Boiler System ............................................................................................................................. 1 Boiler Types and Classification................................................................................................... 1 Fire Tube Boilers .................................................................................................................... 1 Operation ....................................................................................................................... 2 Types of fire-tube boiler ................................................................................................ 2 Cornish boiler ......................................................................................................... 2 Lancashire boiler .................................................................................................... 3 Scotch marine boiler .............................................................................................. 3 Vertical Fire-Tube boiler ........................................................................................ 4 Horizontal Return Tubular boiler ........................................................................... 5 Water Tube Boiler .................................................................................................................. 6 Types of water-tube boiler ............................................................................................ 7 D-type boiler .......................................................................................................... 7 Babcock & Wilcox boiler ........................................................................................ 7 Stirling boiler .......................................................................................................... 8 Yarrow boiler.......................................................................................................... 9 White-Forster ....................................................................................................... 10 Thornycroft .......................................................................................................... 10 Solid Fuel Boiler ................................................................................................................... 11 What Is Solid Fuel? ................................................................................................... 12 FBC BOILERS ......................................................................................................................... 13 Mechanism of Fluidised Bed Combustion ................................................................... 13 Types of Fluidised Bed Combustion Boilers ................................................................. 14
Boilers A boiler is an enclosed vessel that provides a means for combustion heat to be transferred into water until it becomes heated water or steam. The hot water or steam under pressure is then usable for transferring the heat to a process.
Boiler System The boiler system comprises of: feed water system steam system fuel system
The feed water system provides water to the boiler and regulates it automatically to meet the steam demand. Various valves provide access for maintenance and repair. The steam system collects and controls the steam produced in the boiler. Steam is directed through a piping system to the point of use. Throughout the system, steam pressure is regulated using valves and checked with steam pressure gauges. The fuel system includes all equipment used to provide fuel to generate the necessary heat. The equipment required in the fuel system depends on the type of fuel used in the system.
Boiler Types and Classification
There are virtually infinite numbers of boiler designs but generally they fit into one of two categories:
Fire Tube Boilers
They contain long steel tubes through which the hot gasses from a furnace pass and around which the water to be converted to steam circulates. The heat of the gases is transferred through the walls of the tubes by thermal conduction, heating the water and ultimately creating steam. Operation In the fire tube, fuel is burnt in a firebox to produce hot combustion gases. The firebox is surrounded by a cooling jacket of water connected to the long, cylindrical boiler shell. The hot gases are directed along a series of fire tubes, or flues, that penetrate the boiler and heat the water thereby generating saturated steam. The steam rises to the highest point of the boiler, the steam dome, where it is collected. The dome is the site of the regulator that controls the exit of steam from the boiler. Types of fire-tube boiler Cornish boiler Lancashire boiler Locomotive boiler Scotch marine boiler Vertical Fire-Tube boiler Horizontal Return Tubular boiler
Cornish boiler This is a long horizontal cylinder with a single large flue containing the fire. As the furnace relied on natural draught, a tall chimney was required at the far end of the flue to encourage a good supply of air (oxygen) to the fire.
Lancashire boiler The Lancashire boiler is similar to the Cornish, but has two large flues containing the fires instead of one.
The difficulties of the Cornish boiler were that a boiler of any particular power would require a known area of furnace tube as the heating area. Longer tubes required a longer and more expensive boiler shell. They also reduced the ratio of grate area relative to the heating area, making it difficult to maintain an adequate fire. Increasing the tube diameter reduced the depth of water covering the furnace tube and so increased the need for accurate control of water level by the fireman, or else the risk of boiler explosion. Another advantage of twin furnaces is that by firing them alternately and closing the firebox door between firings, it was also possible to arrange a supply of air past the furnace which would encourage the flue gases produced by the fire to burn more completely and cleanly, thus reducing smoke and pollution.
Scotch marine boiler
The general layout is that of a squat horizontal cylinder. One or more large cylindrical furnaces are in the lower part of the boiler shell. Above this is a large number of smalldiameter fire-tubes. Gases and smoke from the furnace pass to the back of the boiler and then return through the small tubes and up and out of the chimney. The ends of these multiple tubes are capped by a smoke-box, outside the boiler shell.
