PROJECT ON STEAM ENGINE

TABLE OF CONTENTS
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 S.NO. TOPIC PAGE
NO.
1 CANDIDATE’S 3
DECLARTION
2 CERTIFICATE 4
3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 5
4 INTRODUCTION 6
5 HISTORY 8
6 STEAM POWER BY MIKE 11
BROWN
7 STEAM CYCLE 16
8 18
COMPONENTS OF
STEAM ENGINE
9 21
ADVANTAGES
10 22
SAFETY
11 23
EFFICIENCY
12 24
APPLICATIONS
13 MODERN APPLICATIONS 26
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 CANDIDATE’S DECLARTION

I hereby certify that the work which is being presented by Amit Jaiswal, Ajay
Singh Chauhan, Rajeev Kumar, Raman Kumar, Vijay Kumar in partial
fulfillment of requirement for the award of degree of B.Tech. in MECHANICAL
ENGINEERING submitted at KALPI INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY under
KURUKSHETRA UNIVERSITY, KURUKSHETRA is an authentic record of my
own work carried out under the supervision of Er. Harish Kumar Sharma
(HOD) and Er. Vikas Kunnar.

Project Member:

Amit Jaiswal [5808614]

Ajay Singh Chauhan [5808615]
Rajeev Kumar [5808608]
Raman Kumar [5808606]
Vijay Kumar [5808613]

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 CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that Project Associates Amit Jaiswal (5808614), Vijay

Kumar (5808613), Raman Kumar (5808606), Rajeev Kumar
(5808608) ,Ajay Singh Chauhan (5808615) of Bachelor of Technology 8 th
sem, Mech. Engg. have successfully completed the project on STEAM
ENGINE. In the partial fulfillment for the award of Bachelor of Technology
degree from KURUKSHETRA UNIVERSITY, KURUKSHETRA during
academic 2010-2011.

We wish him a prosperous, happy and bright future with all the great silvery
success in his career.

Er. Harish Kumar Sharma Er. Vikas Kunnar

Head Of Deptt. Lect. Deptt. Of Mech. Engg.
Mech. Engg.

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I am highly grateful to the Dr. V.P. ANEJA (Director), KALPI INSTITUTE OF

TECHNOLOGY, for providing this opportunity to carry out the project.
The constant guidance and encouragement received from Er. Vikas Kunnar,
Department of Mechanical Engineering, has been of great help in carrying out
work and is acknowledged with reverential thanks. Without the wise counsel
and able guidance, it would have been impossible to complete the project in
this manner.

I express gratitude to order faculty members of Mechanical Engineering

department, KALPI INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, for their intellectual support
throughout the course of this work.

Project Member:

Amit Jaiswal [5808614]

Vijay Kumar [5808613]
Rajeev Kumar [5808608]
Raman Kumar [5808606]
Ajay Singh Chauhan [5808615]

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 INTRODUCTION

A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam
as its working fluid.

Steam engines are external combustion engines,[1] where the working fluid is
separate from the combustion products. Non-combustion heat sources such as
solar power, nuclear power or geothermal energy may be used. Water turns to
steam in a boiler and reaches a high pressure. When expanded through pistons
or turbines, mechanical work is done. The reduced-pressure steam is then
released into the atmosphere or condensed and pumped back into the boiler.
The ideal thermodynamic cycle used to analyze this process is called the
Rankine cycle. Most mobile steam engines and some smaller stationary engines
discard the low-pressure steam instead of condensing it for reuse.

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The idea of using boiling water to produce mechanical motion has a very long
history, going back about 2,000 years. Early devices were not practical power
producers, but more advanced designs producing usable power have become a
major source of mechanical power over the last 300 years, beginning with
applications for removing water from mines using vacuum engines.
Subsequent developments used pressurized steam and converted linear to
rotational motion which enabled the powering of a wide range of manufacturing
machinery. These engines could be sited anywhere that water and coal or wood
fuel could be obtained, whereas previous installations were limited to locations
where water wheels or windmills could be used. Significantly, this power
source would later be applied to vehicles such as steam tractors and railway
locomotives. The steam engine was a critical component of the Industrial
Revolution, providing the prime mover for modern mass-production
manufacturing methods. Modern steam turbines generate about 90% of the
electric power in the United States using a variety of heat sources. [2]

In general usage, the term 'steam engine' can refer to integrated steam plants
such as railway steam locomotives and portable engines, or may refer to the
machinery alone, as in the beam engine and stationary steam engine.
Specialized devices such as steam hammers and steam pile drivers are
dependent on steam supplied from a separate boiler.

