In 1997, the International Association for the Properties of Water and Stea
m (IAPWS) adopted a new formulation for the thermodynamic proper-ties of wa
ter and steam for industrial use. This new formulation, called IAPWS Indust
rial Formulation 1997 for the Thermodynamic Properties of Water and Steam (
IAPWS-IF97), replaces the previous industrial formulation, IFC-67, that had
formed the basis for power-plant calculations and other applications in en
ergy engineering since the late 1960's. IAPWS-IF97 improves significantly b
oth the accuracy and the speed of the calculation of the thermodynamic prop
erties compared with IFC-67. The differences between IAPWS-IF97 and IFC-67
will require many users, particularly boiler and turbine manufacturers, to
modify design and application codes. This paper summarizes the need and the
requirements for such a new industrial formulation and gives the entire nu
merical information about the individual equations of IAPWS-IF97. Moreover,
the scientific basis for the development of the equations is summarized an
d the achieved quality of IAPWS-IF97 is presented regarding the three crite
rions accuracy, consistency along region boundaries, and computation speed.
For comparison, corresponding results for the previous standard IFC-67 are
also presented.