Steam whistle

A steam whistle is a device used to produce sound

Sound

Sound is a travelling wave which is an oscillation of pressure transmitted through a solid, liquid, or gas, composed of frequencies within the range of hearing and of a level sufficiently strong to be heard, or the sensation stimulated in organs of hearing by such vibrations.- Perception of sound...

 with the aid of live steam

Live steam

Live steam is steam under pressure, obtained by heating water in a boiler. The steam is used to operate stationary or moving equipment.A live steam machine or device is one powered by steam, but the term is usually reserved for those that are replicas, scale models, toys, or otherwise used for...

. Unlike a horn, the sounding mechanism of a whistle contains no moving parts (compare to train horn

Train horn

Train horns are audible warning devices found on most diesel and electric locomotives. Their primary purpose is to alert persons and animals to the presence of a train, especially when approaching a grade crossing. They are also used for acknowledging signals given by railroad employees Train horns...

).
The whistle consists of the following main parts, as seen on the drawing: the whistle bell (1), the steam orifice or aperture (2), and the valve (9).

When the lever (10) is pulled, the valve opens and lets the steam escape through the orifice.

A steam whistle is a device used to produce sound

Sound

Sound is a travelling wave which is an oscillation of pressure transmitted through a solid, liquid, or gas, composed of frequencies within the range of hearing and of a level sufficiently strong to be heard, or the sensation stimulated in organs of hearing by such vibrations.- Perception of sound...

 with the aid of live steam

Live steam

Live steam is steam under pressure, obtained by heating water in a boiler. The steam is used to operate stationary or moving equipment.A live steam machine or device is one powered by steam, but the term is usually reserved for those that are replicas, scale models, toys, or otherwise used for...

. Unlike a horn, the sounding mechanism of a whistle contains no moving parts (compare to train horn

Train horn

Train horns are audible warning devices found on most diesel and electric locomotives. Their primary purpose is to alert persons and animals to the presence of a train, especially when approaching a grade crossing. They are also used for acknowledging signals given by railroad employees Train horns...

).
The whistle consists of the following main parts, as seen on the drawing: the whistle bell (1), the steam orifice or aperture (2), and the valve (9).

When the lever (10) is pulled, the valve opens and lets the steam escape through the orifice. The steam will alternately compress and rarefy in the bell, creating the sound. The pitch

Pitch (music)

Pitch represents the perceived fundamental frequency of a sound. It is one of the three major auditory attributes of sounds along with loudness and timbre. When the actual fundamental frequency can be precisely determined through physical measurement, it may differ from the perceived pitch because...

, or tone, is dependent on the length of the bell; and also how far the operator has opened the valve. Some locomotive engineers invented their own style of whistling.

Uses of Steam Whistles

Steam whistles were often used in factories, and similar places to signal the start or end of a shift, etc. Railway locomotive

Steam locomotive

A steam locomotive is a locomotive powered by steam. The term usually refers to its use on railways, but can also refer to a "road locomotive" such as a traction engine or steamroller....

s, traction engine

Traction engine

A traction engine is a self-propelled steam engine used to move heavy loads on roads, plough ground or to provide power at a chosen location. The name derives from the Latin tractus, meaning 'drawn', since the prime function of any traction engine is to draw a load behind it...

s, and steam ships have traditionally been fitted with a whistle for warning and communication purposes. Large diameter steam whistles were used on light houses, likely beginning in the 1850s.

The earliest use of steam whistles was as boiler low-water alarms in the 1700s and early 1800s. During the 1830s, whistles were adopted by railroads and steamship companies.

Steam whistles for use on locomotives have since been replaced by air horns

Train horn

Train horns are audible warning devices found on most diesel and electric locomotives. Their primary purpose is to alert persons and animals to the presence of a train, especially when approaching a grade crossing. They are also used for acknowledging signals given by railroad employees Train horns...

.

An array of steam whistles arranged to play music is referred to as a calliope

Calliope (music)

A calliope is a musical instrument that produces sound by sending a gas, originally steam or more recently compressed air, through large whistles, originally locomotive whistles....

.

Types of Whistles

• Plain whistle – an inverted cup mounted on a stem, as in the illustration above. In Europe, railway steam whistles were typically loud, shrill, single-note plain whistles. In the UK, locomotives were usually fitted with only one or two of these whistles, the latter having different tones and being controlled individually to allow more complex signalling. On railroads in Finland, two single-note whistles were used on every engine; one shrill, one of a lower tone. They were used for different signaling purposes.

