Worlds most powerful steam engine still running. 12000 Horse Power. The River Don Engine, Sheffield
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 13 ก.ย. 2024
- The worlds most powerful steam engine ever built. 12000 Horse Power (8.9 MW)
The River Don Engine is located in the Kelham Island Museum in Sheffield, UK
This massive engine weighs 420 tons and stands 28 foot high, 40 foot long !
I've seen some impressive Victorian engineering in the past but this is the most amazing thing I've ever seen. The sheer power in this beast has to be seen in person.
See it in steam Monday - Thursday 12pm and 2pm and Sunday 12pm, 2pm and 4pm.
It is not always running though due to maintenance so check with the museum first if traveling a long way to see it.
This is a stationary steam powered mill for making steel armour plate for the hulls of battleships. It is able to reverse from full speed in just 2 seconds. The rapid reverse was an essential feature of an engine used for rolling, as delays would result in cooling of the workpiece.
At 01:22 you can see just how quick it can stop and reverse.
At 02:37 you will see how fast this engine can run. You can really feel the power in the floor now.
Four identical mills were made but the other three have since been scrapped.
There is a short video you can watch of this mill when it was still in use. This video display is near the entrance to the engine area.
thanks
Andy
Being Sheffield born n bred this engine is in hearts of everyone in the city. I've stood and watched it from a small child up to my current age if 38. You can't really grasp the nouse and sensation this thing gives you unless your there. You feel it through your body . Hopefully it will be kept working for future generations of steel city children to enjoy.
They made 5 of those engines but 1 went missing. How you misplace a house sized engine is beyond me.
Maybe it left to let off some steam
@@yeo5811 I did and I will not apologize for it
🤣🤣🤣🤣 You’ve clearly not been into my loft...
@@LeftBlankIntentionally 😭💀
Used for spare parts!?
It's an incredible *BEAST!*
As a 64 yr old Englishman, I find this amazing engine, just so awe inspiring , I'm proud to be able to say this was built in Britain, and as well as the Ill fated Titanic, The whole steam engine phenomena is just amazing !
yes its impressive when your next to it running full speed
Debate over which is larger or more powerful, this is a mighty engine in itself...let's just enjoy and thank you for sharing.
Yes. I made a more recent video of this in 4K : th-cam.com/video/GmuuLQRe06c/w-d-xo.html
Titanic's two reciprocating engines had an output of 15,000 Indicated Horsepower each. However the identical engines fitted to Olympic were pushed to over 18,000 HP
has that anything to do with being converted to run on oil?
And 18,000 horsepower really did a number to that submarine. Chopped the pressure hull like a 1000 degree knife through butter.
@@KriegProductions Nope.
After refit
@@SanyeyMore down to the engine rebuild which was carried out at the same time. It was noted that in her final years, her engines were operating better than they ever had before. 18,000 horsepower in a tremendous amount of power for a reciprocating steam engine.
That's a motor! how fast he picks up the RPM, he is INCREDIBLE for what he weighs, and how big he is.
In the steelwork It ran at 120 RPM 165 psi in the museum we run it at 100 psi on a fast run its been clocked at 90 rpm
You can only appreciate the full awesome power when you're there. The heat from the engine can be felt and the whole concrete floor of the building shakes.
1:55 "Full astern!"
I've lost count of how many times I've seen this run and it never fails to impress, my daughter had her wedding reception at Kelham Island Museum and they ran it for the guests, everyone stood in silence with their mouths open, even the women were impressed.
The acceleration of this massive engine is impressive, amazing what was being built over 100 years ago.
Steam engines in general have the highest torque output of any engine type per horsepower generated. The Titanic would pull an Airbus A380 backwards despite the Airbus having over 4 times the horsepower.
and deceleration. I was surprised at the RPMs.
Im extremely impressed with the throttle response
Oh for sure! Me too! Can you imagine how jarring that would have been on Titanic had they reversed the reciprocating engines? I know there’s a lot of debate over that but all the transcripts from the inquiry indicated the engines were rang to “ALL STOP” per protocol. Also I read somewhere it would have taken some 90 seconds to bring those engines to “FULL ASTERN”.
Saw this beauty running today, what a machine!
Its very impressive isnt it.
Visiting this engine is definitely on my bucket list for steam engines!
