Is there a difference between water vapor and wet steam?

AI Thread Summary
Water vapor and wet steam are not the same; they differ primarily in the presence of liquid droplets. Wet steam contains suspended liquid particles, while water vapor is a gaseous state without these droplets. The distinction is based on vapor quality, with wet steam being a mixture of liquid and gas, and water vapor being entirely gaseous. At atmospheric pressure and below saturation temperature, water vapor can condense into wet steam, but it cannot exist stably in that state. Thus, water vapor is invisible, while wet steam appears as white due to the suspended droplets.
M.Kalai vanan
Messages
32
Reaction score
0
Both water vapor and wet steam contain both contain tiny droplets of water particles(correct me if I'm wrong).Does it mean both water vapor and wet steam are same and one ?
 
Engineering news on Phys.org
Not necessarily. You have to solve for vapour quality (X) and check what state your fluid is in.

X=mvapor/mtotal
Wet steam - generally means that it's not "superheated" - meaning that 0<x<1
 
Water vapor is gaseous, it is not just tiny droplets.
 
@ russ_watters
The so is wet steam containing suspended liquid particles in gaseous form.Can you please be more specific ?
 
@ ksukhin
So, you say that vapor doesn't mean particularly wet steam but can refer to all three forms of steam (wet, saturated, super-saturated ) depending on the vapor quality or dryness fraction.
If so then if vapor exists in saturated and supersaturated states then they would be transparent (invisible to human eyes).But the standard definition of vapor states that it is visible in white form while steam in transparent in nature
watch this link
 
M.Kalai vanan said:
@ russ_watters
The so is wet steam containing suspended liquid particles in gaseous form.Can you please be more specific ?
Suspended liquid particles are liquid particles (as the description says), they are not in gaseous form: what you said is a self-contradiction.

A gas is when no two molecules are connected to each other. A liquid is when a lot of molecules are stuck together.

Unfortunately, the Mr. Wizard video is wrong (though correct that the colloquial label is also wrong). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam
 
@ russ_watters
So you say that water that evaporates from open or other sources at atmospheric conditions is water vapor(invisible to human eyes) and as they move upwards they condense to form clouds, containing suspended liquid droplets and is called wet steam.
If water vapor at atmospheric pressure and below saturation temperature (or at saturation temperature and lower pressure) contains suspended liquid droplets it is known as wet steam and if it doesn't contain liquid droplets and only plain gas then it is called water vapor.
 
M.Kalai vanan said:
@ russ_watters
So you say that water that evaporates from open or other sources at atmospheric conditions is water vapor(invisible to human eyes) and as they move upwards they condense to form clouds, containing suspended liquid droplets and is called wet steam.
Yes.
If water vapor at atmospheric pressure and below saturation temperature (or at saturation temperature and lower pressure) contains suspended liquid droplets it is known as wet steam...
That's not a stable situation because water vapor can't exist at atomspheric pressure and below saturation (boiling) temperature, but yes, some of it condenses into wet steam...which then also evaporates as it disperses.
...and if it doesn't contain liquid droplets and only plain gas then it is called water vapor.
Yes, plain gaseous water is water vapor or dry steam.
 
Back
Top