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 HISTORY

History of the steam engine

An aeolipile rotates due to the steam escaping from the arms. No practical use
was made of this effect.

The history of the steam engine stretches back as far as the first century AD;
the first recorded rudimentary steam engine being the aeolipile described by
Greek mathematician Hero of Alexandria.[3] In the following centuries, the few
steam-powered 'engines' known about were essentially experimental devices
used by inventors to demonstrate the properties of steam. A rudimentary steam
turbine device was described by Taqi al-Din[4] in 1551 and by Giovanni
Branca[5] in 1629.[6] Denis Papin a Huguenot refugee did some useful work on
the steam digester in 1679, and first used a piston to raise weights in 1690.

The first practical steam-powered 'engine' was a water pump, developed in

1698 by Thomas Savery. It used a vacuum to raise water from below, then
used steam pressure to raise it higher. Small engines were effective though
larger models were problematic.They proved only to have a limited lift height
and were prone to boiler explosions. It received some use in mines and
pumping stations. [7]

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The first commercially successful engine was the atmospheric engine, invented
by Thomas Newcomen around 1712.[8] It made use of technologies discovered
by Savery and Papin. Newcomen's engine was relatively inefficient, and in most
cases was used for pumping water. It worked by creating a partial vacuum by
condensing steam in a cylinder. It was employed for draining mine workings at
depths hitherto impossible, and also for providing a reusable water supply for
driving waterwheels at factories sited away from a suitable 'head'. Water that
had passed over the wheel was pumped back up into a storage reservoir above
the wheel.

In 1720 Jacob Leupold built a two cylinder high pressure steam engine. [9] The
invention was published in his major work "Theatri Machinarum
Hydraulicarum".[10] The engine used two lead-weighted pistons providing a
continuous motion to a water pump. Each piston was raised by the steam
pressure and returned to its original position by gravity. The two pistons
shared a common four way rotary valve connected directly to a steam boiler.

Jacob Leupold Steam engine 1720

Early Watt pumping engine

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John Smeaton made significant mechanical improvements to the Newcomen
engine, most importantly better piston sealing, around the time James Watt
was building his first engines (ca. late 1770s).[11]

The next major step occurred when James Watt developed (1763–75) an
improved version of Newcomen's engine, with a separate condenser. Watt's
engine used half as much coal as the Smeaton improved version of
Newcomen's.[11] Newcomen's and Watt's early engines were "atmospheric". They
were powered by air pressure pushing a piston into the partial vacuum
generated by condensing steam, instead of the pressure of expanding steam.
The engine Cylinders had to be large because the only usable force acting on
them was due to atmospheric pressure.

Watt proceeded to develop his engine further, modifying it to provide a rotary

motion suitable for driving factory machinery. This enabled factories to be sited
away from rivers, and further accelerated the pace of the Industrial Revolution.

Around 1800, Richard Trevithick and separately Oliver Evans (1801)[12][13]

introduced engines using high-pressure steam, although Trevithick had
obtained a high pressure engine patent in 1782. [14] These were much more
powerful for a given cylinder size than previous engines and could be made
small enough for transport applications. Thereafter, technological
developments and improvements in manufacturing techniques (partly brought
about by the adoption of the steam engine as a power source) resulted in the
design of more efficient engines that could be smaller, faster, or more powerful,
depending on the intended application.

