Brick flues in power plant

chimneys withstand

A new chimney for Indianapolis Power and Light Co.’s Petersburg power plant was constructed early this year. Inside its con-
crete outer shell are three flues built of acid-resistant brick and potassium silicate mortar. Indianapolis Power and Light Co.

Made of special acid-resistant brick and potassium silicate mortar,

brick flue liners resist acidic gas emissions at lower cost
than steel or plastic alternatives
By Mark A. Wallace

N
ear Petersburg, Ind., work-
ers are now completing
construction of a 620-foot-
tall chimney for Indianapolis
Power and Light Co. (IPL). To
comply with federal clean air re-
quirements, IPL, like many power
companies, had to install scrub-
bers to remove sulfur oxide pollu-
tants from the plant’s emission
gases. These scrubbers required
a new chimney, and IPL chose
brick as the material to line the
chimney’s flues.
As they wash the flue gases by
injecting neutralizing agents into
them, the scrubbers also make
the gases much cooler and moist-
er. Though a power plant normal-
ly operates at 300° F to 350° F,
scrubbers lower the gas tempera-
ture to the dewpoint range (150°
F to 160° F), causing any sulfur
still in the gases to condense in-
side the chimney as sulfuric or
sulfurous acid.
“This creates a much more hos-
tile environment,” says one chim-
ney consultant. “These acids can
eat through a 3⁄8-inch steel liner
in a matter of months.”
That’s why most power compa-
nies build their chimney liners
out of brick.
“Structurally, steel is easier to
design,” claims Jim Naylor of
Pullman Power Products, the
specialty contractor in Kansas
City, Mo., which is building the