This is the most powerful working steam engine that's still running and It's still going strong today. Yes more powerful engines were built Davy Brother of Sheffield built one rated at 16.000 HP in 1905 very similar to this design minus the drive wheel. some were built at 18,000 HP to. In the USA Todd rolling engines were built rated between 14'000 HP and 20,000 HP In the 1940's and 1950's five cranked rolling mills engines were built and rated at 30.000 Hp in Germany.
The working drawings to the River Don Engine date back to 1902 so we think that the first mill was probably built around about that time. Each one we think took roughly 4 to 5 months to construct , the engines were probably painted dark grey or black. 4 of there engines were built one went to John Browns in Sheffield , another up to Beardmore Glasgow and one also went over to Japan. Lets be thankful to Hugh Wentworth Ping for saving this engine, from being scraped in 1978 having to raise £20,000 which was a lot of money back in them days.
Do you have any information on the 30,000 horsepower rolling mill engine in Germany?
Hi Gregory the only info I have was in a book by George Watkins he was a heating engineer and in his spare time went all over documenting stationary engines. Then only info I have is that It was built by Erhardt and Sehmer in 1947 1953-54 30,000 hp five cranked fully -enclosed high-speed set with hydraulic valve gear. for some reason I thought they were built during 20s and 30s . I have a poster of a Davy Engine that went up to middlesbrough and was rated at 16'000 hp with Joy Valve gear no drive wheel. I know a chap who might have a poster of the 18,000 HP engine that Davy built he was a rolling mill technology manager for siemens. There's a copy of the book I have It's on ebay for £8.99 in good condition with an orange cover The Steam Engine In Industry -2 Mining and the Metal Trades By George Watkins
@@gregorymalchuk272 its actually 40.000 hp
Its giant
I have visited it
I think it revs at max 5 rpm
Which is quite insane how much power it outputs
Amazing, sounds like drums, I was expecting to see King Kong breaking the wall or something like that
the noise is the backlash in the gears as they have no load
12 times the horsepower of a Bugatti Veyron, runs off coal.
British Engineering rules here : )
Try driving a steel rolling mill with your "Veyron"
12 times the horsepower of a Veyron, and probably hundreds of times the torque.
Bloodgod40 but also not a car.
Also about 10,000 times the size and 100,000 times the weight of a Veyron. I'll still take the steam tho.
@@Bloodgod40 Not fair with such big flywheels, they provide the most torque.
Another fun fact is one of the 5 went to Japan and later rolled out the armor/armour plates for the Battleships Musashi and Yamato. 2 of the biggest and most powerful battleships ever built and much like the German battleships Bismarck and Turpitz they didn’t go down easily.
Bismarck didn't go easily, but her cause of death was rather embarrassing, just like SM U-103. Embarrassing. An engine similar to this powered the Olympic at the time. Was a year before the conversion to oil engines, in 1919.
When Britain was great.
, The missing engine of 16,000 hp was at Dorman Long in Brittania Works , Middlesbrough. Had a new one piece crankshaft in the mid 1950,s
it drove the mill that rolled 12" X 12" angle sections for the Sydney Harbour bridge , waste steam drove turbines for electricity production .
I was very lucky to purchase some photos and cutaway drawings of that Davy engine that went to middlesbrough rated at 16'000 hp
Most people don't know that the boiler has to put out the same HP as the engine.
2:35 your heart rate when u forgot about the essay due tomorrow
2:44 your heart rate when u realize there was no essay due
3:05 when u forgot haven't studied for the state test until u actually take it
:) LOL, so which is it for you?
@@comedyhunter not necessarily
The most powerful steam (single ) engine ever built was built by Allis Chalmers in Milwaukee WI. I think some posters are over rating the hp or they're giving a total rating of multiple engines.
The manhattan engines ran a nominal hp of 12,000 and as much as 18,000 and were the largest ever built, it was impractical to built them any more, or any bigger and prime movers went to steam turbines
I love modern marvels of the 19th and early 20th centurys
I've read that this thing runs at 70rpm. 12000hp at 70rpm means this thing is generating over 900,000 lb-ft of torque... I can't even imagine what this was capable of at its limits.
AWESOME!👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
Perhaps one of the most powerful piston steam engine ever built, but well down compared WW1 era steam turbine.
Thats the most impressive thing ive ever seen....id like to know where the missing engine really went....interesting 2 piece rods
The tittle may well be correct it's a mill engine for rolling steel into sheets so hp isn't the important factor torque is and ability to be stoped and reversed quickly
I was wondering why it kept changing directions, and that would explain it. Thank you.
Very cool , thanks
LOVE THE PISTONS
amazing engineering & sounds....