The Corliss steam engine, a four-valve counterflow engine with separate steam
admission and exhaust valves and automatic variable steam cut off, was called
the most significant advance in the steam engine since James Watt. In addition
to using 30% less steam it provided more uniform speed, making it well suited
to manufacturing, especially cotton spinning.[14][12]

Near the end of the 19th century compound engines came into widespread use.
Compound engines exhausted steam in to successively larger cylinders to
accommodate the higher volumes at reduced pressures, giving improved
efficiency. These stages were called expansions, with double and triple
expansion engines being used, especially in shipping where efficiency was
important to reduce the weight of coal carried.[14]

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The final major evolution of the steam engine design was the switch from
pistons to turbines starting in the early part of the 20th century. Turbines are
more efficient than pistons, have fewer moving parts, and provide rotative
power directly instead of through a connecting rod system or similar means.
Steam engines remained the dominant source of power well into the 20th
century, when advances in the design of electric motors and internal
combustion engines gradually resulted in the replacement of reciprocating
(piston) steam engines in commercial usage, and the ascendancy of steam
turbines in power generation. Today most steam power is provided by turbines.

STEAM POWER BY MIKE BROWN

Electric power generation with steam at the individual household level is
making a comeback. At the commercial power plant level, it never left. Even
nuclear power plants run on steam.

What is new is the fairly recent phenomenon of household-size steam power

units for standby power generation. Unfortunately, most people today have no
idea how a steam engine works or the things you have to keep in mind when
setting up a home steam power system.

The easiest way to deal with a technology unfamiliar to you is to introduce one
concept at a time. Let’s introduce the basic concept or outline and then go back
and flesh out the details.

A home steam system consists of a boiler with a furnace to turn water to

steam, a steam engine to convert the steam energy to rotary motion to drive a
generator, and a system to re-circulate the water once the steam has turned
back into water. During the re-circulation of the water utilizing the exhaust
steam heat (providing hot water and/or heating the home itself) increases the
efficiency of the system. The design of a home steam system is dictated by the
circumstances of the home where it will be installed and the fuel available.

Now here is what you have to keep in mind while designing your system.

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The Furnace

The design of your furnace is based upon the type fuel you are going to use.
Fuel can be solid, liquid, or a gas (vapor). It should be fairly obvious that a
furnace built to burn logs and twigs is not going to work well with used motor
oil or natural gas, or vice versa.

The Boiler

Boilers come in sizes and shapes as varied as the colors of the rainbow.
However, there are only two basic types.

The firetube boiler is what you see on the old farm tractors and locomotives. A
firetube boiler basically consists of a tank full of water with hollow tubes
running through it. The hollow tubes allow more heating surface, in order to
turn the water to steam more rapidly and efficiently.

A firetube boiler will normally not withstand steam pressure in excess of 250
psi. This is one of the reasons so many of these devices went into orbit during
the last century and the early days of this one. Our metals are much stronger
now.

Once in awhile you will still hear of a firetube boiler exploding, even when built
with modern materials. Today’s explosions can almost always be traced back to
lack of maintenance.

Even this potential danger can be largely eliminated by proper construction.

Skip Goebel of Sensible Steam in Branson, Missouri, builds his boilers so that,
in the unlikely even that one of his boilers "goes," the inside of the boiler, the
tubes, give way first. The result is that the water goes down and puts out the
fire in the furnace.

Late in the nineteenth century some unknown genius came up with the idea of
putting the water in the tubes instead of a water tank. The fire in the furnace
then turned the water in the tubes into steam. Thus was born the watertube
boiler. The watertube boiler had advantages.

The first advantage was that steam in a tube is much more easily contained
than steam in a box or a drum. Steam pressures in a tube can reach up to
5,000 psi before anything gives way.

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The second advantage is that water in a tube turns to steam much more
rapidly than it does in a drum. It may take 20-30 minutes to "get up steam" in
a firetube boiler. A watertube boiler will give you steam in 1-3 minutes.

The third advantage is that a watertube boiler is cheaper and easier to build.
The simplest of the watertube boilers is called a monotube boiler, which in
essence is nothing more than a coiled copper tube (like a moonshine coil) with
water in it and a fire underneath it.

The fourth advantage to a watertube boiler is that they are really hard to
explode. Normally, all a watertube boiler will do is spring a leak.

There are a couple of disadvantages to watertube boilers.