chimney at Petersburg. “But car-
bon steel does not resist chemical
attack. For chemical resistance,
you need a high nickel alloy steel,
which is easily three times the
cost of a brick liner.”
The acid-resistant brickwork
for the Petersburg chimney cost
$30 to $35 per square foot. A
nickel alloy steel liner can cost
$85 to $100 per square foot.
Liners also can be made of fiber
glass reinforced plastic (FRP),
but FRP costs as much as steel
alloys and cannot be used for by-
pass flue liners that exhaust high-
temperature gases.
Brick, on the other hand, does
the job at relatively low cost.
But special brick and special mor-
tar must be used, and special
construction practices must be
followed.
Use brick with low absorption
The acid-resistant brick used
in industrial chimney construc-
tion are usually red shale or buff
fireclay brick, highly fired and
with very low absorption.
Made like normal brick, which
itself is very chemical-resistant,
chemical-resistant brick is just
fired longer and at a slightly
higher temperature to vitrify it
more, so it’s less porous and less
absorptive.
“Except for acid fluorides and
strong, hot caustics, chemical-re-
sistant brick resists just about ev-
ery type of chemical,” says
Richard Petro, a Pittsburgh con-
sultant on chemical-resistant ma-
sonry and chair of the ASTM com-
mittee responsible for standards
on chemical-resistant masonry.
Chimney brick must meet the
requirements of ASTM C 980,
Standard Specification for Indus-
trial Chimney Lining Brick. C 980
classifies brick into three types
(I, II, and III) by minimum com-
pressive strength (8500 psi,
10,000 psi, and 12,000 psi), maxi-
mum water absorption (6%, 4%,
and 1%), and maximum weight
loss after a sulfuric acid boil test
(20%, 12%, and 8%).
Type I brick costs less than the
other types and usually can do
the job. The Type II buff fireclay
brick used on the Petersburg
project cost 60¢ to 65¢ a unit,
plus 25¢ a unit for shipping from
Pennsylvania. The high price of
Type III brick (almost twice that
of Type I) limits its use to only
extreme exposures.
To achieve the narrow mortar
joints that are required, there are
close size tolerances on chemical-
resistant brick. According to C 980,
in a random sampling of 10 brick,
the smallest and largest brick
cannot vary in height by more
than 3% and in length and width
by more than 5%.
Acid-resistant mortar
A highly acidic environment
like an industrial chimney liner
requires a special mortar, too.
Sulfuric acid would quickly de-
stroy conventional portland ce-
ment mortar or calcium alumi-
nate mortar. Potassium silicate
mortar usually is used instead.
“Potassium silicates will take
any acid at any concentration,
except those acids that contain
[large amounts of] fluoride,” says
one mortar manufacturer. “These
mortars will take temperatures
up to 1,800° F. You can put them
in boiling sulfuric acid and they
simply get stronger.”
“Silicate mortars are the only
chemical-resistant mortars com-
merciallyavailable w h e r et e m p e r-
atureresistanceapproaches2,000°
F,” s a y sa n o t h e r manufacturer.
Organic resin mortars, such as
furan, have been used because
they are stronger, much less ab-
sorptive, and resist a wider vari-
ety of chemicals. But they also
cost more and can’t withstand
temperatures above 350° F.
Potassium silicate mortars
must meet ASTM C 466, Stan-
dard Specification for Chemically
Setting Silicate and Silica Chem-
ical-Resistant Mortars. The mor-
tar’s maximum absorption must
be 19% and minimum seven-day
compressive strength must be
3000 psi.
Potassium silicate mortar was
used to build the liners at the Pe-
tersburg power plant. A laborer
mixed together a powder, silica
sand, and a liquid binder, produc-
ing only about 100 pounds of mor-
tar at a time.
Because the mortar is more ab-
sorptive than the brick, minimiz-
ing the amount of exposed mor-
tar is important. Masons thus
lay the brick with narrow 1⁄8 -inch
joints. Also, the mortar’s pot life
is short (30 to 40 minutes at
73°F), and it can’t be retempered.
So the best way to avoid waste is
to make small batches.
 Potassium silicate mortar does
not set at low temperatures. On
the Petersburg project, the brick
flue liners were built mostly dur-
ing the winter, when tempera-
tures were often below 50° F. The
brick and mortar thus had to be
heated both before and during
construction.
At high temperatures, the op-
posite problem occurs. The mor-
tar sets too fast. At 90° F, the pot
life of potassium silicate mortar
is only 5 to 10 minutes. In hot
weather, workers may have to
chill the liquid binder before mix-
ing. And masons using the mor-
tar may have to set the mortar
pan in a pan of ice and water
(taking care to keep water out of
the mortar).
The 1.3 million brick used to
build the three flue liners at Pe-
tersburg required 1.1 million
pounds of mortar. The potassium
silicate mortar ingredients cost
about 20¢ a pound, not including
freight.
New standard introduced
This June, after 10 years of de-
velopment, ASTM approved the
first American standard for the
design and construction of brick
industrial chimney liners: ASTM
C 1298, Standard Guide for the
Design and Construction of Brick
Liners for Industrial Chimneys.
The new standard should provide
more uniformity in design.
C 1298 gives materials, con-
struction, and design require-
ments for industrial brick flue
liners. For example, it specifies
construction tolerances: The max-
imum offset between bricks on
the interior surface should not ex-
ceed 1⁄8 inch. Mortar joints should
not be wider than 1⁄4 inch. It also
sets design limits: Walls should
not be less than 8 inches thick.
At any elevation, the mean liner
diameter to wall thickness ratio
should not exceed 60.
Industrial chimney design
At the Petersburg power
plant, three brick flue liners—two
