Commonwealth Marine Engine Works.

The Australian Shipbuilding Board, established the Commonwealth Marine Engine Works, to build two marine engine annexes - one in Brisbane, and the other in Melbourne.

Port Melbourne Works.

This installation was established in 1943, initially to produce steam reciprocating engines of up to 3730 kW for installation in "River", "B", and "D" class ships. By 1952 the works had built eleven large steam engines and a number of high-speed engines, standard steam cargo winches and steam steering engines. In addition, the "Works" undertook partial manufacture and final a final assembly of 17 Bauer Wach turbine units with gearboxes.

In 1949 the "Works" began to build large slow-speed marine diesel engines for installation in Australian coastal ships, first under licence to William Doxford and Sons (Engineers) Limited, Sunderland, England (opposed piston engines) and from 1961 also under licence to Sulzer Bros, Winterthur, Switzerland. Up to the time of this research, the "Works" manufactured 16 Doxford engines totalling 43,500 kW and 13 Sulzer engines totalling 90,300 kW. The largest engine built so far being the Sulzer seven cylinder RND90 which weighed 688 tonnes, 16.5 metres long x 11.2 metres high x 8.1 metres wide, achieved a 14.9 MW output with a mean effective pressure of 10.85 kg/cm square, and a compression ratio of 14:1.


Port Melbourne Works

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