Recently a customer asked, “How much water is contained in a pound of saturated steam?” That question as asked can’t be answered, we would need more information.
Saturated steam (steam at saturated temperature/pressure) can be described using the metric “quality” or “dryness”. At one end of the range is 100% [which is all dry steam (gas) with no wetness (liquid) at all]. At the other end is 0%, all saturated water and no steam at all.
The answer to the question, if it has 100% dryness, is that it has no water (moisture) at all. In practice, normal ranges are around 80-95%. A sample of steam with 80% dryness (or quality) would mean that for every pound of what is in the pipe, 80% of that is steam, and 20% is entrained water.
Does you have questions about steam, air or water you’d like answered? Send them to us and we’ll do our best to answer them for you.
