Accumulation and Effect on Efficiency

Condensate is water formed when steam has reverted from its gaseous state to a liquid. Managing condensate is essential if you want to maximize your steam system's efficiency. Not that we have anything against condensate personally, it's just that it has several physical attributes that reduce a steam system's efficiency, and we simply can't have that.

Effects of Condensate in a Steam System

1. Condensate lacks latent heat, so it always has a lower heat content than the steam from which it was formed.
2. Condensate is just as incompressible as a solid. If a mass of water is accelerated, it can exert a great deal of force when it strikes another object.
3. Condensate collects on the bottom of steam lines, out of the flow path, so it requires some external means, like gravity for instance, to move it through the system.