Steam Quality....



 #Poor quality steam refers to high moisture content, Steam is best when superheated. From the perspective of Process Design Engineering, we assume that even saturated steam is dry. 
*In reality, steam in most process plant piping systems is wet. Often steam is wet because of ambient heat loss. 
*Dry steam is actually invisible. Steam venting from a line only looks white because the steam is wet. 
*Wet steam is generated from boilers because of entrainment of BFW into the evolved steam.
*Entrained boiler feed water contains salts. The TDS of the entrained water is the same as the boiler blowdown 
*Salt content of the blowdown water is 10-20 times > the salt content of the boiler feedwater. That’s why moisture in steam due to entrainment is more serious than moisture in steam due to condensation. Condensed moisture is free of salts. 
️*For Steam Turbines Moisture in the supply steam contains salts. The salts slowly accumulate on the turbine blades and reduce horsepower output. When these deposits break off, the turbine rotor is unbalanced. The resulting vibration will cause the shutdown of the turbine. 
*️For Steam Superheat Furnace Tubes salts in entrained moisture from a boiler will deposit inside the superheat coils. Localized overheating and tube rupture will result.



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