Report on the procedures/practices to minimize the

boiler tube leaks in the thermal power stations

One of the most complex, critical, and vulnerable systems in fossil power generation plants is the
boiler pressure components. Boiler pressure component failures have historically contributed to
the highest percentage of lost availability.
Failures have been related to
a) Poor original design, fabrication practices,
b) Fuel changes,
c) Operation, maintenance and cycle chemistry.
Boiler tube failures continue to be the major cause of forced outages. Statistically these are
responsible for an overall availability loss of 6% of the units
The cost of boiler tube failures is comprised of three main components; the cost of the repair, the
cost of start up oil to return unit to service, and the cost of lost production.
Prominent reasons for Boiler tube failures:
Poor water quality. With increases in operating pressure, feed water quality becomes even more
critical.
Coal quality: Using a different type of coal for emission or economic reasons has adversely
affected the capability, operability, and reliability of boiler and boiler auxiliaries
Cycling operation: Many base-load-designed boilers have been placed into cycling duty, which
has a major impact on the boiler reliability as indicated by occurrences of serious corrosion
fatigue in water-touched circuitries, economizer inlet header shocking, thick-wall header
damages, and others.
NOx emission: Deep staging combustion for NOx reduction has produced serious water wall
fire corrosion for high sulfur-coal firing, especially in supercritical units.
•Age-ing: A large percentage of existing fossil-fired units are exceeding “design life” without
plans for retirement. These vintage units are carrying major loads in power generation. The
boiler tubes are under high pressure and/or high-temperature conditions. They are subject to
potential degradation by a variety of mechanical and thermal stresses and environmental attack
on both the fluid and fireside.
Mechanical components can fail due to creep, fatigue, erosion, and corrosion
 Creep is a time-dependent deformation that takes place at elevated temperature under
mechanical stresses. such failure results in overheating or overstressing the tube material beyond
its capabilities for either a short term or a long-term period.

Creep failures-Overheating
Short-term Overheat Failure results in a ductile rupture of the tube metal, It is characterized by
“fish mouth” opening in the tube where the fracture surface is a thin edge.
Causes: Short-term overheat failures are most common during boiler start up. Failures result
when the tube metal temperature is extremely elevated from a lack of cooling steam or water
flow
Long-term Overheat Tube metal often has heavy external scale build-up and secondary cracking.
Super heater and reheat super heater tubes commonly fail after many years of service, as a result
of creep.
During normal operation, alloy super heater tubes will experience increasing temperature and
strain over the life of the tube until the creep life is expended. Furnace water wall tubes also can
fail from long-term overheat.
Fatigue
Fatigue is a phenomenon of damage accumulation caused by cyclic or fluctuating stresses, which
are caused by mechanical loads, flow induced vibration.
components are subjected to cyclic temperature and flow fluctuations restrict
thermal expansion.
Fatigue is classified in two categories, corrosion fatigue and thermal fatigue.
Corrosion fatigue, ―the fluctuations in circulation of water in the boiler tube
Thermal fatigue: frequent starts and stops Typically occurs at areas such as header ligaments,
welded attachments , tube stub welds, circumferential external surface cracking of water wall
tubes in supercritical units, and fabrication notches.
Erosion and corrosion
Erosion is metal removal caused by particles striking the metal’s surface.
Various mechanisms, such as fly ash erosion, soot blowing erosion, falling slag erosion, and coal
particle erosion can cause erosion on the boiler tubes.
Fly ash erosion, is a significant boiler tube failure concern, occurs in the regions with high local
flue gas velocities, with high ash loading, and with abrasive particles such as quartz
Corrosion: Deterioration and loss of material due to chemical attack.
There are two basic categories in boiler tubes: • Internal corrosion: hydrogen damage, acid
phosphate corrosion, caustic gouging, and pitting • External corrosion: water wall fireside
corrosion, super heater (SH)/re heater (RH) fireside corrosion, and ash dew point corrosion

Internal Corrosion-Hydrogen Damage

Hydrogen damage is most commonly associated with excessive deposition on ID tube surfaces,
coupled with a boiler water low pH excursion.
Water chemistry is upset, which can occur from condenser leaks, particularly with salt water
cooling medium, and leads to acidic (low pH) contaminants that can be concentrated in the
deposit.
Under-deposit releases atomic hydrogen which migrates into the tube wall metal, reacts with
carbon in the steel (decarburization) and causes inter granular separation.
Water wall Fireside Corrosion
Causes: Corrosion occurs on external surfaces of water wall tubes when the combustion process
produces a reducing atmosphere (sub stoichiometric).
This is common in the lower furnace of process recovery boilers in the pulp and paper industry.
For conventional fossil fuel boilers, corrosion in the burner zone usually is associated with coal
firing.
Improper burners or operating with staged air zones to control combustion are more susceptible
to larger local regions possessing a reducing atmosphere, resulting in increased corrosion rates.
These failures are attributed to several factors: high stresses at the austenitic to ferritic interface
due to differences in expansion properties of the two materials, excessive external loading
stresses and thermal cycling, and creep of the ferritic material.
Waterside Corrosion Fatigue
Causes: Tube damage occurs due to the combination of thermal fatigue and corrosion. Corrosion
fatigue is influenced by boiler design, water chemistry, boiler water oxygen content and boiler
operation. Leads to the breakdown of the protective magnetite on the ID surface of the boiler
tube.
The loss of this protective scale exposes tube to corrosion.
The locations of attachments and external weldments, such as buckstay attachments, seal plates
and scallop bars, are most susceptible.
The problem is most likely to progress during boiler startup cycles.
Boiler Tube Failure Influence Factors
1) Creep
2) Fatigue
3) Erosion
4) Corrosion