Wow… that reverses so quickly and easily. Can’t do that with a big marine diesel
yes amazing isnt it, its so it can roll the sheet metal in the other direction back and forth.
@@comedyhunter There’s an amazing vid of a Sheffield steelworks in the late Forties…. I’ll try to track it down…
@@comedyhunter I think the documentary was called The Steel Industry & The Workings of a Foundry, made in 1945. Amazing!
Also ‘The Manufacture of Steel - 1945’
I 've had some interesting info from one of the engineers down at Kelham and he was sent an article of a blooming mill engine in a museum over in China built by the Davy Brothers It's a 2 cylinder engine rated at 8,000 hp built in 1905
Fantastic
Most powerful? Glad I live here!
During the time when the engine was being dismantled from the mill and moved to Kelham removing the pinion gearbox from the bedplate caused big problems. There was a hole in the foundations were the gearbox sat, full of oil and grease. Scooping It out by spades and buckets was a laborious task, so in order to remove the oil they set it on fire to burn it all away . unfortunately this resulted to part of the bedplate cracking the next day . So a company that specialized in heavy engineering stitch welding was employed to fix the bedplate There's also historical ladder scaring on the No 1 cylinder connecting rod . The engine took 3 years to restore don't worry then engines safe as house when It's running Kelham Island Museum is Open Tuesday to Friday and Sundays free entry the engine running times are 12.00 pm and 2.00pm
Sounds are kinda spooky 😂
Smooth as silk
This is about as close to the R.M.S. Titanic's engine today as you can get.
Horsepower: 12,000
Torque: Enough to drag the moon out of orbit.
yes, but this engine is still running today.
its still running on live steam ...... 2017
Bin there! What a amazing engine......
The Olimpic class liners had 15000 hp.
I believe the earth faltered in its orbit for just a moment there
yes at 02:37
whoa this place was made before the titanic :0
This is the same engine as the titanic uses
is it?
Titanic's engines were bigger than this. They had four cylinders. Still triple expansion, but with two low pressure cyliners. I lust love how fast these engines can be stopped and reversed. They really seem to be alive to me.
I am wondering what is the efficiency of this engine? 10% or less?
That's a *LOT* of iron to be whipping around/changing directly that quickly. jfc. That being said, this is not the most powerful steam engine ever built. Stationary steam engine perhaps. But, there were ships that made more power. Not the least of which were the Olympic-class ships. One of which is particularly famous. Or infamous, rather.
Yes its super impressive to see it change direction. I have a better 4k version of it...
th-cam.com/video/GmuuLQRe06c/w-d-xo.html
so cool
how strong is the vibration?
Pretty strong when its going full speed. I have a much better video I did a couple of years ago : th-cam.com/video/GmuuLQRe06c/w-d-xo.html
interesting fact, it's last "job" was to roll the steel for a nuclear reactor
it has 12,000 industrial horse power, its different from regular horse power. if you work it out in regular horse power its more.
The I stands for indicated Horsepower as It goes on cylinder Dia 40 " bore stroke size which is 48", rpm which was 120 rpm in the steelworks and of course boiler pressure too . At Brightside It was working at 165 psi that's 100 tons on each piston
The horse power are still the same, the difference are torque and rpm. This steam engine could reach 12k hp on low rpm, on car that needs high rpm
Titanic Pistons engines were 15,000 Horse power x2 so 30,000 Horse power, then there was the steam turbine which was 16,000 Horse Power, so is the title actually mean built on land or something?
I dont think that is right, Titanic's engines were 20,000 horsepower, and those were two 4 cylinder triple expansion reciprocating engines
Um. I thought the titanic had the most powerful steam engines. They were 2 dories high
What's the torque on this
There's around 210 tones of moving parts, the drive wheel alone weighs 51 tonnes the hydraulic cylinders that move the revering arms back and forth use oil and operate at 1000 PSI. It works on 100 psi of steam pressure and runs between 70 to 90 rpm. In the steel works the engines speed would be around 120 rpm and sometimes up to 170. depending on the size of the billet, the steam pressure was 160 psi. that's 100 tonnes in each cylinder . The rolling mill was 14 ft wide and It could roll plates of steel up to 80 tonnes in weight and 40 feet in length.
90000 ftlbs
3.8 million NM :) 1.5 miliion NM of torwue x1.5 millionnm plus turbine 813 000NM = NM total in 3.8 million NM making it almost power full as the largest container chip in todays faries/ships.