First, a watertube boiler will not allow for the fluctuations in pressure that a
firetube boiler will. A monotube requires a fairly constant load.

Second, if a watertube boiler springs a leak and lets steam escape in an

enclosed space, you could have a problem. If you breathe in 300º to 400º
steam, your lungs could collapse. This is one reason you do not put a boiler
inside your home.

The Engine

A steam engine is known as an external combustion engine. That is, the power
or energy is produced outside of the engine. That is, the steam has power
before it is introduced into the engine.

An automobile engine, in contrast, produces power or energy inside the engine

by inhaling a fuel-air mixture and then igniting it with a spark.

A steam engine is also quite often lubricated externally. A device called a

hydrostatic oiler is placed between the boiler and the steam engine. Steam
picks up the oil and carries it into the engine.

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The Steam Chest

The first part of the engine the steam enters is called the "steam chest." The
steam chest contains the valve system. On smaller steam engines (10
horsepower and under) the usual valving system consists of a block of metal
that slides over ports (or holes) cut into a portion of the interior of the steam
chest. No springs are necessary. This valve is called a "D-valve." The D-valve
uncovers a hole or passageway to allow steam to push against the piston head.
At the other end of the D-valve’s travel, the valve uncovers another passageway
that allows steam to push against the bottom of the piston. The exhaust
passageway is in the middle. Such an engine is known as a "double-acting"
steam engine. The piston is alternately pushed by steam in both directions.

Engines of this type turn fairly slowly. 600 rpm is not an unusual or "slow"
turning speed. Don’t let the speed mislead you. 600 rpm in a steam engine isn’t
comparable to 600 rpm in a gasoline engine. 600 rpm in a gas engine is an
"idle speed" that produces very little torque (or twisting force). A steam engine
can produce maximum torque at almost 0 rpm. If you have ever seen an old 10
to 16 horsepower steam tractor at a "tractor pull" pulling against our modern
400+ horsepower gas engines, you will understand. The steam tractor always
wins.

The cylinder, piston, connecting rod and crankshaft are not what you are used
to in an automobile engine. The connecting rod doesn’t move in a circular
motion: it moves straight up and down (or back and forth). The straight
movement is changed to rotary motion at the crosshead.

A slider moves back and forth in the crosshead. A second connecting rod
connects the first connecting rod to the crankshaft. Crankshaft rotation drives
whatever you want it to drive—electric generator, water pump, grain grinder, or
other device.

An eccentric mounted on the crankshaft operates the D-valve. The eccentric

and the D-valve are connected by a valve rod. As the eccentric rotates the valve
rod is moved back and forth, so does the D-valve. If you saw the movie "The
Titanic" you may recall the size of the connecting rods going up and down in
the engine room. That illustrates just how large a steam engine can be made as
compared to one providing standby power for a home which can weigh as little
as fifty pounds (not counting the furnace and boiler) and be carried around on
the front seat of a pickup truck. Notice that you’ll never see gasoline engines as
large as those powering an ocean liner.

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As steam engines get larger, they become more sophisticated (and complex). D-
valves become spool (or cylinder) valves, engines become faster by becoming
uniflow (as opposed to double-acting), engines become more efficient by
becoming double or triple expansion, and so on. Boilers become more efficient
as pressures and temperatures rise and size increases.There is a trade-off. As
steam engines become more fuel-efficient and sophisticated, they also become
more expensive, more complicated, and harder to maintain. The key word here
is "practicality." An ocean-going freighter with a triple-expansion engine is
practical. The vessel must carry enough coal to get it from point A to point B
with the lowest possible fuel consumption. Coal must be paid for and there are
no "coal stations" in the middle of the ocean.

A small steam engine used for home power generation needs to be as simple as
possible to facilitate ease of operation and maintenance, and to keep
manufacturing costs down. When your fuel economy consists of throwing
another log into the furnace once every couple of hours, who cares what the
fuel efficiency is? This is especially so during times when you can’t buy
gasoline or diesel fuel.

