Thermodynamic reservoirs[edit]

A reservoir is a thermodynamic system which controls the state of a system, usually by "imposing"
itself upon the system being controlled. This means that the nature of its contact with the system can
be controlled. A reservoir is so large that its thermodynamic state is not appreciably affected by the
state of the system being controlled. The term "atmospheric pressure" in the below description of a
theoretical thermometer is essentially a "pressure reservoir" which imposes atmospheric pressure
upon the thermometer.
Some common reservoirs are:

 Pressure reservoir - by far the most common pressure reservoir is the Earth's atmosphere.
 Temperature reservoir - A large quantity of water at its triple point forms an effective temperature
reservoir.

A boiler is an enclosed vessel in which a fluid such as water is heated to produce steam or the
vaporized form of a liquid. The steam or hot water is then circulated through a piping system, to
transfer heat for various applications such as heating, power generation and other processes.
Boilers and associated systems are efficient heat exchange systems; however they can be
dangerous if not properly maintained and operated.

Corrosion is one of the major contributors of boiler failures and it is important to prevent it,
continuously monitor and apply effective control techniques.

A boiler is an energy conversion or transfer system where chemical energy from fuel is
converted into either heat or electrical energy. It consists of a tank or a closed vessel in
which liquid is stored and heated using hot gases generated from the combustion of
fuels such as coal, fuel oil or natural gas that burn in a furnace, or from electrical coils.
There are two main categories of boilers, and each can further be subdivided to several
types:

 Fire-tube boiler - Hot gas in several tubes is used to heat the surrounding water.
 Water-tube boiler - Water in the tubes is heated by the surrounding hot gas.

Boilers are widely used in domestic and industrial applications such as:

 Thermal power plants

 Industrial processes
 Heating
 Sanitation
 Sterilizing equipment

Corrosion is one of the major contributors of boiler failures. Factors that influence
corrosion in boilers include:

 High oxygen concentration

 High temperatures
 High or low pH levels
 Impurities in the water
 Hydrogen embrittlement
 Acidic corrosion
 Steam side burning (a chemical reaction between the tube metal and steam)
 Fatigue cracking caused by repeated cyclic stress
 Mechanical and operational factors such as:


o Excessive velocities
o Severity of service
o Metal stresses
o Other design and operational issues

Boiler design, operations and maintenance, must conform to international safety

standards and regulations to ensure reliability, safety, efficiency and prevent hazards
associated with boiler failures such as explosions.
Effective corrosion prevention, monitoring and control are essential for boiler reliability.
The control technique is determined by the type of corrosion. Common methods include
maintaining proper pH, controlling oxygen, deposits and impurities, and reduction of
stress by proper design and operational procedures.
A pump is a device that moves fluids (liquids or gases), or sometimes slurries, by mechanical
action. Pumps can be classified into three major groups according to the method they use to move
the fluid: direct lift, displacement, and gravity pumps.[1]
Pumps operate by some mechanism (typically reciprocating or rotary), and consume energy to
perform mechanical work moving the fluid. Pumps operate via many energy sources, including
manual operation, electricity, engines, or wind power, come in many sizes, from microscopic for use
in medical applications to large industrial pumps.
Mechanical pumps serve in a wide range of applications such as pumping water from
wells, aquarium filtering, pond filtering and aeration, in the car industry for water-cooling and fuel
injection, in the energy industry for pumping oil and natural gas or for operating cooling towers. In
the medical industry, pumps are used for biochemical processes in developing and manufacturing
medicine, and as artificial replacements for body parts, in particular the artificial heart and penile
prosthesis.
When a casing contains only one revolving impeller, it is called a single-stage pump. When a casing

A turbine (from the Latin turbo, a vortex, related to the Greek τύρβη, tyrbē, meaning
"turbulence")[1][2] is a rotary mechanical device that extracts energy from a fluidflow and converts it
into useful work. The work produced by a turbine can be used for generating electrical power when
combined with a generator.[3] A turbine is a turbomachine with at least one moving part called a rotor
assembly, which is a shaft or drum with blades attached. Moving fluid acts on the blades so that they
move and impart rotational energy to the rotor. Early turbine examples
are windmills and waterwheels.
Turbine, any of various devices that convert the energy in a stream
of fluid into mechanical energy. The conversion is generally accomplished by
passing the fluid through a system of stationary passages or vanes that
alternate with passages consisting of finlike blades attached to a rotor. By
arranging the flow so that a tangential force, or torque, is exerted on the rotor
blades, the rotor turns, and work is extracted.
Turbines can be classified into four general types according to the fluids used:
water, steam, gas, and wind. Although the same principles apply to all
turbines, their specific designs differ sufficiently to merit separate descriptions.
A water turbine uses the potential energy resulting from the difference in
elevation between an upstream water reservoir and the turbine-exit water
level (the tailrace) to convert this so-called head into work. Water turbines are
the modern successors of simple waterwheels, which date back about 2,000
years. Today the primary use of water turbines is for electric powergeneration.
The greatest amount of electrical energy comes, however, from steam
turbines coupled to electric generators. The turbines are driven by steam
produced in either a fossil-fuel-fired or a nuclear-powered generator. The
energy that can be extracted from the steam is conveniently expressed in
terms of the enthalpy change across the turbine. Enthalpy reflects both
thermal and mechanical energy forms in a flow process and is given by the
sum of the internal thermal energy and the product of pressure times volume.
The available enthalpy change through a steam turbine increases with the
temperature and pressure of the steam generator and with reduced turbine-
exit pressure.

A condenser is a piece of industrial equipment that acts as a heat exchanger to convert

a vapor to a liquid. It does this by reducing the vapor's temperature via thermodynamic
contact with an external fluid of lower temperature. Often, the gas to be treated is steam
and the external fluid is water. Condensers are prone to corrosion due to their constant
contact with moisture.
The fluid to be treated enters the condenser in a superheated state. It is first cooled
then converted to a liquid by transferring heat to an external medium. The refrigerant
leaves the condenser in saturated or sub-cooled liquid form. The exact state of the
liquid may be determined by altering the temperature of the external medium or by the
design of the condenser.
Corrosion may be prevented by lining the condenser with a thermal barrier coating.
generator[1] is a device that converts motive power (mechanical energy) into electrical power for use
in an external circuit. Sources of mechanical energy include steam turbines, gas turbines, water
turbines, internal combustion engines, wind turbines and even hand cranks. The first
electromagnetic generator, the Faraday disk, was invented in 1831 by British scientist Michael
Faraday. Generators provide nearly all of the power for electric power grids.
The reverse conversion of electrical energy into mechanical energy is done by an electric motor, and
motors and generators have many similarities. Many motors can be mechanically driven to generate
electricity and frequently make acceptable manual generators.