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A steam
turbine is a mechanical device that extracts thermal
energy from pressurized steam, and converts it into
useful mechanical work.
It has almost completely replaced the reciprocating
piston steam engine (invented by Thomas Newcomen and
greatly improved by James Watt) primarily because of
its greater thermal efficiency and higher
power-to-weight ratio. Also, because the turbine
generates rotary motion, it is particularly suited
to be used to drive an electrical generator, about
80% of all electric generation in the world is by
use of steam turbines. — it doesn't require a
linkage mechanism to convert reciprocating to rotary
motion. The steam turbine is a form of heat engine
that derives much of its improvement in
thermodynamic efficiency through the use of multiple
stages in the expansion of the steam (as opposed to
the one stage in the Watt engine), which results in
a closer approach to the ideal reversible process. |