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 STEAM CYCLE

Rankine cycle

Physical layout of the four main devices used in the Rankine cycle. Other
components that perform the same or similar functions are often used, the
turbine is often replaced with a steam driven piston.

The Rankine cycle is the fundamental thermodynamic underpinning of the

steam engine. The Rankine cycle is a cycle that converts heat into work. The
heat is supplied externally to a closed loop, which in steam engines contains
water and steam. This cycle generates about 90% of all electric power used
throughout the world, including virtually all solar thermal, biomass, coal and
nuclear power plants. It is named after William John Macquorn Rankine, a
Scottish polymath.

The Rankine cycle is sometimes referred to as a practical Carnot cycle because,

when an efficient turbine is used, the TS diagram begins to resemble the
Carnot cycle. The main difference is that heat addition (in the boiler) and
rejection (in the condenser) are isobaric (constant pressure) in the Rankine
cycle and isothermal (constant temperature) in the theoretical Carnot cycle. In
this cycle a pump is also used to pressurize the working fluid received from the
condenser as a liquid instead of as a gas. Pumping the working fluid through
the cycle as a liquid requires a very small fraction of the energy needed to
transport it as compared to compressing the working fluid as a gas in a
compressor (as in the Carnot cycle).
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The working fluid in a Rankine cycle follows a closed loop and is reused
constantly. While many substances could be used in the Rankine cycle, water
is usually the fluid of choice due to its favourable properties, such as non-toxic
and unreactive chemistry, abundance, and low cost, as well as its
thermodynamic properties.

It is also useful to introduce the historical measure of a steam engine's energy

efficiency, its "duty". The concept of duty was first introduced by Watt in order
to illustrate how much more efficient his engines were over the earlier
Newcomen designs. Duty is the number of foot-pounds of work delivered by
burning one bushel (94 pounds) of coal. The best examples of Newcomen
designs had a duty of about 7 million, but most were closer to 5 million. Watt's
original low-pressure designs were able to deliver duty as high as 25 million,
but averaged about 17. This was a three-fold improvement over the average
Newcomen design. Early Watt engines equipped with high-pressure steam
improved this to 65 million.[15]

COMPONENTS OF STEAM ENGINE

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There are two fundamental components of a steam plant: the boiler or steam
generator, and the "motor unit", referred to itself as a "steam engine".
Stationary steam engines in fixed buildings may have the two parts in separate
buildings some distance apart. For portable or mobile use, such as steam
locomotives, the two are mounted together.
Other components are often present; pumps (such as an injector) to supply
water to the boiler during operation, condensers to recirculate the water and
recover the latent heat of vaporisation, and superheaters to raise the
temperature of the steam above its saturated vapour point, and various
mechanisms to increase the draft for fireboxes. When coal is used, a chain or
screw stoking mechanism and its drive engine or motor may be included to
move the fuel from a supply bin (bunker) to the firebox.

Heat source
The heat required for boiling the water and supplying the steam can be derived
from various sources, most commonly from burning combustible materials
with an appropriate supply of air in a closed space (called variously
combustion chamber, firebox). In some cases the heat source is a nuclear
reactor or geothermal energy.

Boilers
Main article: boiler (steam generator)

An industrial boiler used for a stationary steam engine

Boilers are pressure vessels that contain water to be boiled, and some kind of
mechanism for transferring the heat to the water so as to boil it.
The two most common methods of transferring heat to the water are:
1. water-tube boiler - water is contained in or run through one or several tubes
surrounded by hot gases
2. fire-tube boiler - the water partially fills a vessel below or inside which is a
combustion chamber or furnace and fire tubes through which the hot gases
flow

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Fire tube boilers were the main type used for early high pressure steam, but
they were displaced by safer water tube boilers in the late 19th century. [14]
Once turned to steam, many boilers raise the temperature of the steam further,
turning 'wet steam' into 'superheated steam'. This use of superheating prevents
the steam condensing within the engine, and allows significantly greater
efficiency.

Motor units
A motor unit takes a supply of steam at high pressure and temperature and
gives out a supply of steam at lower pressure and temperature, using as much
of the difference in steam energy as possible to do mechanical work.
A motor unit is often called 'steam engine' in its own right. They will also
operate on compressed air or other gas.

