Steam Generation

Steam generation is the conversion of water into steam by the application of heat. It is one of the oldest and most widely deployed energy-conversion steps in engineering: steam drives turbines in thermal power stations, provides process heat in industry, and has historically powered reciprocating engines and locomotives.

The basic process

Water is heated until it changes phase. In a boiler or steam generator, heat is transferred to water through a heated surface; the water absorbs latent heat of vaporization and becomes steam. The steam may be produced as saturated steam at a given pressure, or further heated to superheated steam to raise its temperature above the saturation point at that pressure.

The quantities that describe a steam generator's performance are conventional and measurable:

• Heat input — the rate of energy supplied by the heat source (fuel combustion, electrical resistance, solar concentration, nuclear fission, waste heat, and so on).
• Steam output — the mass flow rate of steam produced.
• Pressure and temperature — the thermodynamic state of the produced steam.
• Thermal efficiency — the fraction of input heat that appears as useful enthalpy in the steam, after accounting for stack losses, radiation, blowdown, and other losses.

These quantities are what an independent assessment of any steam generator would measure. A description of a steam generator that omits them cannot be evaluated quantitatively.

Relevance to this wiki

The source dossier on the Schaeffer Steam Generator is an archive account of one such device. The dossier's supplied evidence does not include heat input, steam output, pressure, temperature, or efficiency figures, so no quantitative assessment of that device is possible from the material available. The general concept described here is standard engineering; it should not be read as endorsing any specific claim made in an archive dossier.

Related

• Schaeffer Steam Generator — the device described in the source dossier.
• energy — the topic hub.
• Schaeffer's Steam Generator: A source Dossier — the source article.