Steam turbines convert thermal energy into rotary motion, commonly used in power plants to generate electricity. The first modern steam turbine was designed by Sir Charles Parsons in 1884 and is now widely used in fossil fuel, nuclear, and solar power plants. The turbines use controlled stages of pressurized steam to expand and rotate blades, making the process highly efficient.
A steam turbine is a device capable of converting thermal energy into pressurized steam in rotary motion. This rotary motion is often used in power plants to generate electricity, although it may have other applications as well. The principle behind steam turbines was first written down in the 1st century AD, while the modern steam turbine was not designed until 1884.
The first modern steam turbine was designed by Sir Charles Parsons. It was used, in conjunction with a dynamo, to generate 7.5 kW of power. Shortly after its invention, the device found primary use in power plants around the world and aboard naval vessels. Early reciprocating steam engines were less efficient and more difficult to adapt for use aboard ships, requiring complicated systems rather than a simple direct drive mechanism.
Steam turbines use the principle that allows pressurized steam to expand in controlled stages. Each turbine can be composed of multiple impulse and reaction turbines, each of which allows the steam to expand and rotate the blades, or buckets, inside the device. Most steam turbines employ both of these variations in concert, with impulse turbines operating at high pressure and low pressure being used for reaction turbines. The difference between the two is that the pulsed variety uses a nozzle to introduce high velocity steam into the rotors, whereas the rotors in reaction turbines are themselves a type of nozzle.
The arrangement of impulse and reaction turbines within a steam turbine can actually make the system very efficient. By using both high and low pressure and running steam at every stage of its expansion, the process can remain highly isentropic. This simply means that the entropy entering the system is similar to the entropy leaving it. The other benefit of the design is that the rotation of the turbines creates a rotary motion, which can be ideal for both power generation and rotating blades or other drive mechanisms on ships.
A large percentage of all energy generated in the world makes use of steam turbine generators. They are present in both fossil fuels and nuclear power plants, with the former burning coal or oil to heat water into steam, and the latter relying on a nuclear fission reaction to generate the steam. Additionally, some of the energy is generated using a process known as focused solar energy. This type of power plant can harness the sun to produce steam which can then spin steam turbines.
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