The New Steam Tables: together with their Derivation and Application

Abstract

PROF. CALLENDAR, in his Royal Society paper of 1900, suggested the use as the characteristic for steam of v–b=Rθ/p–Cθn–V–c, say. This is suggested by the Joule Thomson equation for gases, where n = 2, and by Grindley's result for steam, in which n=3·8. Only a man of Prof. Callendar's reputation could have received attention, for he gave rather fanciful reasons for taking w=3·5 and for his values of the specific heats when p is very small. Again, it is probably quite untrue that c is a function of temperature only. Nevertheless, when steam tables are calculated by means of the above characteristic, the constants b, C, and n (and, indeed, R also) can be given such values as make the calculations agree with what Prof. Callendar regards as the best experimental results, and he recommended in 1900 that tables calculated from his formulæ should be substituted for the usual tables as given by Regnault and modified by Griffiths and others. The numbers of the new tables are consistent with each other, and this is a great advantage, because we generally need differences of total heals, for example, rather than their absolute amounts.

The New Steam Tables: together with their Derivation and Application.

By Prof. C. A. M. Smith A. G. Warren. With an introduction by Sir J. Alfred Ewing, K.C.B., F.R.S. Pp. xii + 101. (London: Constable and Co., Ltd., 1913.) Price 4s. net.