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Shaft alignment
Optical alignment

At the for'd end of the engine room a light box

emitting light through a pin hole is fixed from the
design height of the crankshaft.

Using the sighting gear in stern frame boss

with solid piece fitted. The stern frame boss is marked
off for boring . The solid piece is then exchanged for a
sighting piece.

A second sighting gear with sighting piece is

fitted to the bore hole in the aft peak bulkhead. This is
adjusted until the light source can be seen through the
boss and aft peak bulkhead sighting pieces. The
sighting piece is replaced by the fixed piece and the
bulkhead may be machined. The stern tube is scribed
out and the p.c.d. of the bolts which will support the
stern tube flange marked off. A similar procedure us
repeated for other bulkheads. When boring out is
completed the stern tube is hauled into position, wood
packing being fitted under the flange before bolting up
at the aft peak bulkhead, the external stern tube nut is
screwed up hard making a rigid connection at the after
end. The tail end shaft is now fitted into the stern tube,
the flange of the tail end shaft is now the standard by
which the remaining line shafting will be aligned.
The trailing block (or towing block), of fitted,
sometimes an ordinary plummer block is fitted
(bearing material all round) is mow fitted around tail
end shaft using feelers and wedging, chocked and
bolted sown. The bearing acts also as an auxiliary
thrust with a large clearance so that there is no
possibility of it taking over from the main thrust under
normal conditions other wise the towing block would
shear.
This takes the form of a split brass ring fitted
to the for'd end of the towing block which allows the
tail end shaft to be disconnected from the intermediate
shaft and hence rotate freely whilst the ship is under
extended towing . The after face of the connecting
flange then rides against this brass ring.
Coupling relationship method
The rest of the intermediate shafting is dropped into
position on lower half bearings and using tail end
flange as a standard they are lined up . This is done by

using feelers between the faces of adjoining flanges,

wedging the lower half bearings until faces are parallel
with a 1/10mm gap between.
A parallel block is used around the periphery of
the flanges. The intermediate bearings are chocked up
by cast iron chocks about 50mm thick and bolted
down. Couplings are continually rechecked. The thrust
block is now aligned coupling to coupling and secured.
Main engine alignment
Bedplate and crankshaft now landed on hardwood
blocks in approximately the position, slightly lower
than true. It is now raised and jacked into position by
lining the mating couplings on thrust and crankshaft.
Cast iron chock thickness now measured, a small
allowance being made to allow for individual fitting
after machining. As each chock fitted its corresponding
stud bolt is screwed through to engine seating and
secured top to bottom. Checks made to ensure that
shaft alignment is maintained, interference fit coupling
bolts fitted and nuts screwed up.
It should be understood that the lining up of
the shaft will only be true for one set of conditions
such as on the building stocks or floating in a light
condition. During service with variable loading some
hogging and sagging takes place but there is sufficient
flexibility in the shaft system to take care of this
variation. Any bearing which runs chronically hot is
almost certainly due to bad initial alignment.
Optical sight line method
This method uses a micro alignment telescope which
generates a sight line between an illuminated
reflective target at one end of the shafting and the
telescope mounted at the other end. The sight line is
generated at a uniform height above the shaft
vertically above the centreline of the shaft. A movable

scale or target is employed on the intermediate shaft

at bearing support points to measure distance from
shaft to the sight line. The reflective target and
movable scale consists of a magnetic 'v'-block fitted
with transverse inclinometer and vertical stand with
micrometer and scale.

Laser system
Similar to optical arrangement except that a laser
housing generates a collimated red laser beam above
the shaft which is detected by a centring detector at
the other end of the shafting. A moving scale detector
is used at intermediate bearing position.

Taut wire method (Pilgrims wire)

Consists of steel wire anchored above shaft at one end
of system and led over a pulley with suspended weight
at the other end.
The height of the pulley and fixed anchorage
are adjusted so that they are the same distance above
the shaft and are positioned vertically over the shaft

centre line. A microstaff is employed to measure the

differences in height at bearing support points
between shafts and wire, an allowance being made for
wire sag.
A master inclinometer is employed to monitor
ships movement during the aligning process.

Bearing load method

Top cover off and horizontal alignment checked

by measuring the side clearances of the shaft within
the bearings. By using the system shown the shaft is
carefully jacked up and a graph plotted. Initially a
curve will be plotted as the ships structure stress
relieves itself from the weight of the shafting, shaft
still sitting on bearing material.
When curve assumes a straight line shaft has
left bearing and in order to avoid damaging the shaft
only sufficient plots will be taken to establish the slope
of the straight line. The slope of the line for each
bearing is put into a computer program which
establishes the shaft system characteristic.

Optical alignment

OPTICAL SIGHT LINE METHOD

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LASER SYSTEM

PIANO WIRE SYSTEM

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BEARING LOAD METHOD

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