[Steve Mavronis]

What was the auxilary engine room used for that featured the same V-structure behind the grill too? I'm not talking about the upper control room they sometimes showed. Maybe I have the room names wrong.

Wish that Trek5 site was still up with all the episode screen captures. Is there a mirror site somewhere? They were great for reference.

 

[Griffworks]

I'm at work so don't have it here with me, but I've got an image at home on my PC that Thomas Sasser came up with as an interesting idea for the Engine Room in the secondary hull that he felt worked. Don't shoot me if I get these details wrong, but the gist of is was that he sunk the engineering deck about two decks lower than most folks place it, and then split it in half with the supposition that what we see on TV isn't the full engineering room, but just teh starboard side. I forget exactly how he came up with an explanation for explaining the curvature of the wall, but it seemed to make sense to me at the time. Anybody else remember the details?

CRA also had an interesting take, but the details elude me right now, sorry to say. I know that a lot of his "plumbing" lined up pretty well w/the exterior markings on the secondary hull keel.

Of course, I'm still of a mind that main engineering is in the primary hull. That's based on some of the scenes from TOS in which we get a view outside of main engineering and the hallway is somewhat curved.

 

[uss_columbia]

Steve: try trekcore.com

Griff:
CRA had two nearly identical engine rooms, one one each side (fore/aft) of the mesh/tube thingy, which he locates far forward of the nacelle pylons. The tubes connect to power transfer conduits or somesuch, with one part of the conduit making its way through the floor (under the dilithium doo-hickey) and on to the nacelles. The two nearly identical engine rooms are meant to explain the differences in the set dressing, one with the dilithium doo-hickey, for example. I'm not doing it justice with the description. You might have to wait for April to post his picture.
(BTW, I'd forgotten about his features corresponding to the keel markings.)

Sorry for using technical terms thingy and doo-hicky. I can't think of the layperson's terms.

[Edit]
As to engineering in primary hull, I think there is indeed one there. The set we've seen has too high ceilings to fit where FJ placed it, but some kind of engineering section certainly belongs near the impulse engines.

(And there's that dilithium engineering room seen in Alternative Factor.)

I like aridas sofia's three-reactor theory. I put one reactor below the dilithium doo-hickey in main engineering, which I put ahead of the shuttle bay, where MGagen shows it. The other two reactors are in the nacelles.
In addition to these three M/AM reactors, we have backup fusion reactors in the primary hull near the impulse engines, in the PH engineering section. The Alternative Factor room would be somewhere in the EH. The auxiliary control room (with the cool shaped table/consoles) should be in the EH, too (for use in the event of saucer separation, among other things).

That's my take that seems to fit what we've seen fairly well. I don't sweat the exact locations and details too much. And I don't mind that the engineering set seems to sometimes be used to represent the engineering section in the PH and other times Main Engineering in the EH.

 

[Four Mad Men]

uss_columbia

Thanks. I've not had the CG bug lately but MGs picture was nagging at me to try my hand at it.

MGagen

Yes, the way mine open is not like you show in your picture. I just really like the idea of them folding into each other. I have added the section separations on the outside and have re-rendered from a higher angle so you get a better view of what is going on. I called it "control room" (note the quotes) simply because I had no other name for it. So here is the newest animation hot off the presses:

Hangar Door Test 2 (94.9 KB, XviD)

And thanks for the inspiration!

 

[uss_columbia]

^ Thanks for the higher angle! Looks cool.

(I'm now wondering if it would look better or worse if all of the segments moved at once. (It would allow the door to open faster.) If you get the urge to do another movement sequence, it would be interesting to see. No pressure, though.)

 

[Four Mad Men]

My first setup did just that. The first two actually. One would not physically work and the other was not visually interesting enough. I am tempted, however, to try a pure translation of MGagen's idea where they don't interconnect when opening.

 

[MGagen]

The Engine Room could be placed in a lower position but lining up the V-structure should be the last consideration, IMO. To me, the curved roof clearly indicates the exterior hull....

Actually, the curve is far too small to be the outer hull, at least in the 947 foot configuration. Interestingly enough, it's a good match for the outer hull if we place it in the original 540 foot ship concept:

Engineering in the smaller ship.

However, in the 947 footer, taking into account the 2 foot below centerline deck, it is concentric with the outer hull. I think this points to some structural bracing or features associated with the pylons. Unlike the Franz Joseph "velcro onto the hull plating" version, MJ's pylons had ROOTS.