Control of Boiler tube leak:

Design stage
Adequate furnace sizes
Addressing Left-right unbalance in gas temperature
Addressing Left-right unbalance in gas flow
Material selection
Gas velocity in horizontal and 2nd pass
Lay out for maintenance approach
Identification of tube/ assemblies experiencing high metal temperature & installation of
thermocouples in these tubes/ assemblies
Selection of Boiler configuration to have uniform gas velocity

Engineering and Erection stage

Prepare sound tube material procurement and technical specifications
Clearly specify applicable code and standards, QA/QC requirements, additional material and
fabrication requirements (NDE, heat treatment, and welding procedures)
Conduct design reviews—including system analysis, thermal-hydraulics, and critical mechanical
detail design—and material selection to ensure that reliability is considered.
If a new material is to be used, use conservative procedures and processes in the fabrication of
components.
Caution should also exercised when using any new fabrication or welding processes.
Perform source inspection during fabrication and installation, including NDE of tube material
and tubing stock and in-process control of the fabrication processes.
Document welds locations and locations with changed tube material and tube sizes.
Manufacturing and erection stage aspects
Quality checks during manufacturing
Quality of shop weld joints

ERECTION STAGE
Alignment of coils/ panels Uniform spacing between coils/ panels
Uniform spacing between coil & wall at the front, rear, left and right
Erection of clamps, attachments, supports and hangers
Quality of site weld joints
Thruness of coils & panels
Completion of all attachment welding before Hydro test
Removal of temporary supports/ structures

Commissioning and Operation stage

Commissioning stage
Removal of temporary supports/ structures
• Hydro test of complete pressure parts
• Quality of Alkali boil out
• Quality of Acid cleaning
• Quality of Steam blowing
• CAVT
• Repeat CAVT after correction
Operation stage
• Temperature excursions
• Drum level control
• Furnace pressure control
• Optimization of soot blowing
• FG O2 at Eco. Outlet
• Wind box pressure
• PF fineness
• PF balancing
• Air flow through mills
• Furnace cooling
Dissolved O2 in feed water
• Silica in Drum water & steam
• PH value of feed water & steam
In recent time boiler tube leaks in increasing trend in TSGENCO and the Hon’ble Chairman
and Managing Director/TSGENCO instructed to study procedures/practices following at the
NTPC Ramagundam thermal power station. Accordingly Sri M. Siddaiah, Chief
Engineer/Generation and Sri P.Ravinder Reddy, Divisional Engineer/Generation visited the
NTPC Ramagundam Super Thermal power station on 19/04/2018 and met the Executive
Director NTPC Ramagundam thermal power station Sri Dubey, GM/(O&M), AGM/Boiler
Maintenance and operation engineers at UCBs and discussed the procedures/ practices at NTPC
Ramagundam in the following aspects to avoid/minimize the boiler tube leaks.
a) Design aspects
b) Operational aspects
c) Maintenance aspects.

Procedures/Practices:
a) Design aspects
1) The boiler design was changed with the problems faced and based on the experience in
the units 4, 5, 6 units of 500 MW.
2) Increased the space between coils and within tubes in the coil for freely and easily
inspection of tubes during the overhauls. Reduced the height of the coil. Changed the
thickness of tubes.
3) Furnace size increased
4) NTPC is preparing the specifications on their own.
b) Operational aspects
 5) Strictly following the design operational parameters especially on the MS, RH
temperatures.
6) Daily discussing maximum MS, RH and temperatures and time in the daily DPM.
7) Hydraulic test not conducting on the boiler after attending the tube. NTPC is conducting
the RT on each joint of tube repair done.
8) Admitting pegging steam in the deaerator during the units start up for proper mixing of
chemicals adding in the boiler.
9) Oxygen content in the flue gas maintaining around 3.5% at APH inlet.
10) All auto loops are in service and the unit is running on CMC mode
11) Strict monitoring on the boiler chemistry both online and offline.
12) Performing Water wall soot blowing once in a day
13) LRSB operation as and when required.

c) Maintenance aspects
14) Following the OEM instructions for equipments maintenance.
15) At regular intervals, monitoring the performance of the plant i.e. boiler efficiency and
Heat rate etc.
16) Putting shrouds in the areas more prone to the erosion.
17) Reducing the flue gas velocity by putting the obstructions like mesh, fins etc in the path
and maintain the average flue gas velocity throughout flue gas path.
18) Each failed tube sending for failure analysis at their lab at Noida and following the
remedial measures to avoid the reoccurrence of the tube failures.
19) Maintaining the history of tube leaks and their rectification records.