• Chime whistle – two or more resonant bells or chambers that sound simultaneously. In America, railway steam whistles were typically compact chime whistles with more than one whistle contained within, creating a chord. In Australia the New South Wales Government Railways after the 1924 re-classification many steam locomotives either had 5 chimes whistles fitted (this include many locomotives from the pre 1924 re-classification, or were build new with 5 chime whistles. 3-chimes (3 compact whistles within one) were very popular, as well as 5-chimes, and 6-chimes. In some cases chime whistles were used in Europe. Ships such as the Titanic were equipped with chimes consisting of three separate whistles (in the case of the Titanic the whistles measured 9, 12, and 15 inches diameter).

• Organ Whistle – a whistle with mouths cut in the side, usually a long whistle in relation to diameter, hence the name. These whistle were very common on steamships, especially those manufactured in the UK.

• Gong – two whistles facing in opposite directions on a common axis. These were popular as factory whistles. Some were composed of three whistle chimes.

• Variable pitch whistle – a whistle containing an internal piston available for changing pitch. This whistle type could be made to sound like a siren or to play a melody. Often called a fire alarm whistle, wildcat whistle, or mocking bird whistle.

• Toroidal or Levavasseur whistle – a whistle with a torus-shaped (doughnut-shaped) resonant cavity paralleling the annular gas orifice, named after Robert Levavasseur, its inventor. Unlike a conventional whistle, the diameter (and sound level) of a ring-shaped whistle can be increased without altering resonance chamber cross-sectional area (preserving frequency), allowing construction of a very large diameter high frequency whistle. The frequency of a conventional whistle declines as diameter is increased. Other ring-shaped whistles include the Hall-Teichmann whistle, Ultrawhistle, and Dynawhistle.

• Helmholtz Whistle – a whistle with a cross-sectional area exceeding that of the whistle bell opening, often shaped like a bottle or incandescent light bulb. The frequency of this whistle relative to its size is lower than that of a conventional whistle and therefore these whistles have found application in small gauge steam locomotives. Also termed a Bangham whistle.

Resonant Frequency

A whistle has a characteristic natural resonant frequency that can be detected by gently blowing human breath across the whistle rim, much as one might blow over the mouth of a bottle. The active sounding frequency (when the whistle is blown on steam) may differ from the natural frequency as discussed below. These comments apply to whistles with a mouth area at least equal to the cross-sectional area of the whistle.

• Whistle Length – The natural resonant frequency decreases as the length of the whistle is increased. Doubling the effective length of a whistle reduces the frequency by one half, assuming that the whistle cross-sectional area is uniform. A whistle is a quarter-wave generator, which means that a sound wave generated by a whistle is about four times the whistle length. The speed of sound in steam is 15936 inches per second, so a pipe with a 15-inch effective length blowing its natural frequency would sound near Middle-C: 15936/(4 x 15) = 266 Hz. Formulas are available to estimate the effective length of a whistle, but an accurate formula to predict sounding frequency would have to incorporate whistle length, scale, gas flow rate, mouth height, and mouth wall area (see below).

• Blowing Pressure – Frequency increases with blowing pressure, which determines gas volume flow through the whistle, allowing a locomotive engineer to play a whistle like a musical instrument, using the valve to vary the flow of steam. The term for this was “quilling.” An experiment with a short plain whistle reported in 1883 showed that incrementally increasing steam pressure drove the whistle from E to D-flat, a 68 percent increase in frequency. However, frequency may vary at a fixed blowing pressure with differences in temperature. Compression temperature determines mass flow rate, and discharge temperature determines volume flow and the speed of sound. Such temperatures may vary widely, especially if compressed air is used to blow a whistle. Industrial steam whistles typically were operated in the range of 100 to 300 pounds per square inch gauge pressure (psig) (0.7 - 2.1 megapascals, MPa), although some were constructed for use on pressures as high as 600 psig (4.1 MPa). All of these pressures are within the choked flow
  Choked flow
  Choked flow of a fluid is a fluid dynamic condition caused by the Venturi effect. When a flowing fluid at a certain pressure and temperature flows through a restriction into a lower pressure environment, under the conservation of mass the fluid velocity must increase for initially subsonic...
  