Simple expansion
This means that a charge of steam works only once in the cylinder. It is then
exhausted directly into the atmosphere or into a condenser, but remaining heat
can be utilized if needed to heat a living space, or to provide warm feedwater for
the boiler.
In most reciprocating piston engines, the steam reverses its direction of flow at
each stroke (counterflow), entering and exhausting from the cylinder by the
same port. The complete engine cycle occupies one rotation of the crank and
two piston strokes; the cycle also comprises four events – admission,
expansion, exhaust, compression. These events are controlled by valves often
working inside a steam chest adjacent to the cylinder; the valves distribute the
steam by opening and closing steam ports communicating with the cylinder
end(s) and are driven by valve gear, of which there are many types. The
simplest valve gears give events of fixed length during the engine cycle and
often make the engine rotate in only one direction.

Most however have a reversing mechanism which additionally can provide

means for saving steam as speed and momentum are gained by gradually
"shortening the cutoff" or rather, shortening the admission event; this in turn
proportionately lengthens the expansion period. However, as one and the same
valve usually controls both steam flows, a short cutoff at admission adversely
affects the exhaust and compression periods which should ideally always be
kept fairly constant; if the exhaust event is too brief, the totality of the exhaust
steam cannot evacuate the cylinder, choking it and giving excessive
compression ("kick back").
In the 1840s and 50s, there were attempts to overcome this problem by means
of various patent valve gears with a separate, variable cutoff expansion valve
riding on the back of the main slide valve; the latter usually had fixed or
limited cutoff. The combined setup gave a fair approximation of the ideal
events, at the expense of increased friction and wear, and the mechanism

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tended to be complicated. The usual compromise solution has been to provide
lap by lengthening rubbing surfaces of the valve in such a way as to overlap
the port on the admission side, with the effect that the exhaust side remains
open for a longer period after cut-off on the admission side has occurred. This
expedient has since been generally considered satisfactory for most purposes
and makes possible the use of the simpler Stephenson, Joy and Walschaerts
motions. Corliss, and later, poppet valve gears had separate admission and
exhaust valves driven by trip mechanisms or cams profiled so as to give ideal
events; most of these gears never succeeded outside of the stationary
marketplace due to various other issues including leakage and more delicate
mechanisms.

Compression
Before the exhaust phase is quite complete, the exhaust side of the valve
closes, shutting a portion of the exhaust steam inside the cylinder. This
determines the compression phase where a cushion of steam is formed against
which the piston does work whilst its velocity is rapidly decreasing; it moreover
obviates the pressure and temperature shock, which would otherwise be
caused by the sudden admission of the high pressure steam at the beginning of
the following cycle.

Lead
The above effects are further enhanced by providing lead: as was later
discovered with the internal combustion engine, it has been found
advantageous since the late 1830s to advance the admission phase, giving the
valve lead so that admission occurs a little before the end of the exhaust stroke
in order to fill the clearance volume comprising the ports and the cylinder ends
(not part of the piston-swept volume) before the steam begins to exert effort on
the piston.

ADVANTAGES
The strength of the steam engine for modern purposes is in its ability to
convert heat from almost any source into mechanical work, unlike the internal
combustion engine.
Similar advantages are found in a different type of external combustion engine,
the Stirling engine, which can offer efficient power (with advanced regenerators
and large radiators) at the cost of a much lower power-to-size/weight ratio than
even modern steam engines with compact boilers [citation needed]. These Stirling
engines are not commercially produced, although the concepts are promising.