The Scotch boiler is a fire-tube boiler, in that hot flue gases pass through tubes set within a tank of water. As such, it is a descendant of the earlier Lancashire boiler and like the Lancashire it uses multiple separate furnaces to give greater heating area for a given furnace capacity. It differs from the Lancashire in two aspects: a large number of small diameter tubes (typically 3 or 4 inches diameter each) are used to increase the ratio of heating area to cross-section. Secondly the overall length of the boiler is halved by folding the gas path back on itself.
Vertical Fire-Tube boiler
A vertical boiler is a type of fire-tube boiler where the boiler barrel is oriented vertically instead of the more common horizontal orientation. Vertical boilers were used for a variety of steam-powered vehicles and other mobile machines, including early steam locomotives.
Horizontal Return Tubular boiler
Horizontal Return Tubular boiler (HRT) has a horizontal cylindrical shell, containing several horizontal flue tubes, with the fire located directly below the boiler's shell, usually within a brickwork setting.
Water Tube Boiler
A water tube boiler is a type of boiler in which water circulates in tubes heated externally by the fire. Fuel is burned inside the furnace, creating hot gas which heats water in the steamgenerating tubes. In smaller boilers, additional generating tubes are separate in the furnace, while larger utility boilers rely on the water-filled tubes that make up the walls of the furnace to generate steam. The heated water then rises into the steam drum. Here, saturated steam is drawn off the top of the drum. In some services, the steam will reenter the furnace through a superheater to become superheated. Superheated steam is a dry gas and therefore used to drive turbines, since water droplets can severely damage turbine blades. Cool water at the bottom of the steam drum returns to the feedwater drum via large-bore 'downcomer tubes', where it pre-heats the feedwater supply. To increase economy of the boiler, exhaust gases are also used to pre-heat the air blown into the furnace and warm the feedwater supply. Such water tube boilers in thermal power station are also called steam generating units.
D-type boiler The 'D-type' is the most common type of small- to medium-sized boilers. It is used in both stationary and marine applications. It consists of a large steam drum vertically connected to a smaller water drum via multiple steam-generating tubes. These are surrounded by walls made up of larger water-filled tubes, which make up the furnace.
Babcock & Wilcox boiler
Designed by the American firm of Babcock and Wilcox, this type has a single drum, with feedwater drawn from the bottom of the drum into a header that supplies inclined watertubes. The water tubes supply steam back into the top of the drum. Furnaces are located below the tubes and drum.
Stirling boiler Stirling boilers are one of the larger arrangements for a water-tube boiler: acceptable for stationary use, but impractical for mobile use, except for large ships with modest power requirements. They consist of a large brick-built chamber with a sinuous gas path through it, passing over near-vertical water-tubes that zig-zag between multiple steam drums and water drums.
They are amongst the older, "large-tube" designs of water-tube boilers, having water-tubes that are around 3 inches (83 mm) in diameter. The tubes are arranged in near-vertical banks between a number of cylindrical, horizontal steam drums (above) and water drums (below). The number of drums varies, and the Stirling designs are categorized into 3-, 4- and 5-drum boilers. The number of tube banks is one less than this, i.e. 2, 3 or 4 banks. Gas flow from the furnace passes through each bank in turn. Partial baffles of firebrick tiles are laid on each bank, so as to force the gasses to flow first up, and then down through each bank. Unusually, much of the gas flow is along the tubes' axis, rather than across them. All circulation, both up and down, is through the heating tubes and there are no separate external downcomers. The steam drums and, (in a 5-drum boiler) the water drums, are however linked by short horizontal pipes and these form part of the circulation circuit. The tubes themselves are seamless-drawn steel and mostly straight, with gently curved ends. The setting of the boiler is a large brick-built enclosure, but the steam drums are suspended from a separate girder framework inside this, so as to allow for expansion with heat. The tubes and the water drums in turn, are hung from the steam drums, again to allow
9 free expansion without straining the tube ends. Owing to their curved ends the water-tubes may enter the drums radially, allowing easy sealing, but this was also a feature considered, according to the fashion of the time, to be important on account of expansion. Stirling boilers may be made in very large sizes. It is usual for a standard design to be used, but in varying widths, according to need.
Yarrow boiler Yarrow boilers are an important class of high-pressure water-tube boilers. They were developed by Yarrows and were widely used on ships, particularly warships.
The Yarrow boiler design is characteristic of the three-drum boiler: two banks of straight water-tubes are arranged in a triangular row with a single furnace between them. A single steam drum is mounted at the top between them, with smaller water drums at the base of each bank. Circulation, both upwards and downwards, occurs within this same tube bank. The Yarrow's distinctive features were the use of straight tubes and also circulation in both directions taking place entirely within the tube bank, rather than using external downcomers.
