100 SURFACE CONDENSERS. 
time we find many engineers specifying condensers having so many square feet of 
surface per horse-power and a certain size of tube, with no regard whatever for 
the principal features of condenser design, such as velocity of water and the tube 
length necessary for extracting the British thermal units in the steam. 
One might think that we had no knowledge of what a surface condenser really 
is if he could hear the arguments presented by various men who are unfamiliar 
with the principles of heat transmission and, believe me, there are many such 
men who will neither take the time to study the proposition themselves nor profit 
from those who have made it a special study. The author is free to admit that 
until the past few years he was one of these men who were satisfied to design his 
condensers on a basis of so many square feet of surface per horse-power and trust 
to luck for the rest, knowing, however, that he could establish a good precedent 
for following such a crude practice by referring to many so-called successful installa- 
tions on other ships. How many millions of dollars have been wasted in the past 
by following such practices will never be known, but the time has come when we 
must conserve both our natural as well as our physical resources, and to do this 
we must lay aside all prejudice and abide by facts. It is no disgrace for one engineer 
to know more than another about a certain subject, so why throw up our hands in 
horror at a new suggestion? Why not analyse or cause to be analysed new sugges- 
tions and give encouragement to those who are willing to see or bring about new 
suggestions instead of saying, “The old practice is good enough for me. ii 
Some interesting figures and designs are here presented which are the result 
of much thought on the problem of surface condensers. Data from the official 
trials of the battleship Tennessee, which is fitted with main and dynamo con- 
densers of the author’s design, embodying many new and valuable features, were 
also to have been included, but we must be content with the showing made by the 
U. S. transport Cantigny, as the trial of the battleship has been delayed. 
Unfortunately we had no water measurement from the Cantigny either as to 
steam condensed or the amount used for circulating purposes, but to one familiar 
with turbine designs the amount of steam used can readily be determined with a 
reasonable degree of accuracy without weighing. Therefore the figure given me 
by our engineering department from trial data sheets will be used. (See Plate 45.) 
These condensers have shown such uniformly good results as to leave little 
further to be desired. Condensers of this same principle have been designed and 
built for use in connection with reciprocating engines and the tests made prove 
the principle to be correct. 
It might be interesting to some of the author’s Lean to learn the reason 
for his departure in condenser design instead of following the beaten path which 
is so easy. Therefore, a few facts in connection with his work in this line will be 
given. 
During the years of 1907 to 1910 the author made some very interesting and 
instructive tests in heat transmission for various purposes. These were followed 
by numerous tests on the same apparatus by the Engineering Experiment Station 
at Annapolis, Maryland. In 1915 he made a series of tests on single tubes, 5/8-inch 