   regime, where mass flow scales with upstream absolute pressure and inversely with the square root of absolute temperature. Excessive pressure for a given whistle design will drive the whistle into an overblown mode, where the fundamental frequency will be replaced by a sound close to three times the fundamental. A long narrow whistle such as that of the Liberty ship John W. Brown
  John W. Brown
  John W. Brown was a labor union leader.Born in Canada, he moved to Maine and worked as a joiner at the Bath Iron Works, where he became involved with the labor movement...
  
   sounds a rich spectrum of overtones, but is not overblown. (In overblowing the "amplitude of the pipe fundamental frequency falls to zero.")
• Whistle Scale – The more squat the whistle, the greater is the change in pitch with blowing pressure due to a lower Q factor
  Q factor
  In physics and engineering the quality factor or Q factor is a dimensionless parameter that describes how under-damped an oscillator or resonator is, or equivalently, characterizes a resonator's bandwidth relative to its center frequency....
  
  . The pitch of a very squat whistle may rise several semitones as pressure is raised. Whistle frequency prediction thus requires establishment of a set of frequency/pressure curves unique to whistle scale, and a set of whistles may fail to track a musical chord as blowing pressure changes if each whistle is of a different scale. This is true of many antique whistles divided into a series of compartments of the same diameter but of different lengths. Some whistle designers minimized this problem by building resonant chambers of a similar scale.

• Mouth Vertical Length (“cut-up”) – Frequency of a plain whistle declines as the whistle bell is raised away from the steam source. If the cut-up of an organ whistle or single bell chime is raised (without raising the whistle ceiling), the effective chamber length is shortened. Shortening the chamber drives frequency up, but raising the cut-up drives frequency down. The resulting frequency (higher, lower, or unchanged) will be determined by whistle scale and by competition between the two drivers.

• Mouth Arc – The natural frequency of a whistle with a 360-degree mouth (that extends completely around the whistle circumference) is lower than that of a whistle of the same length and same mouth area but with a partially walled mouth, resembling an organ pipe. The walled mouth whistle is said to have a lesser effective length.

• Steam Aperture Width – Frequency may rise as steam aperture width declines and the slope of the frequency/pressure curve may vary with aperture width.

• Gas Composition – A whistle blown on steam has a frequency about 1.5 semitones higher than when blown on compressed air at the same flow rate due to the greater density of air.

Sound Pressure Level

Whistle sound level varies with several factors:

• Blowing Pressure – Sound level increases as blowing pressure is raised.

• Whistle Scale – Sound level increases as whistle length/width ratio decreases. A halving of effective length may enable the whistle to tolerate a doubling of absolute pressure resulting in a quadrupling of sound level. Variable pitch whistles vary in both frequency and sound level as scale is changed. The sound level of a very squat 587 Hz whistle recorded at the Boot Hill annual whistle blow in 1994 measured 126 C-weighted decibels at 10 meters. A short six-inch diameter plain whistle sounded 113 dbC at 100 feet whereas a six-inch diameter “organ-pipe” design (much lower in frequency) tested under the same conditions sounded 110 dBC at 100 feet. Such comparative measurements as these were recorded in an acoustic half-space at best, and gas flow rates are unknown.

• Whistle Diameter – Sound level increases with whistle diameter, as the sound radiating area increases with diameter. Tests of a sample of 13 single-note whistles ranging in size from one-inch diameter to six-inch diameter showed a sound level increase with diameter of 15 dBC, or about six decibels for each doubling of diameter. A 20-inch diameter Ultrawhistle operating at 15 pounds per square inch gauge pressure (103.4 kilopascals) produced 124 dBC at 100 feet. It is unknown how the sound level of a toroidal whistle would compare to that of a high frequency conventional plain whistle of the same diameter. By comparison, a Bell-Chrysler air-raid siren generates 138 dBC at 100 feet. The sound level of a Levavasseur toroidal whistle is enhanced by about 10 decibels by a secondary cavity parallel to the resonant cavity, the former creating a vortex that augments the oscillations of the jet driving the whistle.

• Steam Aperture Width – If gas flow is restricted by the area of the steam aperture, widening the aperture will increase the sound level for a fixed blowing pressure. Enlarging the steam aperture can compensate for the loss of sound output if pressure is reduced. It has been known since at least the 1830s that whistles can be modified for low pressure operation and still achieve a high sound level. Data on the compensatory relationship between pressure and aperture size are scant, but tests on compressed air indicate that a halving of absolute pressure requires that the aperture size be at least doubled in width to maintain the original sound level, and aperture width in some antique whistles increases with diameter for whistles of the same scale, suggesting that flow requirement may be some function of cross-sectional area.

