Steam engines reaction turbine

About 2000 years ago, a figure showing a workable steam reaction turbine was included in a book by Hero of Alexandria. He showed other ways in which steam, or other hot gases, could be used to do mechanical woik, and used the boiler, valve, and piston (basic components of a steam engine) at various places in his book. In spite of this promising start, the use of steam for power never advanced significantly in antiquity it remained for later generations to develop its potential. 

The first five years of the new century were Haber s most productive period, both in terms of the total number of publications (almost fifty) or the variety of topics he researched. He pursued different kinds of electrochemical studies (ranging from electrolysis of solid salts to the invention of the glass electrode for determining the acidity of liquids), researched the loss of energy by various prime movers (steam engines, turbines, internal combustion engines), and probed the luminous inner core of the Bunsen flame. In 1905 he published a book on the thermodynamics of technical gas reactions, which was soon translated into English. ... 

FUEL. In the conventional sense, a fuel is a material or combination of materials which, when burned with air, produces heal. This heat, in turn, can he used in numerous ways—as in the conversion of water lo steam. The steam, in turn, can be used in many ways—as in a steam turbine to produce electricity, Fuels also are burned to oblain explosive or mechanical energy—as in an internal combustion engine where heal per se is an inevitable, bul undesired byproduct. The term fuel is also used in connection with nuclear reactions—as the material, such as uranium and plutonium isotopes, which undergoes fission and. in so doing, yields heat energy, Fuel also appears in the term fuel cell, in which chemical reactions other than what may be considered as conventional combustion are carried out 10 yield electrical energy. 

The direct combustion of hydrogen in an oxygen atmosphere follows the same reaction as in Equation 1.7. In this process, AH is transformed completely into thermal energy (heat), which can be converted into mechanical work using a steam turbine. Thereafter, it can be transformed into electrical work in an electric generator. The upper limit of the thermodynamic efficiency for any heat or steam cycle corresponds to the efficiency of the hypothetical Carnot heat engine ... 

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