General actions to be taken to prevent & control Boiler Tube Failures

During overhauling of Steam Generator, Internal Washing of 1st and 2nd pass should be carried
out so that proper scanning of tubes can be carried out.
Intensive 'D' metering of boiler tubes at pre-determined locations to be carried out & comparison
w.r.t. to last overhaul should be done, especially in wear prone areas.
The limit of 20% reduction in thickness due to fly ash erosion must be adhered to, for
replacement of worn out portion of boiler tubes.
DPT of attachment welds should be carried out, especially in Pent House.
100% radiography of weld during overhaul & also during tube failure repair is to be carried out.
Platen S/H, R/H & Final super heater Coils must be checked for overheating during over hauling.
During operation of units, the metal temperature excursions in above area should be avoided and
monitored by Operation Department and should be discussed in daily Planning meeting.
For determining the fire side corrosion and internal corrosion of furnace tubes, samples from
each corner of furnace must be sent to R & D in each unit overhaul.
To avoid failures of DMW joints, DPT of all DMW joints must be carried out in each overhaul.
At random radiography (5%) of DMW joints should be carried out.
To reduce secondary damages due to tube failure, Operation staff is required to check
for any steam leak sound through peep holes at least once in a shift. Also, in case of
increase in DM make-up and furnace draft fluctuation, boiler furnace / 2nd pass should be
checked.
Lowering of extreme LHS & RHS Eco. Coils in economizer hopper for thorough
inspection of coils, As erosion on RHS at NCPS (Th) is more than LHS,3 pairs of extreme
RHS coil and 2 pairs of LHS coils should be lowered down & worn out tubes to be replaced.
Inspection of Steam cooled side walls after lowering down of Eco. Coils
Inspection of LTSH coils by lifting up the extreme LHS/RHS coils and replacement of
worn out portion of tubes.
Inspection of eco. hanger tubes for fly ash erosion and replacement of worn out
portion of tubes
Inspection of extended Steam Cooled Wall (LHS/RHS) in arch area for fly ash erosion
and replacement of worn out portion of tubes.
Second pass manhole bends especially on RHS are usually found worn out in various
overhauls and should be replaced if required.
Re-heater & Platen S/H Steam cooled spacer tube bends on both sides are normally found eroded
& should be replaced if required in each overhaul.
Inspection of wall blower area of furnace for steam erosion and replacement of worn out portion
of tubes.
Burner corner panel tubes are found eroded due to fly ash carryover in secondary air. These
tubes must be replaced in capital overhaul.
Intensive shielding should be done in the wear prone areas
Best practices in coal fired power stations to arrest Boiler tube leaks
1. CONTROLLING THE TUBE METAL TEMPs WITHIN DESIGN VALUE
2. ENSURING THE SOOT BLOWER HOME POSITION
3. MAINTAINING WB TO FURNACE DP AS PER DESIGN
5. PERIODIC LRSB OPERATION TO AVOIDING OVER HEATING
6. FORMATION OF PERFORMANCE OPTIMISATION GROUP, WHICH GUIDES THE
MEASURES TO BE TAKEN TO BTL. GROUP COMPRISES OF OPERATION,
EFFICIENCY, BMD, C&I, CHEMISTRY AND CHP etc
7. PROVIDING PROTECTION SHIELDS AT POSSIBLE HIGH EROSION AREAS.
8. CHANGING OF COAL BURNER IN EVERY OVERHAUL, WHICH PLAYS KEY ROLE
IN COMBUSTION
9. MAX PERCENTAGE TUBE THICKNESS SURVEY IN EVERY OVERHAUL
10. MAINTAINING CHEMISTRY PARAMETERS OF FEED, CONDENSATE AND STEAM
AND VERY CLOSE MONITORING OF PARAMETERS TO AVOID WATER CORROSION
11. MAINTAIN C&I LOOPS ARE VERY ACURATE, ESPECIALLY METAL TEMP
12. PERIODIC CHECKING OF MILL FINENESS TO AVOID SECONDARY COMBUSTION
13. MAINTAINING BOTTOM ASH HOPPER LEVEL NORMAL VALUE TO AVOID
SPALSHING OF WATER ON BOTTOM SIDE OF WATERWALLS
14. CONTROLLING THE EXCESS AIR TO AVOID HIGH VELOCITY AND HIGH FLUE
GAS EXIT TEMP
15. DURING COMMISSIONG STATE, FLUSHING AND CHEMICAL CLEAINGS PLAYS
IMPORTANT ROLE TO CLEAR ANY BLOCKAGES IN THE CIRCUIT. OTHERWISE,
THESE BLOCKAGES WILL LEAD TO TUBE FAILURE(OVERHEATING)
16. PROVIDING THERMAL DRAIN IN SOOT BLOWER STEAM LINE