• Steam Aperture Profile – Gas flow rate (and thus sound level) is set not only by aperture area, but also by aperture geometry. Friction and turbulence influence the flow rate, and are accounted for by a discharge coefficient. Field estimates of whistle discharge coefficients range from 0.66 to 0.73.

• Mouth Vertical Length (“cut-up”) – The mouth length (cut-up) that provides the highest sound level at a fixed blowing pressure varies with whistle scale, and some makers of multi-tone whistles therefore cut a mouth height unique to the scale of each resonant chamber, maximizing sound output of the whistle. Ideal cut-up for whistles of a fixed diameter and aperture width (including single-bell chime compartments) at a fixed blowing pressure appears to vary approximately with the square root of effective length. Antique whistle makers commonly used a compromise mouth area of about 1.4x whistle cross-sectional area. If a plain whistle is driven to its maximum sound level with the mouth area set equal to the whistle cross-sectional area, the sound level may be increased significantly by further increasing the mouth area without raising the blowing pressure.

• Frequency and Distance – Sound pressure level decreases by half (six decibels) with each doubling of distance due to divergence from the source. This relationship is termed inverse proportional, often incorrectly described as the inverse square law; the latter applies to sound intensity, not sound pressure. Sound pressure level also decreases due to atmospheric absorption, which is strongly dependent upon frequency, lower frequencies traveling farthest. For example, a 1000 Hz whistle has an atmospheric attenuation coefficient one half that of a 2000 Hz whistle (calculated for 50 percent relative humidity at 20 degrees Celsius). This means that in addition to divergent sound dampening, there would be a loss of 0.5 decibel per 100 meters from the 1000 Hz whistle and 1.0 decibel per 100 meters for the 2000 Hz whistle. Additional factors affecting sound propagation include barriers, atmospheric temperature gradients, and "ground effects.”

Loudest and Largest Whistles

Loudness

Loudness

Loudness is the quality of a sound that is the primary psychological correlate of physical strength .Loudness, a subjective measure, is often confused with objective measures of sound pressure such as decibels or sound intensity. Filters such as A-weighting attempt to adjust sound measurements to...

is a subjective perception that is influenced by sound pressure level, sound duration, and sound frequency. High sound pressure level potential has been claimed for the whistles of Vladimir Gavreau, who tested whistles as large as 1.5 meter (59-inch) diameter (37 Hz).
A 20-inch diameter ring-shaped whistle (“Ultrawhistle”) patented and produced by Richard Weisenberger sounded 124 decibels at 100 feet.
A fire-warning whistle supplied to a Canadian saw mill by the Eaton, Cole, and Burnham Company in 1882 measured 20 inches in diameter, four feet nine inches from bowl to ornament, and weighed 400 pounds. The spindle supporting the whistle bell measured 3.5 inches diameter and the whistle was supplied by a four inch feed pipe.
Other records of large whistles include an 1893 account of President Cleveland activating the “largest steam whistle in the world,” said to be “five feet” at the Chicago World’s Fair.
The sounding chamber of a whistle installed at the 1924 Long-Bell Lumber Company, Longview, Washington measured 16 inches diameter x 49 inches in length.
The whistle bells of multi-bell chimes used on ocean liners such as the Titanic measured 9, 12, and 15 inches diameter.
The whistle bells of the Canadian Pacific steamships Assiniboia and Keewatin measured 12 inches in diameter and that of the Keewatin measured 60 inches in length.
A multi-bell chime whistle installed at the Standard Sanitary manufacturing Company in 1926 was composed of five separate whistle bells measuring 5 x15, 7 x 21, 8x 24, 10 x 30, and 12 x36 inches, all plumbed to a five-inch steam pipe.
The Union Water Meter Company of Worcester Massachusetts produced a gong whistle composed of three bells, 8 x 9-3/4, 12 x 15, and 12 x 25 inches. Twelve-inch diameter steam whistles were commonly used at light houses in the 1800s.
It has been claimed that the sound level of an Ultrawhistle would be significantly greater than that of a conventional whistle, but comparative tests of large whistles have not been undertaken. Tests of small Ultrawhistles have not shown higher sound levels compared to conventional whistles of the same diameter.

Further reading

Fagen, Edward A. (2001). The Engine's Moan: American Steam Whistles. New Jersey: Astragal Press. x+277 pages.