Steam Turbines

Steam Turbines         The invention of the water turbine was so successful that eventually, the idea came about for extracting power from steam. Steam has one great advantage over water-it expands in volume with tremendous velocity. To be the most effective, a steam turbine must run at a very high speed. No wheel made can revolve at any speed approaching the velocity that a steam turbine can. By utilizing the kinetic energy of steam flow, the …

…is inherently high in expansion efficiency, because of the ability to recover losses of one stage downstream. This is done through the process of reheating.         Steam turbines are still in heavy use today, providing power to ships as well as many other things. They are used in the generation of nuclear power and they can operate with fuel-fired boilers for power generation. In factories, industrial units are used to power machines, pumps, compressors, electrical generators.