Steam turbine

Inspired by waterwheels and to do away with the alternating movement of a piston driving a crankshaft system, engineers sought to get steam power to act directly on the wheels’ vanes. The result was the steam turbine, a simpler, less cumbersome and more efficient engine with a continuous circular motion. To make the most of the steam’s energy, Auguste Rateau improved the action turbine by devising an impulse turbine that uses low pressures. Its wheels’ blades reduce the section of the passage of the steam. Behind each of these wheels there is a similar, fixed wheel. When the flow of steam – forced to accelerate by its restricted passage – encounters the blades of the fixed wheel, it transfers ‘by reaction’ the energy produced onto the blade of the rotating wheel. The turbine replaced machines with rectilinear motion, particularly in ships and power stations.