 A
particular service, which has been frequently acknowledged by the
Soviet authorities, was the manufacture of power plant worth millions
of pounds for Russia. M-V was main contractor for the complete equipment
of seventeen land power stations. In addition thirty-five completely
mobile power stations were constructed and shipped (through the
Ministry of Supply) from the end of 1943; these ranged in size from
1000 to 5000 kW and consisted of trains of three or four trucks, one
carrying the boiler and another the generating plant. Ten 500-kW generating
units were made in a transportable form consisting of a self-contained
turbogenerator set mounted in a framework with skids. A 30,000-kVA
synchronous condenser was the largest that had been built in this
country.
Marine
propulsion equipment manufactured during and after the war included
many geared turbines. Several 6800-s.hp units installed in cargo
liners and fast tankers gave excellent performance in service, and
their fuel consumption cornpared very favourably with that of
reaction turbines built to meet the same operating conditions.
Earlier a number of4000-s.hp turbines had been built for high speed
gunboats; the weight of these turbines with gears and condenser
was only a fraction over 4 Ib per s.hp, a figure that was characterized
by the Admiralty as "a remarkable achievement". Following
the manufacture of a prototype for use in a fast minelayer, fourteen
welded l.p. cylinders—the largest ever made in this way—were
constructed for propulsion turbines in aircraft carriers.
In
1938 when the Government decided that a national emergency pool
of transportable transformers should be available in case of war,
the Company took a prominent part in standardizing the range. It
also built six 30,000-kVA 132/33-kV units, which were suitable for
normal rail transport when fully assembled. Special transformers
were made for radar, remote power control for guns, arc welding
in shipbuilding, resistance welding in aircraft construction, and
other purposes; oil-filled transformers for use in aircraft were
hermetically sealed and provided with expansible enclosure to enable
them to withstand the wide range of temperatures.
Centralized
control systems were applied to air-raid precaution signals, and
some fifteen equipments were installed by various supply undertakings.
Among these was Manchester Corporation, where the Ripplay installation
controlled the public sirens for a radius of more than 10 miles
from the centre of the city, the largest single ripple-signal equipment
in the world.
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