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Committee's work ensures that water isn't taken for granted

Where can an engineer, working in a power plant, find the most up-to-date representation of the thermodynamic properties of water and steam? Would the information be different if the engineer worked in a university research lab? How can a power plant chemist determine the best practices in the control of feedwater and boiler water chemistry? How can a U.S. engineer working in the area of thermal systems interact with a counterpart in Argentina?

The source of the answers to these questions is ASME's Research and Technology Committee on Water and Steam in Thermal Systems (WSTS), an active committee in ASME's Center for Research and Technology Development.

A cursory look at two of its subcommittees gives a clear view of the complexity and involvement of the WSTS Research and Technology Committee itself.

James Bellows, an engineer with Siemens Westinghouse Power Corp. and the WSTS committee chair, sums up the strength of this composite group as technology transfer at its best. "Scientists and practitioners interact on a variety of issues and projects, resulting in scientists who are better grounded in practical applications and practitioners who have a clearer scientific point of view," he said.

Water, of course, is the most familiar compound on the planet. Every schoolchild knows the formula and has an appreciation of its importance. As a result, we tend to assume that everything about water and its properties is known and that all related problems have been solved.

"That's not true," said Bellows. "Spurred by rapidly advancing technology and increased globalization, new problems continually develop and old ones resurface."

The Research and Technology Committee on Water and Steam in Thermal Systems (WSTS), as it now exists, is the result of a merger in 1989 of two separate committees, with different but complementary missions. The original committees persist today as subcommittees of the whole (Water Technology Subcommittee and Properties of Steam Subcommittee), which have their own chairs and continue to hold individual meetings in addition to the overall one.

The goal of the WSTS's Water Technology Subcommittee is to provide practical information, typically through consensus documents, on best practices within industrial and utility plants.

"Members of our subcommittee spend a lot of time in plants, troubleshooting and seeing problems and needs up close," said Debbie Bloom, chair, and a senior consultant with Nalco Chemical Co. "Our projects are heavily grounded in feedback from the field." Bloom emphasizes the importance of industry participation on this subcommittee. "Our members from industry offer an invaluable perspective about where the needs and barriers exist, and they are important sources of basic knowledge and terminology. The work of our subcommittee is particularly important today, when fewer and fewer companies have plant water chemists on their payroll."

Current projects of the group include: "Consensus for the Lay-up of Boilers, Turbines, Turbine Condensers and Auxiliary Equipment," "Consensus on Operation Practices for the Control of Feedwater and Boiler Water Chemistry in Heat Recovery Steam Generators," "Management Education" and "Monitoring and Control Document."

In addition, the group recently authored the following books now available at www.asme.org/catalog: "Practical Guide to Avoid Steam Purity Problems in the Industrial Plant" (order No. I00383) and "Consensus on Operation Practices for the Control of Feedwater and Boiler Water Chemistry in Modern Industrial Boilers" (order No. I00367).

"We welcome new members, who are not only interested but willing to participate," said Bloom. She can be contacted at (630) 260-1352 or dbloom@nalco.com.

The most famous product of the RC WSTS's Properties of Steam Subcommittee is the widely recognized and heavily used Steam Tables, which are the (now, typically, computerized) characterizations of the thermodynamic properties of water and steam.

Indeed, the principal goal of this group, according to Allan H. Harvey, a chemical engineer with NIST and the subcommittee's chair, is " ... to ensure that U.S. industry has the most accurate standardized values for thermal properties of water and steam."

Although the properties of water remain unchanged, these tables must be continually updated, Harvey said, because "technology advances, and with these advances comes the ability to measure and represent water's properties with increased accuracy and internal consistency."

Additionally, software improvements are making calculations much faster. A completely revised ASME Steam Tables book was published in 2000, with corresponding software. It is now available at www. asme.org/catalog (order No. 801543).

This subcommittee is also involved in improving the representation of transport properties (viscosity, thermal conductivity) of water and steam. Other areas of involvement include power cycle chemistry, high-temperature pH measurements, high-temperature solubility of gases in water, and solubility of salts and minerals in water and steam.

The subcommittee also represents the United States as a member of the International Association for the Properties of Water and Steam (IAPWS), whose goals are to provide internationally accepted formulations for these properties; and to define research needs, collect and evaluate data, and provide an international forum for transfer of knowledge and experience.

In September, the subcommittee will host the meeting of IAPWS at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg, Md., which coincides with NIST's centennial celebration. The meeting will include a special one-day symposium with the theme "Electric Power of the Future."

For more information on the IAPWS Symposium, visit www. iapws.org/mtg2001/symp.htm.

For information on the Properties of Steam Subcommittee, including how to join this group, visit www.asme.org/research/ steam/html.

— Carolyn Davis
Director, Center for Research and Technology Development

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