# What does a steam turbine engine room sound like?



## PhilColebrook (Aug 7, 2006)

Daft question ahead...

I've been on loads of diesel cargo vessels and ferries as a kid and had the tour of the engine rooms and know the sound and feel of those power plants. I have never, and probably will never, see a steam turbine engine room. Can anyone tell me if they are noisier/quieter, cleaner/dirtier, just anything to conjure up Mr Parson's genius?


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## R58484956 (Apr 19, 2004)

To me the sound of turbines and gearbox are music to the ears, standing between the QE(1) turbines/gearbox (45000shp ea) is one of the absolute pleasures of working on a steamship. Yes and they are clean with the only oil to be seen is through the return lubricating oil for the gears site glass.


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## Orbitaman (Oct 5, 2007)

Much quieter and much cleaner than steam reciprocating or diesel engines. The boilers on the turbine ship I sailed on were huge, but the turbines themselves were smaller than most people would imagine.


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## Derek Roger (Feb 19, 2005)

Quieter ; the noise comes from the gearbox .
Derek


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## Jim S (Jan 21, 2006)

As has been said above steam turbine engine rooms are much quieter than motor ships. As many steam turbine cargo liners had diesel generators that was the most prominent noise. 
Some gearing can be noisy though - while not ear shattering the gearing on Furness Withy's Pacific Unity was noisier than one would have expected. She had double reduction gearing on HP turbine with single reduction on IP and LP turbines. The engine room ventilation is often the greatest source of noise.


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## K urgess (Aug 14, 2006)

First one I sailed on was PSNC's Cotopaxi. I'd just done 4 trips on Diesel powered ships so was surprised to find us in the middle of the Irish Sea when I crawled out of my bunk. Nobody had called me and we'd sailed earlier than expected.
Not a whisper. A bit unnerving at first (EEK)


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## PhilColebrook (Aug 7, 2006)

Thanks guys. Sounds quite impressive...Not many left now. Time to book a cruise on the SS Oceanic and bribe myself into the engine room.


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## raybnz (Sep 10, 2005)

To me a steam turbine engine room was quiet and clean. As previous it said the only noise was the gearbox box noise. How ever some of the ships I sailed they had diesel generators pounding away alongside the turbines.

Sorry to say as much as they are quiet and nearly problem free I found them boring and always drifted back to a motor ship. Nothing beats repairing a broken top water hose in tropics or a crankcase crawl in the Suez or Panama region.


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## MikeK (Jul 3, 2007)

From a 'decky' point I found the turbines very quiet from the 'balcony' ! The most annoying bit was the thick black smoke when they blew tubes and the terrifying FW consumption !

Mike


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## benjidog (Oct 27, 2005)

I wonder if there are any recordings in the archives of the BBC or on disk?

Brian


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## Steve Woodward (Sep 4, 2006)

To me ( as a non engineer I add) the noisiest things in a steam turbine engine room are the FD fans ( forced draft fans feeding air to the boilers) - they give off quite a loud roar as the suck air in in large volumes to feed the boilers. smooth quiet and above all CLEAN describes a steam engine room, that and space.


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## billyboy (Jul 6, 2005)

last one i was on we had to go through an air lock to get to the boiler room where the NOISY fans were thundering air to feed the boilers. the engine room itself was fairly quiet as previously stated by other members. can best be described as a high pitched whine (plesent really) from the parsons reduction gearboxes. you had no problem holding a conversation with the guy next to you.
Loved them personaly!


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## Chouan (Apr 20, 2006)

Steve Woodward said:


> To me ( as a non engineer I add) the noisiest things in a steam turbine engine room are the FD fans ( forced draft fans feeding air to the boilers) - they give off quite a loud roar as the suck air in in large volumes to feed the boilers. smooth quiet and above all CLEAN describes a steam engine room, that and space.


Exactly that, roar from the fans blowing air in around the funnel area of the deck, but a very quiet ER.


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## K urgess (Aug 14, 2006)

Extremely unnerving when those fans stop in the middle of nowhere and speed is reduced to a crawl.
Used to take a while to realise something was different.


