ME 321: BASIC MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

Lecture-6
Formation and Properties of Steam

Lecturer: A N M Amanullah Tomal

Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Daffodil International University
Formation of Steam at a constant pressure from water
Heat is absorbed in the following stage:

1. Heating up water from freezing point to boiling point.

2. Change water to steam at constant boiling point temperature.
3. Heated up steam to the superheated region.
Temperature vs. Total heat graph during steam formation

ABCD – Shows the temp. vs. heat

graph at a specific Pressure of P.

Where,
AF – Sensible heat
FG – Latent heat
GH – Heat of super heat.

When P is increase to P1 and P2 than

boiling point temperature is
increased B1 and B2, respectively,
however latent heat of vaporization
is decreased.
Temperature vs. Total heat graph during steam formation

Line AB1 B2E – Saturated liquid

line or liquid line.
Line EC1C2A1 – Dry saturated
vapour line or Dry steam line.
Critical point: The latent heat of
vaporization of water is decreasing
when the pressure and saturation
temperature is increasing and
becomes zero at a specific point,
which is known as critical point.

Other way, critical point is that

point where liquid line and vapour
line merge.
The temperature corresponding to critical point is
known as critical temperature and the pressure is
known as critical pressure.

For steam: The critical temperature is 374.150C and

critical pressure is 221.2 bar.
Important terms for steam
Wet steam: When the steam
contain moisture or particles of
water in suspension, it is said to be
wet steam. It means that
evaporation of water is not
complete.
Region between saturated liquid
line and dry saturated vapour line
is wet steam.
Dry saturated steam: When the wet
steam is further heated, and it does
not contain any suspended particles
Wet steam of water, it is known as dry
saturated steam.
Steam on the dry saturated vapour
line is dry saturated steam.
Important terms for steam

Superheated steam: When the dry

saturated steam is further heated at
a constant pressure, thus rising its
temperature, it is said to be
superheated steam.

Since pressure is constant,

therefore volume of superheated
steam increase.

Region right side to the dry

saturated line and above the critical
point is known as superheated
region.
 Dryness fraction or quality of wet
Important terms for steam steam: It is the ratio of the mass of
actual dry steam to the mass of
same quantity of wet steam, and is
generally denoted with ‘x’.
Mathematically,

Where,
mg = Mass of actual dry steam.
mf = Mass of water in suspension
m = Mass of wet steam = mg + mf
x = 0 on saturated liquid line and
left side of this line.

0 <x <1 in wet region.

x = 1 on dry saturated vapour line

and right side of this line and also
above the critical point.
Important terms for steam
Sensible heat of water: It is the
amount of heat absorbed by 1 kg of
water, when heated at a constant
pressure, from the freezing point to
the temperature of formation of
steam, i.e. saturation temperature
(t). The sensible heat is also known
as liquid heat.

Sensible heat = Mass ×Sp. heat×

Rise in temperate
= 1×4.2×[(t+273)-(0+273]

= 4.2t kJ/kg.

It denotes with hf.

Important terms for steam
Latent heat of vaporization: It is the
amount of heat absorbed to
evaporate 1 kg of water, at its
boiling point or saturation
temperature without change of
temperature.

Unit – kj/kg

It denotes with hfg.

It has been experimentally

observed that that the value of hfg
decrease as the pressure increases
and becomes zero at critical
pressure.
 Enthalpy or total heat of steam: It is
Important terms for steam
the amount of heat absorbed by water
from freezing point to saturation
temperature plus heat absorbed by
during evaporation.

Enthalpy of steam = Sensible heat +

Latent heat. (Unit – kj/kg or kj.)

It denotes with h.
i. Wet steam
h = hf +x hfg
ii. Dry steam ( x = 1)
h = hg = hf + hfg
Important terms for steam iii. Superheated steam
hsup = Total heat for dry steam +
Heat for superheated steam.
= hf +hfg +cp (t sup -t)
=hg +cp (t sup -t)

cp = Mean specific heat at constant

pressure for superheated steam.
(cp lies between 1.67 to 2.5 kj/kg/k)
tsup=Temperature of the superheated
steam and
t = Saturation temperature at the
given constant pressure.

(t sup -t) is known as degree of

super heat.
Specific volume: It is the volume occupied by the steam per unit mass at a given
temperature and pressure, and is expressed in m3/kg.

A. Wet steam:
volume of 1 kg of wet steam = xvg + (1 –x)vfg
where,
vf indicates volume of 1 kg water and
vg indicates volume of 1 kg of steam.

Since vf is small compare to vfg. So that, we can write,

volume of one of wet steam = xvg

B. Dry steam:
volume of 1 kg of dry steam = vg
C. Superheated steam:

vsup / Tsup = vg /T.

Or, vsup = vg Tsup /T

Where, T = Boiling point temperature at corresponding pressure.

Steam Tables: The properties of dry saturated steam like its
saturation temperature, sensible heat, latent heat of vaporization,
enthalpy, specific volume etc., vary with pressure, and can be
found by experiments only. These properties have been carefully
determined, and made available in a tabular form known as steam
tables.

It may be noted, that there is a slight difference in the value which

is noted in various book.

There are two important steam tables,

1. one in terms of absolute pressure and
2. other in terms of temperature.