SY TURBINIA – GENESIS, PERFORMANCE AND VIRTUAL REBIRTH

摘要

This paper examines the design concept and development of the first-ever turbine steamer, the 103 foot long Steam Yacht Turbinia built by the great Tyneside engineer Sir Charles Algernon Parsons in the mid 1890’s to demonstrate the application of his Steam Turbine for ship propulsion. When she was built she was the fastest ship in the world, reaching speeds in excess of 34 knots, and in order to investigate this a re-analysis of the original resistance model tests carried out by R. E. Froude at Haslar in 1897 is presented together with a comparison of the performance of her hull form against a representative sample of subsequent and modern day forms of similar size in order to investigate and illustrate the developments in hull form design over the past 120 years. Sir Charles’ work on cavitation and the improvements in propulsive efficiency since the design of the SY Turbinia is also discussed. In addition, an overall comparison of the Turbinia’s performance against contemporary designs and equipment will be presented to illustrate the evolution of naval architecture and marine engineering and the legacy of SY Turbinia and her brilliant and eminent creator. Thankfully, the groundbreaking and revolutionary SY Turbinia is still in existence and preserved as a static exhibit at Newcastle-upon-Tyne’s Discovery Museum Recently the SY Turbinia has become an operational ship again, albeit virtually, on the Ship Simulator at South Shields Marine School. The ‘virtual’ SY Turbinia is presented in order to demonstrate the realism of current simulation and, of course, the performance of the SY Turbinia, which may encourage others as to the benefits of the realistic simulation of other historic ships and ‘bringing them back to life’.