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## Steve Woodward (Sep 4, 2006)

Marconi Sahib said:


> Extremely unnerving when those fans stop in the middle of nowhere and speed is reduced to a crawl.
> Used to take a while to realise something was different.


depends on the department your in Kris, the engineers seemed to get quite exited about the FD fans tripping, remember a 286 K tanker suffering a total blackout - to fire up again needed the electric FD fan run via the emergency genny - a large 16 cyl two-stroke detroit diesel, the method was to turn off everything on the emergency switchboard except a single bulb lighting the area of the FD fan, then push the start button for the FD fan - genny sounded as if someone had grabbed it firmly by the b...s for a few seconds them we were away! - ahh such fun for for the heroes of the ER


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## spongebob (Dec 11, 2007)

RAYBNZ, why did you have to bring that up, crank case crawls in Panama!
One of the worst jobs in the world, especially if you found a lot to fix.Thank goodness it was usually brief


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## Tony Breach (Jun 15, 2005)

BRISTOL CITY 1958: Steam turbine & the fans at acommodation level screeched rather than roared.

GLOUCESTER CITY 1954: Triple expansion with Baurwach turbine was almost silent but one could hear the noise from the Wier(d) feed pump if one pressed ones ear deep into the pillow.

I spent 3 years in these two as a deck apprentice so didn't spend too long in the engine room after the first long weight: my observations are mainly as experienced from the cabin. However in those 3 years I never experienced a stoppage at sea - then I joined a motorship!

Tony


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## BlythSpirit (Dec 17, 2006)

Having spent my whole seagoing career on steam turbine ships, let me say superheated steam leaks were the loudest noises I have ever encountered and probably were responsible for me having the TV volume way higher than everyone else can stand!


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## spongebob (Dec 11, 2007)

My sea going experience with steam was limited to my civilian apprentiship years at the Devonport (NZ) Naval Dockyard when trips we went to sea on engine trials on both turbine and reciprocating steam engined ships.
Highlight of these was full power trials on the light cruiser HMNZS Black Prince. At 32 knots entering the pressurised boiler rooms through the air lock doors was like getting an all round "thud" from the atmopheric change but as others note noise was limited and individually identifiable, FD fans, gearboxes,pumps and the like all had their own tones and speach was quite easy.
Not like the Motor ship with its noisily thumping main engines and rattling generators. My few years of this without ear muffs, no body advocated these or told us of any dangers in those days, see me today suffering from industrial deafness and having to wear two hulking hearing aids.


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## Bearsie (Nov 11, 2006)

Of course you wouldn't need a ship to listen to steam turbines.
Any power plant in your area will give you a similar experience.
Its very quiet on the turbine/generator deck. 
Of course you won't have the sound of water rushing along the hull...


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## Andrew Glasse (Jan 5, 2008)

Maiden message this, joined the group this afternoon and promise not to clog up things with lots of talk.
My memories of turbine sound are based on TS Leda, the Bergen Line ship that was a Swan Hunter product of 1953. A fantastic vessel still remembered with pleasure by us oldies here in Norway. Everything above can be confirmed, particularly the whine of the gearing which was audible in the lower deck corridors. It's this whine that sticks in my memory. She was almost vibration free, too but not as manouvrable as the diesel motor ship Venus which she ran with during the summer season between the Tyne and Bergen.

Andrew


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## M29 (Apr 20, 2007)

The first impression I got when entering a steam turbine engineroom (in port) after sailing on a sister ship with deisel engines, was the sheer empty space. It was like a Cathedral. The deisel equivalent was absolutely packed with machinary, the main engine of course being some three stories high. The other first impression was all the clean lagged piping with no trace of oil and grease.
Apart from the noise made by each power plant, the other difference was the lack of vibration through the ships hull from a turbine plant. 

Regards
Alan


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## Steve Hodges (Feb 12, 2007)

This thread reminded me of VLCCs that I sailed on with General Electric turbines, 32,000shp. Steam to the HP turbine entered through hydraulic operated nozzle valves, operated from the control room. However, there was an emergency manoeuvring procedure that we had to test periodically, which involved jacking open the valves locally while standing on top of the turbine nozzle box, with a little handle like a car jack. You certainly knew when the valves lifted!
On the same ships as a planned maintenance procedure we were supposed to test the overspeed trips on the U.S-made Coffin steam turbine-driven boiler feed pumps. This involved putting a crow bar under the hydraulic governor linkage and heaving with all your weight on it, while your oppo held a tacho on the end of the shaft. If my memory serves, the pump turbines normally ran at about 8,000rpm and would trip somewhere way above 10,000. The shriek from the thing as the speed shot up was so unnerving that anyone holding the tacho for the first time normally dropped it and ran away. I don't think many accurate overspeed trip readings appeared on those PM forms!(*))


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## Sarky Cut (Oct 11, 2007)

It all sounds like heaven, what about the bloody boiler room, the soot the gas and that black stuff called fuel.