...the forward area must be reserved for Shuttlecraft stowage and maintenance.

You're leaving out the possibility that the considerable space on either side of engineering might connect directly with the hangar deck. For all we know, under the engineering high-bay on the starboard side, and the manual monitor room on the port are two service bays for shuttles. I can just hear the sound of airguns as they tighten lug nuts drifing through an open door, as Scotty returns to Engineering, wiping the grease off his hands with a shop rag. He's just finished a lube job on the Columbia and his men are busy with the 50,000 light year nacelle rotation. We can't have any uneven intercooler wear, now can we? :lol:

M.

 

[uss_columbia]

MJ clearly labeled his hangar drawing with turntable and elevator. It's been assumed this means the elevator goes down to a storage or maintenance location below deck where it has an awfully hard time fitting. What if it actually elevates above the floor so it's easier to get access to the oil pan?

 

[uss_columbia]

MGagen: what about that pilot dome information you're holding? Don't tease us like that!

 

[KUROK]

MJ clearly labeled his hangar drawing with turntable and elevator. It's been assumed this means the elevator goes down to a storage or maintenance location below deck where it has an awfully hard time fitting. What if it actually elevates above the floor so it's easier to get access to the oil pan?

Yeah it's tight under there for an elevator.
Perhaps the big rectangular red outline under the hangar deck is an emergency entry/exit if the doors fail?

 

[X15-A2]

Mark,

Well, I've laid out the deck (plan view) showing the two forward Shuttlecraft Hangars and there is not enough room for port & starboard shuttle bays AND main engineering AND an access corridor for the Hagar deck AND structural framing.

It seems that most people who layout these ships interiors (fans) leave no room for structure or equipment spaces but even without those two elements, there still isn't room for main engineering on the same deck. Keep in mind that the Shuttle bays are not simply going to be places where the shuttles are shoe-horned in for storage, there must also be some access and work space around/over/under them and once you add that, there is precious little free space for anything else. It is so bad in fact, that my version features only one bay where minimum disassembly is possible, the other bay is a garage only. The two craft would have to swap bays for the other one to be worked on. Then what about spare parts? Would you have at least one spare warp nacelle for the shuttlecraft? Or a pair? I would think so but man, start putting those elements in and you begin to have compartments so cramped that it feels like you're onboard a U-boat! Even if those sorts of parts are stored elsewhere, such as below decks, they still have to physically fit in the bay along with the Shuttlecraft during changeout operations. The problem with the Enterprise is that there just isn't as much room inside as everyone seems to think. In fact, there really isn't enough room for everything that was shown, talked about and implied.

 

[X15-A2]

Mark,

About the Engine Room ceiling curvature, I think the arc that you've shown on your graphic is too sharp of a radius. Did you note that the inner curve of the ceiling frame is not the same as the outer curve? In fact, neither one appears to be an arc at all. Instead they look more like elipses or possibly lines made up of two tangent arcs of differing radii. Heres a couple of shots to show what I'm talking about:

This one shows the irregular nature of the ceiling curve:

This one shows how the ceiling frames tapper:

 

[uss_columbia]

Warped9's concept of how the "elevator" might work is quite interesting, definitely worth a read if you haven't seen it.

 

[MGagen]

X15-1A,

You make very good points, as always. Thomas Sasser's engineering proposal is making more sense every day. If only it weren't for that sticky point about where the ladder goes up to from that little room in the high bay.

For my part, the image I worked from for the ceiling line did not have as much of it filled in solid. The flat area further to port from the conduit mesh was not even present on it. As such, I felt free to interpret in continuing in an arc past the center point. I assume this is extra flat ceiling was added for certain shots.

In the end, though, I cannot personally give up the location of Engineering indicated by Jefferies in his Phase II plan. Perhaps the two pockets on either side of engineering are merely elevators to lower the shuttles down to a larger garage and maintenance area a deck below. Then the central elevator could be for workbees as you suggest, going down to a slightly higher section of the same garage.

M.

 

[MGagen]

MGagen: what about that pilot dome information you're holding? Don't tease us like that!

Worthwhile things take time -- and this one's a doozy. I've been working on it all evening and have just finished.

However, given the strictures imposed by our esteemed moderator, I'm going to start a new thread for it. It will definitely generate some discussion of how the interior was intended to fit.

Here's the thread:

A Look at the Original Pilot Bridge Dome as Depicted in the Construction BPs

I hope to see you all there!

M.

