[Illustration: FIG. 3.--A SEVENTY-FIVE KILOWATT TURBINE ENGINE DIRECTLY CONNECTED TO A DYNAMO. The turbine engine is on the right.]
As to the propellers, these approach closely to the usual form. It has, however, been found best to place two propellers of approximately the same pitch on each shaft at some considerable distance apart, so that the after one shall not be seriously affected by the wash of the one in front. The advantage of this arrangement is that a sufficient blade area is obtained to carry the thrust necessary to drive the vessel with a lesser diameter of propeller, and so permitting of a higher speed of revolution of the engines.
The problem was complicated by the question of cavitation, which, though previously anticipated, was first practically found to exist by Mr. Thornycroft and Mr. Barnaby in 1894, and by them it was experimentally determined that cavitation, or the hollowing out of the water into vacuous spaces and vortices by the blades of the propeller, commences to take place when the mean thrust pressure on the projected area of the blades exceeds eleven pounds and a quarter per square inch. This limit has since been corroborated during the trials of the Turbinia.
This phenomenon has also been further investigated in the case of model propellers working in an oval tank of water, and to permit of cavitation at more moderate speeds than would otherwise have been necessary, the following arrangement was adopted: The tank was closed, plate-glass windows being provided on each side, through which the propeller could be observed, and the atmospheric pressure was removed from the surface of the water by an air pump; under this condition the only forces tending to prevent cavitation were the small head of water above the propeller, and capillary attraction.
In the case of a propeller of two inches in diameter, cavitation commenced at about twelve hundred revolutions, and became very pronounced at fifteen hundred. Had the atmospheric pressure not been removed, speeds of twelve thousand and fifteen thousand respectively would have been necessary.
Photographs were taken with a camera made for the purpose, with a focal plane shutter giving an exposure of about one thousandth of a second, the illumination being by sunlight concentrated on the propeller from a twenty-four-inch concave mirror.