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White-Forster The White-Forster type is similar to the Yarrow, but with tubes that are gradually curved. This makes their entry into the drums perpendicular, thus simpler to make a reliable seal.
Thornycroft The Thornycroft type features a single steam drum with two sets of water tubes either side of the furnace. These tubes, especially the central set, have sharp curves. There are two furnaces, venting into a common exhaust, giving the boiler a wide base tapering profile.
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Solid Fuel Boiler
The description of what is a solid fuel boiler varies from person to person Some describing it as a messy alternative to clean gas boiler, electricity and oil; Others claiming a solid fuel boiler provide a more aesthetically pleasing system that could provide cheaper energy bills as the costs of fuels rise.
A solid fuel boiler is not vastly different in structure to average combination boiler, it uses the same types of radiators and pipework on the whole and also can be used in underfloor heating systems. The fire inside the boiler, providing the essential running heat, can close down, but it cannot halt inside the boiler system completely in other words, it must be active, even marginally, at all times. Because of this, a solid fuel boiler must always be connected to a hot-water system or a radiator so that the surplus heat created can be used. The more advanced systems will have a method of storing this heat for later use, but many solid fuel boiler systems rely heavily on being able to constantly dissipate heat through hot
12 water or radiators. A system with open-vents is highly recommended, also, to help remove heat from the main source in the boiler, to prevent over-heating. The water temperature is controlled in a solid fuel boiler using internal thermostats built into the system, meaning that the temperature controls and gauges are often situated in the area of the heating circuit of the boiler. What Is Solid Fuel? The fuel a solid fuel boiler runs on is referred to as solid fuel, solid fuel can take many forms, such as coal, wood paper. Most solid fuel boilers are fed with solid fuel in a similar way as you would a fire, but there are also some solid fuel boilers available on the market that appear to run in the same manner as other types of non solid fuel boiler, with pellets of solid fuel being fed into the machine from a storage unit, or hopper situated outside of the house. It has been argued that solid fuel systems are messy and inefficient due to their nature of being an open fire, and, being an open fire, they require a thorough cleaning out at least once a day to ensure it burns effectively.
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FBC BOILERS Fluidized bed combustion (FBC) is a combustion technology used mostly in power plants. Fluidized beds suspend solid fuels on upward-blowing jets of air during the combustion process. The result is a turbulent mixing of gas and solids. The tumbling action, much like a bubbling fluid, provides more effective chemical reactions and heat transfer. FBC plants are more flexible than conventional plants in that they can be fired on coal and biomass, among other fuels.
Mechanism of Fluidised Bed Combustion When an evenly distributed air or gas is passed upward through a finely divided bed of solid particles such as sand supported on a fine mesh, the particles are undisturbed at low velocity. As air velocity is gradually increased, a stage is reached when the individual particles are suspended in the air stream the bed is called fluidized. With further increase in air velocity, there is bubble formation, vigorous turbulence, rapid mixing and formation of dense defined bed surface. The bed of solid particles exhibits the properties of a boiling liquid and assumes the appearance of a fluid bubbling fluidized bed. At higher velocities, bubbles disappear, and particles are blown out of the bed. Therefore, some amounts of particles have to be recirculated to maintain a stable system circulating fluidised bed. Fluidization depends largely on the particle size and the air velocity. The mean solids velocity increases at a slower rate than does the gas velocity, difference between the mean solid velocity and mean gas velocity is called as slip velocity. Maximum
14 slip velocity between the solids and the gas is desirable for good heat transfer and intimate contact. If sand particles in a fluidized state is heated to the ignition temperatures of coal, and coal is injected continuously into the bed, the coal will burn rapidly and bed attains a uniform temperature. The fluidized bed combustion (FBC) takes place at about 840C to 950C. The lower combustion temperature is achieved because of high coefficient of heat transfer due to rapid mixing in the fluidized bed and effective extraction of heat from the bed through in-bed heat transfer tubes and walls of the bed. Types of Fluidised Bed Combustion Boilers There are three basic types of fluidised bed combustion boilers: 1. Atmospheric classic Fluidised Bed Combustion System (AFBC) 2. Atmospheric circulating (fast) Fluidised Bed Combustion system (CFBC) 3. Pressurized Fluidised Bed Combustion System (PFBC)