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Steam locomotives are especially advantageous at high elevations as they are
not adversely affected by the lower atmospheric pressure. This was
inadvertently discovered when steam locomotives operated at high altitudes in
the mountains of South America were replaced by diesel-electric units of
equivalent sea level power. These were quickly replaced by much more powerful
locomotives capable of producing sufficient power at high altitude.
For road vehicles, steam propulsion has the advantage of having high torque
from stationary, removing the need for a clutch and transmission, though
start-up time and sufficiently compact packaging remain a problem.
In Switzerland (Brienz Rothhorn) and Austria (Schafberg Bahn) new rack steam
locomotives have proved very successful. They were designed based on a 1930s
design of Swiss Locomotive and Machine Works (SLM) but with all of today's
possible improvements like roller bearings, heat insulation, light-oil firing,
improved inner streamlining, one-man-driving and so on. These resulted in 60
percent lower fuel consumption per passenger[citation needed] and massively reduced
costs for maintenance and handling [citation needed]. Economics now are similar or
better than with most advanced diesel or electric systems. Also a steam train
with similar speed and capacity is 50 percent lighter than an electric or diesel
train[citation needed], thus, especially on rack railways, significantly reducing wear
and tear on the track. Also, a new steam engine for a paddle steam ship on
Lake Geneva, the Montreux, was designed and built, being the world's first full-
size ship steam engine with an electronic remote control.[27] The steam group of
SLM in 2000 created a wholly owned company called DLM to design modern
steam engines and steam locomotives.

SAFETY
Steam engines possess boilers and other components that are pressure vessels
that contain a great deal of potential energy. Steam escapes and boiler
explosions (typically BLEVEs) can and have caused great loss of life in the past.
While variations in standards may exist in different countries, stringent legal,
testing, training, care with manufacture, operation and certification is applied
to try to minimise or prevent such occurrences.
Failure modes may include:

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  over-pressurisation of the boiler
 insufficient water in the boiler causing overheating and vessel failure

 pressure vessel failure of the boiler due to inadequate construction or

maintenance.

 escape of steam from pipework/boiler causing scalding

Steam engines frequently possess two independent mechanisms for ensuring

that the pressure in the boiler does not go too high; one may be adjusted by the
user, the second is typically designed as an ultimate fail-safe. Such safety
valves normally use a simple lever to activate a stopcock in the upper side of a
boiler. One end of the lever is attached to the stopcock while the other has a
weight attached and its position can be adjusted to change the pressure at
which stem will be released automatically by the stopcock.
Lead fusible plugs may be present in the crown of the firebox. If the water level
drops, such that the temperature of the firebox crown increases significantly,
the lead melts and the steam escapes, warning the operators, who may then
manually drop the fire. Except in the smallest of boilers the steam escape has
little effect on dampening the fire. The plugs are also too small in area to lower
steam pressure significantly, depressurizing the boiler. If they were any larger,
the volume of escaping steam would itself endanger the crew.

EFFICIENCY
Thermal efficiency

The efficiency of an engine can be calculated by dividing the energy output of

mechanical work that the engine produces by the energy input to the engine by
the burning fuel.
No heat engine can be more efficient than the Carnot cycle, in which heat is
moved from a high temperature reservoir to one at a low temperature, and the
efficiency depends on the temperature difference. For the greatest efficiency,
steam engines should be operated at the highest steam temperature possible
(superheated steam), and release the waste heat at the lowest temperature
possible.
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The efficiency of a Rankine cycle is usually limited by the working fluid.
Without the pressure reaching super critical levels for the working fluid, the
temperature range the cycle can operate over is quite small; in steam turbines,
turbine entry temperatures are typically 565°C (the creep limit of stainless
steel) and condenser temperatures are around 30°C. This gives a theoretical
Carnot efficiency of about 63% compared with an actual efficiency of 42% for a
modern coal-fired power station. This low turbine entry temperature (compared
with a gas turbine) is why the Rankine cycle is often used as a bottoming cycle
in combined-cycle gas turbine power stations.

One of the principal advantages the Rankine cycle holds over others is that
during the compression stage relatively little work is required to drive the
pump, the working fluid being in its liquid phase at this point. By condensing
the fluid, the work required by the pump consumes only 1% to 3% of the
turbine power and contributes to a much higher efficiency for a real cycle. The
benefit of this is lost somewhat due to the lower heat addition temperature.
Gas turbines, for instance, have turbine entry temperatures approaching
1500°C. Nonetheless, the efficiencies of actual large steam cycles and large
modern gas turbines are fairly well matched.
In practice, a steam engine exhausting the steam to atmosphere will typically
have an efficiency (including the boiler) in the range of 1-10%, but with the
addition of a condenser and multiple expansion, it may be greatly improved to
25% or better.
A modern large electrical power station (producing several hundred megawatts
of electrical output) with steam reheat, economizer etc. will achieve efficiency in
the mid 40% range, with the most efficient units approaching 50% thermal
efficiency.[28]
It is also possible to capture the waste heat using cogeneration in which the
waste heat is used for heating a lower boiling point working fluid or as a heat
source for district heating via saturated low pressure steam. By this means it is
possible to use as much as 85-90% of the input energy.

