What Is The Difference Between A
Steam Turbine And Reciprocating Steam Engine?
The reciprocating steam engine utilizes
economically a greater amount of the available energy of the steam at
high pressures than at low pressures. The turbine, on the other hand,
has the advantage at low pressures and in cases where large expansion
of the steam are uses.
To obtain the same steam expansion in a
reciprocating engine, the cylinders would be very large with greater
cylinder losses. The greater expansion of steam in turbines permits
the recovery of a large\ amount of power from what otherwise (in the
reciprocating steam engine) would be waste steam.
The most important energy losses that
occur in a turbine include: steam leakage, wheel and blade rotation,
left-over velocity of the steam leaving the blades, heat content of
the exhaust steam, radiation, and friction.
The steam consumption of the
reciprocating engine and the turbine are approximately the same, but
the steam turbine operates on the complete expansion cycle, the
reciprocating engine operates on a cycle with incomplete expansion.
The turbine, therefore, converts into
work a greater amount of heat per pound of steam used. Although steam
pressures and temperatures, and turbine designs continue to improve
the overall efficiencies of power plants, nevertheless the thermal
efficiency of steam turbines hovers around 35 percent.
The steam turbine, however, is well
adapted to the driving of electric generators of the alternating
current type as the desirable speeds of the two machines are the
same, and is almost universally used in steam plants larger than
about 1000 kW capacity.
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