Steam quality

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Please improve this article if you can. (July 2006)

Steam quality is the proportion of saturated steam in a saturated water/steam mixture. A steam quality of 0 indicates 100% water while a steam quality of 1 indicates 100% steam. Steam quality is very useful in determining enthalpy of saturated water/steam mixtures since the enthalpy of steam (gaseous state) is many orders of magnitude higher than enthalpy of water (liquid state).

Mathematically, quality is defined by the relationship $x = m a s s o f v a p o r / t o t a l m a s s$ . This can be translated to $x = (y - y [f]) / y [f g]$ , where y is equal to either specific enthalpy, specific entropy, specific volume or specific internal energy. y[f] is the value of the specific property of the substance in the liquid state while under saturated conditions, and y[fg] is the value of the specific property of the substance in the gas state minus that of the liquid state.