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A steam turbine or steam turbine engine is a machine or heat engine that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam and uses it to do mechanical work on a rotating output shaft. Its modern manifestation was invented by Charles Parsons in 1884.
Steam turbines would eventually replace piston engines for most power generation. 1893 (): Nikola Tesla patents a steam powered oscillating electro-mechanical generator. Tesla hoped it would become competitive with steam turbines in producing electric current but it never found use outside his laboratory experiments.
During the Industrial Revolution, steam engines started to replace water and wind power, and eventually became the dominant source of power in the late 19th century and remaining so into the early decades of the 20th century, when the more efficient steam turbine and the internal combustion engine resulted in the rapid replacement of the steam ...
A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be transformed by a connecting rod and crank into rotational force for work.
An illustration of Hero's aeolipile. An aeolipile, aeolipyle, or eolipile, from the Greek "Αἰόλου πύλη," lit. ' Aeolus gate ', also known as a Hero's (or Heron's) engine, is a simple, bladeless radial steam turbine which spins when the central water container is heated.
Steam turbines, dairy machinery, and the de Laval nozzle for rocket engines Signature Karl Gustaf Patrik de Laval ( Swedish pronunciation: [ˈɡɵ̂sːtav dɛ laˈvalː] ⓘ ; 9 May 1845 – 2 February 1913) was a Swedish engineer and inventor who made important contributions to the design of steam turbines and centrifugal separation machinery ...
Coupled with a Parsons turbine, the output of a Ljungström turbine can be increased to about 50 MW. Since more modern steam power plants have a significantly higher performance, the Ljungström turbine is generally no longer utilised today. The largest ship ever built, the ULCC supertanker Seawise Giant, was powered by this type of engine. [7]
Curtis' turbine reached a lower efficiency than the Parsons' turbine. It was, however, much smaller and simpler in design, thus making it suitable for simple applications and mobile use (e.g.on steamships). Curtis spoke to various companies about his turbines, but met no interest until he met Edwin W. Rice of General Electric.