Come on it must have been a while ago for you all to forget the main power plant. The "fan" only drove the ship along it was the black hole that supplied the power. FW or Babcocks they all had that creation from hell, the soot blower.


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## Brian Leaf (Jun 25, 2005)

Like all the comments above, I agree. Yes Mr. Blythe, S/heat steam leaks, I watch tv like you. Some of the cargo ships I was on had diesel generators like the guys mention they were noisy. Like the gentleman says the boilers were another thing, memories of what seemd like putting in tons of chemical every watch on one ship for a while untill we got a good time in port to investigate and fix things. GE turbines emergency manovering gear, another expeirence and yes you realy could feel those valves move. Sootblowing on a tanker were we had to use ba gear. water evaps falling over. blackouts they were always good for a piss up after we run round like nutters trying to get a fan going and flash and go. But I loved every minute of it. So much so I still work on turbines and thanks to a small German company I work for get to visit the places I once steamed into now its by jumbo jet.


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## billyboy (Jul 6, 2005)

Ah yes Sarky Cut...the boiler rooms indeed eh!
The two oil fired that stick in memory were the ss Londres (encased Penhoet boilers. no blowbacks. but man that place was hot. had to stand under a fan the whole watch) the ss Brighton was different. a pair of fore and aft foster wheelers. two huge fans pressurizing the boiler room. it was actualy cold down there. when leaving the boiler room one noticed the heat of the engine room as one left the airlock. as for soot blowing. the valve for this was up on top of the boilers. the engineer would bang on the plates with a spanner to let you know when to open or close the valve. Good old days ...or were they?


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## captkenn (Aug 16, 2007)

Turbine engine = ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz____________


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## Jim S (Jan 21, 2006)

Regarding boilers or boiler rooms - I sailed with Scotch, Yarrow 3 drum, Foster Wheeler D type, Foster Wheeler ESD, and Babcock Header type.
Of all these only one ship with Foster Wheeler D type gave concern with gas leaks, soot etc. There were no such problems with the rest. As to sootblowers I found the Clyde blowers to be no problem although there were stories that Diamond blowers required at the very least the use of asbestos gloves. I also sailed with Babcock Air Puff sootblowers that operated on an automatic sequencing 24 hours per day. This minimised any soot fall out on the upper decks and of course no need to reduce speed or loss of feedwater. Air compressor maintenance being the only draw back to the type. That said I found the Foster Wheeler D -type casings the most difficult to keep gas tight.


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## Steve Hodges (Feb 12, 2007)

Although it's straying a little from the "sound of a turbine" theme, I loved the noise made by the LB Doxford. With no turbo chargers, just reciprocating air pumps, they actually "chuffed" like giant steam locomotives.


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## Basil (Feb 4, 2006)

On the Fyffes ships the Babcock boilers and Parsons or De Laval turbines were in the same space.
The boiler tops were often covered in a couple of inches of soot - should have had a vacuum cleaner for that.
Other than the main gearbox rumble, sources of noise were the turbo-alternators and the turbo feed pumps which made a "zzzzzzzzzzzzzz"
Considered myself very fortunate to be on turbines(Thumb)


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## waterwall (Jul 20, 2008)

From a grey funnel perspective, the overwelming noise generated by gear boxes and auxilliary machinery at full power in a Type 12 or Leander class frigate is some thing i'll never forget, the modern ships I served in didn't quite have the same spirit as a steam ship.


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## doric (Aug 29, 2007)

*Phil Colebrook*

Well Phil, I served in many motor ships, Dominion Monarch, Wairangi, Taranaki, Waiwera, etc., but the sound of twin turbines on Gothic & Suevic, was pure magic, no mess, and just a steady purr!. Regards, Terence Williams, ( Elect. Engr.). R538301.


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