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Just as a water-wheel is driven by the weight or force of the water striking the blades or paddles of the wheel, so the force of the many jets of steam striking against the little wings makes the wheels of the steam-turbines revolve.
Because his education has been general in the field, and he now holds a position with a company manufacturing steam-turbines, say, he must "wise up," as the saying goes, on the subject of steam-turbines. It will do him no harm to trace back to its source all progress made in the field of turbine engineering and construction.
It is to be noticed as a feature of the plant, in common with many of later construction, that it was placed well away from the water's edge, and equipped with non-condensing engines; whereas the modern plant invariably seeks the bank of a river or lake for the purpose of a generous supply of water for its condensing engines or steam-turbines.
The concern manufactured among other things steam-turbines, and this young man, having demonstrated in school his particular aptitude for thermodynamics the study of heat and its units in its application to engines, and the like entered the erecting department.
Likewise, he was rapidly becoming an expert in the field of steam-turbines. His work in the shop, together with his experience on the road, both as an erecting man and operating engineer, had eminently fitted him for valuable service in the home office as an engineer overseeing design.
If it be a concern manufacturing steam-turbines, say, the young engineer in time becomes expert and a specialist in steam-turbines. So, too, with graduates in mining engineering, in electrical engineering, in civil engineering, although the opportunities for specialization in any of these latter branches are not so good as in the mechanical field.
He was to appear before his fellow-engineers the best and most capable and prominent in the profession and to appear as an authority on his subject! The thing was another step forward. He prepared a paper, basing it on his six years' experience in steam-turbines, and when he reached New York had something of value to tell his brother engineers.
C.A. Parsons, the inventor of the engine, worked out the idea that inventors have been studying for a long time since 1629, in fact that is, the rotary principle, or the rolling movement without the up-and-down driving mechanism of the piston. The Turbina was driven by a number of steam-turbines that worked a good deal like the water-turbines that use the power of Niagara.
In this work he discovered certain operating faults in the design, and, reporting these faults to the home office, observed that not a few were remedied in subsequent designs. He moved about the country from place to place, setting up and operating steam-turbines, until there came the blissful day when he was called back to join the engineering staff in work covering design.