Steam Turbine

Turbine · 1884 · Rankine cycle

Year: 1884
Kind: Turbine
Materials: Chromium-molybdenum steel rotors, nickel-alloy blades in the hot stages, titanium in the last, condensers of copper-nickel or titanium tube.
Efficiency: 33–45 % for the whole plant, depending on how hot and how high-pressure the steam is.
Used In: Coal, gas, nuclear and geothermal power stations, and warships.
Power Density: Enormous: a single machine can exceed a gigawatt.
Cycle: Rankine

How It Works

High-pressure steam expands through row after row of blades, each stage taking a little of the pressure drop and turning it into rotation, so the steam speed never gets destructively high. Boiler, turbine, condenser, pump — the Rankine cycle, at up to 3,000 rpm and hundreds of megawatts.

Inventors

Charles Parsons

Equations

Second Law of Thermodynamics Bernoulli's Equation Carnot Efficiency Thermal Efficiency Angular Momentum Torque Reynolds Number

Skills

Turning on a Lathe

Elements

Iron Nickel Chromium Titanium

Referenced by

element

Chromium Iron Nickel Titanium

equation

Angular Momentum Bernoulli's Equation Carnot Efficiency Reynolds Number Second Law of Thermodynamics Thermal Efficiency Torque

researcher

Charles Parsons

skill

Turning on a Lathe

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From the Machines database in Notion, last edited 2026-08-18. This page is the row, rendered by the build; nothing on it is written by hand.