Swan Hunter for the British Cunard Line, launched on the afternoon of 20 September 1906. She was the world's largest ship until the launch of RMS Olympic in 1910. Mauretania became a favourite among her passengers. She captured the eastbound Blue Riband on her maiden return voyage in December 1907, then claimed the westbound Blue Riband for the fastest transatlantic crossing during her 1909 season, which she held both speed records for 20 years.

RMS Lusitania

RMS Lusitania

RMS Lusitania was a British ocean liner that was launched by the Cunard Line in 1906 and that held the Blue Riband appellation for the fastest Atlantic crossing in 1908. It was briefly the world's largest passenger ship until the completion of the Mauretania three months later. She was sunk on her 202nd trans-Atlantic crossing, on 7 May 1915, by a German U-boat 11 miles (18 km) off the southern coast of Ireland, killing 1,198 passengers and crew.

Gear train

Gear train

A gear train is a machine element of a mechanical system formed by mounting gears on a frame so the teeth of the gears engage.

Cargo ship

Cargo ship

A cargo ship or freighter is a merchant ship that carries cargo, goods, and materials from one port to another. Thousands of cargo carriers ply the world's seas and oceans each year, handling the bulk of international trade. Cargo ships are usually specially designed for the task, often being equipped with cranes and other mechanisms to load and unload, and come in all sizes. Today, they are almost always built of welded steel, and with some exceptions generally have a life expectancy of 25 to 30 years before being scrapped.

Source: "Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company", Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, (2022, May 9th), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsons_Marine_Steam_Turbine_Company.

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References
  1. ^ Chronology of Charles Parsons Life Archived 25 December 2008 at the Wayback Machine
  2. ^ a b HMS Glamorgan: the first two years (PDF). p. 4 – via Axford's Abode.
  3. ^ Parsons, Charles A (1911). The Steam Turbine. The Rede Lecture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 48–53 – via Wikisource.
  4. ^ Breyer, Siegfried (1973). Battleships and Battle Cruisers, 1905–1970. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. p. 214. OCLC 702840.
Further reading
  • Johnston, Ian; Buxton, Ian (2013). The Battleship Builders - Constructing and Arming British Capital Ships. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-1-59114-027-6.

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