 

[starseeker]

I'd always assumed that like the primary bridge, the main engineering control room was located in the primary hull. That the curved ceiling was reflected in the curved segment on top of the primary hull that runs back from near the bridge to over the impulse engines. The spacing between two forced perspective tunnels leading back from the engineering room closely matches the spacing of the inner two of the original 4 pairs of impulse... vents? thrusters? exhausts?
By the way, what are the impulse engines? They're not anti-matter. Where do they store their propellant?
If saucer separation is a possibility, the the primary hull has to be self-contained, at least for a limited period of time. That means it would have to have it's own engineering control room as well as fuel supplies, etc, over and above all the warp engineering facilities located in the engineering hull. (Did MJ consider the possibility of saucer separation or was that a later add-on?)
Perhaps the engineering room we see on TV wasn't supposed to represent the engineering facilities located on decks 18 or 19 or wherever and shown on later movie and TV incarnations. And we also know that the Jeffries tubes were a later add-on, not part of the original design, so they could be left out of consideration. If original intent is what's being discussed.

 

[aridas sofia]

I interpreted Jefferies' notations on the Phase 2 cross section, and illustration on the TMoST graphic, to mean a multi-story engineering space. If one looks at what Mike Minor then did with the Jefferies Phase 2 drawing, and the multi-story engineering room that resulted that was to have been just forward of the hangar deck... and if one lines up pylons, hangar, and the space indicated for engineering... I think you end up with the familiar space being on the same level as the hangar, and other spaces related perhaps to the TAS "engineering core" rising above and below that room:

 

[X15-A2]

There always appears to be plenty of space until one looks at the various decks in latteral crossections. Then you discover how little space there really is inside this hull.

If you add a reasonable hull thickness plus internal structure, then there is even less room. We don't know exactly how thick the hull was meant to be but there are clues. First, there is the portion of casing visible over the Hangar Deck doors, which works out to be about 26 inches in thickness. Next are the known displays of the ships ability to sustain all manner of high structural loads, up to and including the nearby detonation of a nuclear device.

I don't know how thick the hull would have to be to withstand such loading (we also have no idea what the hull is made of either) but in addition to structural loads, it must also be hardened against other types of threats to the lives of the crew. First and foremost of these protections would be against radiation (this is probably the top threat for crews in space), next would be thermal protection followed by magnetic and finally electrical. I imagine that these considerations would result in a layered hull of varying thicknesses resulting in a fairly deep total thickness. There might be layers for protection from other less obvious types of threats as well.

Before anyone jumps in with comments about how these issues would be dealt with by "force fields", keep in mind that Starfleet architects would be well aware of the many instances in the service histories where electrically driven systems were denied or rendered inoperative, thus leaving the given crew with only the capabilities of the basic ships structure to protect them. This would be the final fall-back survival position for the crew and as such, the ship designers would be obligated to give them the best survival chances possible. In fact, we know that they did so by virtue of the many extreme life threatening situations the ships have survived.

I see this design approach as being similar to that of a battleship. On a battleship the crew have heavy long-range guns, medium-range guns, and close-in guns to protect from threats of various levels of immediacy. They also have torpedoes and ECM capabilities for even more protection but for the most part, these systems all rely (to different degrees) upon a functional ships infrastructure, mostly its electrical generating capability. Take that system away and the ship becomes a "target", its only protection then being the passive ones, namely the armored hull.

This "last ditch" capability would be present on our "Starship" as well, in the form of a thick outer hull with heavy internal bracing. Though we never saw the true hull thickness (and it might well vary from section to section, it does not necessarily have to be uniform), we always saw the heavy internal structure, in nearly every set.

These are few more things to consider when creating an inboard profile or deck plans.

 

[aridas sofia]

As for deck thickness, we see a mesh overhead the corridor in the deleted scenes from WNMHGB, and in both Jefferies cross sections it scales out to ~one foot IIRC.

As for the rest of it (hull thickness, etc.) he allows a similar thickness. Not being conversant in the requirements of a warp-capable vessel, I'm willing to go with the designer's intent on this one.

 

[X15-A2]

So you have decided to ignore the visible portion of the casing around the Hangar Deck? To me that is the strongest evidence we have of the intended hull thickness but of course, it is not definitive. I would argue that the extant MJ inboard profile is too small to really extract fine detail such as thicknesses, however, when I bring it into the CAD environment and scale it up to 947 feet, this is the result:

This image just shows a selection of thicknesses for comparison purposes. There is obviously "wiggle room" because the image is blurry but it is still instructive, though once again, not definitive.