Burmeister & Wain

Burmeister & Wain Maskin -og Skibsbyggeri (in short: B & W) is a former mechanical engineering and shipbuilding company headquartered in Copenhagen.

B & W had its origin as a manufacturer of marine propulsion ( first steam engines and boilers, and later marine diesel engines ) and as a shipyard. The drive machine also came in railway locomotives and power plants for use.

The traditional company was split in the 1970s after a severe financial crisis in separate branches which were largely absorbed by other companies.

History

Origins and structure

The company was founded in 1843 on the Copenhagen Købmagergade as a small machine shop. This year, coming from Halstenbek in Holstein craftsman Hans Heinrich Baumgarten (1806-1875) received the Royal permission to set up a plant after an audience with the Danish crown prince Christian.

The young company grew rapidly, so that the place to Købmagergade was too tight and funds for investment and expansion were needed. Therefore Baumgarten took in 1846 a new partner, Carl Christian Burmeister ( 1821-1898 ), with the company, which was renamed subsequently as Baumgarten & Burmeister (B & B). The following year, 1847, the workshop moved to after Christianshavn and was complemented by a large iron foundry. 1848 B & B built his first steam engine. 1851 B & B rented a shipyard by the Englishman Jacob Holm and built there in 1854 the first ship, the S / S Hermod.

1861, Baumgarten withdrew from the daily business of company management and was a silent partner. As a substitute and complement increased in 1865, Englishman William Wain ( 1819-1882 ) joined the company, who had previously worked for the Royal Danish Navy and the docks. 1872 renamed the company as Burmeister & Wain Aktieselskabet (B & W) and founded his own yard on the barrier island Refshaleøen (55 ° 41 '35 " N, 12 ° 37 ' 0" O55.69305612.616667 ). To 1870, B & W also tried as a producer of steam locomotives, was the business but quickly back on. B & W was the largest employer in the city. 1880, the company Burmeister & Wain Maskin -og Skibsbyggeri called ( German: Burmeister & Wain machine and Schiffsbauerei ).

In 1890, B & W built his first internal combustion engine, a paraffin engine. 1898 was B & W by Rudolf Diesel the exclusive license for the manufacture of a year earlier patented the diesel engine in Denmark. After several years of development, B & W in 1912, the breakthrough for the diesel marine propulsion system with the Selandia, the world's first oceangoing motor ship.

In the coming decades, the company continued to grow, involved 1920/21 a larger factory in Teglholmen (55 ° 39 '3 " N, 12 ° 33 ' 4" O55.65076412.551064 ) and developed into a worldwide leading manufacturer of diesel engines and motor vessels. B & W built in 1930 the first two-stroke diesel engine, which became the standard for marine diesel later. In addition to marine diesel engines and for diesel locomotives and power plants have been produced so built B & W, for example, in 1933 the diesel engine for the power plant HC Ørsted Værket in Copenhagen. This engine was, with its electrical capacity of 12 MW for more than thirty years the largest diesel engine in the world. He was used as peak load reserve in the power plant to 2003 and is now ( still unserviceable! ) In diesel House to visit a MAN operating museum in Copenhagen.

In a warehouse in Christianshavn, close to the former factory site, the B & W Museum was set up in recent times, which shows the development of the company.

Decline and splitting

After the Second World War B & W came in the 1960s under increasing financial pressure due to the worldwide price competition on the shipbuilding market and the resulting shipyard crisis. It was decided in 1971, the ailing shipbuilding area (B & W Skibsbyggeri ) from the rest of the company ( B & W Engine & Maskinfabrik ) to separate. The latter was divided again in 1980:

Shipbuilding

The wharf area produced after the separation in 1971, despite the ongoing financial difficulties, yet until 1996. Then - after more than 1000 ships - this area was smashed and the different locations were taken from various companies ( Kockums, Tschudi & Eitzen, Giuseppe Bottiglieri, ...).

Diesel engines

The range of diesel engines made ​​from 1979/80, a separate company B & W Diesel A / S, which was sold to MAN. The area around was renamed as MAN B & W Diesel, MAN Diesel and ultimately MAN Diesel & Turbo, so that the name Burmeister & Wain or the abbreviation B & W ultimately disappeared from the corporate name, and is continued by MAN only as a brand.

Two-stroke marine diesel engines by B & W design with outputs up to 90,000 kW among the most efficient heat engines in the world. Normal arrangement are preferably in-line engines with an odd number of cylinders up to nine cylinders, but there are now also V- engines up to twelve cylinders built. Typical dimensions of such motors are holes of about one meter, a stroke of three meters and a nominal speed for 60-80 min -1. These motors require no gearbox and no motor starter. They are let for forward or reverse run by compressed air and drive the propeller without clutch and gears on the propeller shaft directly. With such motors, efficiencies up to 65 % can be achieved which, no other type of engine under the heat engines.

A characteristic of these engines is that they are usually built on the shipyards equal even in MAN license because of its huge dimensions and heavier components and thus arise in multiple locations simultaneously and independently. The biggest engines are built on Korean and Chinese shipyards. Typical fuel for these engines is the heavy oil that is produced in the process of refining crude oil into the lower pans above the asphalt. This heavy oil is in the normal state viscous as honey or axle grease and must first be brought to temperatures above 250 degrees before it runny and thus eligible is sufficient in heating devices at the bottom of the fuel bunker - and can be injected for combustion in the cylinder heads.

Energy Technology

The area power plant and power plant (Burmeister & Wain Energi A / S, in short: BWE), the stationary furnaces, boilers and complete power plants built, was built around 1960 by the merger of B & W's activities in this area with those of the company Toma A / S in Tønder.

BWE was sold in 1980 to Lentjes. Lentjes brought BWE in the joint venture Babcock Lentjes power plant technology a. From there, in 1997, the Danish Investor FLS Industries took over the former BWE, split it up and sold it for parts. From this emerged several companies that lead in part to this day the name Burmeister & Wain in the Company:

• Burmeister & Wain Energy in Kgs. Lyngby, plant engineers for furnaces, boilers, flue gas cleaning systems and complete power plants
• Burmeister & Wain Scandinavian Contractor A / S, building companies for diesel engine power plants and other small plants, is part of the Mitsui Group
• Boiler Works A / S in Tønder