Online Catalogue last updated 17th of September 2023
George Preston started his engineering career with the Harland Engineering Company in Scotland. He then spent several years with the British India Steam Navigation Company as a Marine Engineer Officer, mainly on steamships, visiting most of the countries around the Indian Ocean. One of these countries was Australia where he met his future wife, Ruth. He "swallowed the hook" a year after they were married and went back to Scotland where he became involved in hospital engineering in the Scottish Border country and in Glasgow before spending twelve years as the Factory Engineer of John Player's cigarette factory in his home town of Stirling. These occupations saw him involved in the operation or management of a variety of boiler installations and marine steam turbines.
George moved to Australia in 1979 with his wife, Ruth and their two children and after working in automotive battery engineering and production, became an Inspector of Machinery with the Queensland State Government. He studied at Queensland University of Technology and gained his Graduate Diploma in Occupational Health and Safety. He left Government service in 1995 to start his occupational health and safety consultancy, which includes training and assessing candidates for their national boiler and turbine certificates. George is a founding member of the Association of Accredited Providers founded in Queensland and a former executive of that body.
The "Steam Turbine Operator's Handbook" was written as a companion to the earlier "Boiler Operator's Handbook" to help candidates to pass the relevant Worksafe national examination and to fill a perceived need for easily read books on the operation of turbines and boilers. The modern steam turbine operator does not need to know the mathematics involved in stress calculations or the metallurgy involved in turbine manufacture although it is important to appreciate that there are limits that must not be exceeded. The operating limits of individual turbines are set by the manufacturers and designers of the turbines and these limits are to be found in the literature supplied by the turbine manufacturer. This book is not intended as a substitute for practical experience, but as an aid to those candidate who are learning, "on the job", the challenges and responsibilities of operating turbines in that very best and demanding of teaching environments, the workplace.
Code No. 010677, 96 pages, ISBN 0975161504, $29.00