Charlie Potte
What's the odd clunking sound? It doesnt seem to be coming off the engine itself ?
Another commenter mentioned that the banging noise is "backlash" in the gears, caused by the engine operating without a working load. Engines are designed to do work, so running them like this causes odd behavior.
You can’t be an engineer if you don’t know how to use LEGO’s
*Real* engineers learn with Meccano! Real steel. Real nuts. Real bolts. Thank God it's still around.
I buy every bit I can get my hands on to repair things that others claim can't be repaired.
@@amanofmanyparts9120 r/woosh
And 500,000lb/ft or torque too (a guess but I bet I am close).
I think this is the same engine used in the film titanic.birth.of.a.legened
looks like the Titanic's steam engine
Not at all. The Titanic had a propeller, this one has a fly wheel. It's very different from a marine steam engine.
It's a speed reduction drive wheel geared down 4 to 1
@@odfoto How is this different?
...Same engines.
Flywheel or propellor doesn't matter.
Even funnier, this engine indeed hasn't got any flywheel. Lol
This is the Titanic engine.
th-cam.com/video/KhlJp1VZMB8/w-d-xo.html
It was bit bigger. :-)
where this engine is used
The engine currently resides in the Kelham island museum in Sheffield south Yorkshire. It was used to drive a hot rolling mill, the flywheel which had to be put on in the wrong direction in the video for space would drive a set of rollers and so would the crank shaft. The engine reverses in 2 seconds so that the metal would not cool as it was being passed between the two sets of rollers. It worked 50 years at Cammell's mill before being moved first to British Steel's River Don plant (hence its name).
What the hell u needed so much power for in 1905?
For rolling out plate metal that is inches thick for huls of ships
12,000 horsepower is not the most powerful. The triple expansion plants in the Olympic class ocean liners (Olympic, Titanic, Britannic) were 15,000 HP, and were the actual most powerful steam piston engines.
Not so. The single largest engine was the Manhattan engine built by Allis Chalmers
@@RJ1999x - 11000 HP .
@@haraldpettersen3649 that's what the Manhattan engines made
That was what i meant 👍
@@haraldpettersen3649 I figured that. I have the original engineers blue prints to the Manhattan engines
Cool!!?
A bit scary...
Firewall that sucker to see how much you an get out of it before you have to run😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁
12000hp isn't the most powerful steamengine ever built.
Sounds like it's desperate for oil. How can they just run it at some special hour? A steam engine that size needs at least three hours warm up before it can run, or it will break very soon ...
The sound is the meshing of the gears between the engine and the 100 ton flywheel. As there is no load on the engine you get backlash on the gears which is what you can hear. This would have been linked up to a massive steel rolling mill originally and you wouldn't get the backlash.
this has NEVER been the largest steam mill engine ever built or the most powerful... think you need to read your engines m8.... I know of one what was built far bigger and more powerful than this
richardson westgarth 25,000 hp rolling mill engine !!!!!
I have an old photo of the Richard Westgarth engine same configuration at the River Don engine vertical 3 cylinder single expansion with Joy Valve I think It ran on around 220 psi and ran at 200 rpm It was huge It had no drive wheel to
sadly its not the biggest one in the usa was 35000 hp
the biggest most powerful steam engine was in the US, it was the Manhattan engines built by Allis Chalmers
john wood - 11000 you mean , thats the biggest American steam engine
I thought the world's most powerful steam engine is the Titanic
Not even close. The most powerful steam engines built were the Manhattan engines built by Allis Chalmers
Nope the world's most powerful steam engine is Southern pacific 4294 it has 56000 HP
@@yujirohanma3041 not true
It's true
@@yujirohanma3041 6000 hp was it's rating
this is not the most powerful steam engine ever. many steamships had more powerful engines Like Lucania & Campania , who both had 15000 HP 5 cyl triple expansion engines, so did Olympic & Titanic ( 4 cyl. 15000 - 18000 Hp ) The most powerful one ( to my knowledge was in Cronprincessin Cecillie : Those where 8 cyl, 6 crank Quadruple engines that gave 20.000 Hp each...
Hey its not the most powerfull steam-engine ever feks Titanic had two reciprocating four-cylinder, triple-expansion steam engine and its generating 30,000hp so what i can se one have 15,000hp of this titan engine:)
Sure is unpleasant to listen to
is this noise normal? It doesn`t sound happy.
yes, it has no load on it so spins a bit differently