engineer who feels the need of acquainting himself with steam
turbines. To accomplish this within the limits of space allowed, it has
been necessary to confine the work to the description of a few standard
types, prepared with the assistance of the builders. Following this the
practical experience of successful engineers, gathered from the columns
of _Power_, is given. It is hoped that the book will prove of value to
all engineers handling turbines, whether of the described types or not.

Hubert E. Collins.
New York, April, 1909.

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

I The Curtis Steam Turbine in Practice 1

II Setting the Valves of the Curtis Turbine 31

III Allis-Chalmers Steam Turbine 41

IV Westinghouse-Parsons Turbine 58

V Proper Method of Testing a Steam Turbine 112

VI Testing a Steam Turbine 137

VII Auxiliaries for Steam Turbines 154

VIII Trouble with Steam Turbine Auxiliaries 172

I. THE CURTIS STEAM TURBINE IN PRACTICE[1]

[1] Contributed to _Power_ by Fred L. Johnson.

"Of the making of books there is no end." This seems especially true of
steam-turbine books, but the book which really appeals to the operating
engineer, the man who may have a turbine unloaded, set up, put in
operation, and the builders' representative out of reach before the man
who is to operate it fully realizes that he has a new type of prime
mover on his hands, with which he has little or no acquaintance, has not
been written. There has been much published, both descriptive and
theoretical, about the turbine, but so far as the writer knows, there is
nothing in print that tells the man on the job about the details of the
turbine in plain language, and how to handle these details when they
need handling. The operating engineer does not care why the moving
buckets are made of a certain curvature, but he does care about the
distance between the moving bucket and the stationary one, and he wants
to know how to measure that distance, how to alter the clearance, if
necessary, to prevent rubbing. He doesn't care anything about the area
of the step-bearing, but he does want to know the way to get at the
bearing to take it down and put it up again, etc.

The lack of literature along this line is t