APPLICATIONS
Since the early 18th century, steam power has been applied to a variety of
practical uses. At first it was applied to reciprocating pumps, but from the
1780s rotative engines (i.e. those converting reciprocating motion into rotary
motion) began to appear, driving factory machinery such as spinning mules
and power looms. At the turn of the 19th century, steam-powered transport on
both sea and land began to make its appearance becoming ever more dominant
as the century progressed.
Steam engines can be said to have been the moving force behind the Industrial
Revolution and saw widespread commercial use driving machinery in factories,
mills and mines; powering pumping stations; and propelling transport

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appliances such as railway locomotives, ships and road vehicles. Their use in
agriculture led to an increase in the land available for cultivation.
Very low power engines are used to power models and toys, and speciality
applications such as the steam clock.
The presence of several phases between heat source and power delivery has
meant that it has always been difficult to obtain a power-to-weight ratio
anywhere near that obtainable from internal combustion engines; notably this
has made steam aircraft extremely rare. Similar considerations have meant
that for small and medium-scale applications steam has been largely
superseded by internal combustion engines or electric motors, which has given
the steam engine an out-dated image. However it is important to remember
that the power supplied to the electric grid is predominantly generated using
steam turbine plant, so that indirectly the world's industry is still dependent
on steam power. Recent concerns about fuel sources and pollution have incited
a renewed interest in steam both as a component of cogeneration processes
and as a prime mover. This is becoming known as the Advanced Steam
movement.
Steam engines can be classified by their application:

Stationary applications
Stationary steam engines can be classified into two main types:
1. Winding engines, rolling mill engines, steam donkeys, marine engines,
and similar applications which need to frequently stop and reverse.
2. Engines providing power, which rarely stop and do not need to reverse.
These include engines used in thermal power stations and those that
were used in pumping stations, mills, factories and to power cable
railways and cable tramways before the widespread use of electric power.

The steam donkey is technically a stationary engine but is mounted on skids to

be semi-portable. It is designed for logging use and can drag itself to a new
location. Having secured the winch cable to a sturdy tree at the desired
destination, the machine will move towards the anchor point as the cable is
winched in.
A portable engine is a stationary engine mounted on wheels so that it may be
towed to a work-site by horses or a traction engine, rather than being fixed in a
single location.

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Transport applications

A steam locomotive – a GNR N2 Class No.1744 at Weybourne nr. Sheringham,

Norfolk

A steam-powered bicycle

Steam engines have been used to power a wide array of transport appliances:
 Marine: Steamboat, steamship, steam yacht
 Rail: Steam locomotive, fireless locomotive

 Agriculture: Traction engine, steam tractor

 Road: Steam wagon, steam bus, steam tricycle, steam car

 Construction: Steam roller, steam shovel

 Military: steam tank (tracked), steam tank (wheeled), steam catapult

 Space: Steam rocket

In these applications internal combustion engines are now used due to their
higher power-to-weight ratio, lower maintenance and space requirements .

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 MODERN APPLICATIONS

Advanced steam technology

Although the reciprocating steam engine is no longer in widespread commercial

use, various companies are exploring or exploiting the potential of the engine
as an alternative to internal combustion engines.
The company Energiprojekt AB in Sweden has made progress in using modern
materials for harnessing the power of steam. The efficiency of Energiprojekt's
steam engine reaches some 27-30% on high-pressure engines. It is a single-
step, 5-cylinder engine (no compound) with superheated steam and consumes
approx. 4 kg (8.8 lb) of steam per kWh.[

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