plumb, one tapered—were built
inside a 78-foot-diameter con-
crete shell (see drawing). This
outer concrete shell, with its 14-
Masons build a liner of double red shale chimney brick, working from the inside on
a suspended platform.
inch-thick walls, is designed to
protect the brick liners from lat-
e r a l w i n d loads.
Each brick liner is designed as
a cantilever structure, supported
only at its base by a reinforced
concrete pedestal. The pedestals
are built of concrete because con-
crete costs less than chemical-re-
sistant masonry. Below the point
where gases enter a liner, acid-
resistant brick isn’t needed, just
structural support. A layer of
lead was laid between each brick
liner and its concrete base to keep
any corrosive liquids that might
penetrate the brick from destroy-
ing the concrete.
Why three flue liners? The two
plumb flue liners are connected
to two different power genera-
tors, each with its own scrubber.
Each power generator needs its
own flue liner to maintain proper
draft up the chimney. If the two
generators were connected to the
same liner, whenever one of them
was shut down, too little gas
would be emitted to provide prop-
er draft.
“You wouldn’t get very good
plume rise, and you’d have prob-
lems,” says Naylor. “The gas
wouldn’t come out of the top of
the chimney without bigger fans
to push it up and that costs a lot.
The engineer tries to design flues
to be as self-drafting as possible.”
The third, tapered flue liner is
a bypass liner, used when one of
the generators is run with its
scrubber shut down for mainte-
nance or because the gas emis-
sions don’t have to be scrubbed.
It’s best not to use the same
brick liner for both purposes. In
the bypass mode, the gases are
hot. In the scrubber mode, gases
are wet and at low temperature.
“Use a brick liner in both ap-
plications, and it’ll probably fail,”
says Naylor.
In fact, in recent years, several
brick chimney liners connected to
scrubbers have been found to
lean slightly. Varying tempera-
ture and moisture conditions at
different points in the liner may
be the cause. To avoid this prob-
lem, C 1298 recommends not
mixing scrubbed gas and bypass
gas in the same liner.
Why is only one of the
Petersburg flue liners tapered?
The two liners connected to the
scrubbers are built plumb, so
there are no offsets in the brick
to catch condensation and so a
tapered flue does not accelerate
gases. Faster gases tend to re-en-
train condensates more easily.
Because the bypass liner is not
connected to a scrubber, the emis-
sion gases that pass through it
are hot and dry and not prone to
condensation. The gases may
thus rise through the liner more
quickly, which means the liner
doesn’t have to be plumb. A ta-
pered design not only accelerates
the gas, it’s also structurally
more stable and less expensive to
build (because it uses less brick).
The Petersburg bypass liner has
a 1% taper, shrinking in diameter
from about 25 feet at the bottom
to 20 feet at the top.
Brick flue liners are designed
in two ways. An independent
brick liner is supported only by
the foundation or by a concrete
pedestal. A sectionalized liner is
built in 40- to 50-foot-high sec-
tions that are supported by cor-
bels in the outer concrete shell.
Sectionalized liners have lost fa-
vor to some extent. The small
space they leave between brick
liner and concrete shell makes it
difficult to inspect the liner for
leaks. They’re rarely used with
scrubbed chimneys.
The gas ducts from the scrub-
bers enter the flue liners at points
called breeching openings. These
openings, which can be more than
20 feet high, require special con-
struction considerations. The lin-
er walls in these areas must be
constructed at least 12 inches
thick, i fn e c e s s a r yb y corbelingthe
brick on the exterior of the liner.
Steel lintels and brick pilasters
must be incorporated to carry
loads around the opening. And
special gasket material must be
used to seal the joint between the
breeching and liner. The width of
a breeching opening should not
exceed one-half the inside diame-
ter of the liner at that elevation.
Once a brick flue is put into
operation, it starts to grow a lit-
tle due to thermal expansion. To
hold the brick in place when this
happens, 3x 3⁄8 -inch steel tension
bands are installed around the
outside of the liners every 4 or 5
feet, for the full liner height. To
install one of these bands, a ma-
son simply turns a few brick out
every so often around the perime-
ter of the liner. This creates a
ledge to set the band on. Where
these bands are obstructed by a
breeching, steel buckstays are
installed to continue the bands
around the breeching.
Building the Petersburg chimney
To build the flues for the Pe-
Worker mixes small batches of acid-re-
sistant mortar in rubber buckets, using
a heavy-duty variable-speed drill and
paddle stirrer.
tersburg power plant, the con-
tractor installed temporary sup-
port rigging at the top of the
chimney’s concrete shell, which
he built first.
From this steel rigging, work-
ers hung cables to suspend a work
deck inside each brick liner. Hy-
draulic jacks attached to the ca-
bles were used to raise and lower
the deck. Working from inside, at
an optimum work height, the ma-
sons didn’t have to reach across
the wall to lay brick.
“The inside face of the brick
liner had to be as smooth as pos-
sible,” says Naylor.
On the plumb flue liners, where
smoothness was critical, specially
shaped brick were used, manu-
factured to the exact radius of
each liner. One end of the brick
headers and one side of the brick
stretchers were made with the
curve built in.
To further complicate work,
mortar joints had to be 1⁄8 inch
thick and 100% filled. An owner’s
inspector was on the deck watch-
ing the bricklayers work all the
time. The bricklayers “buttered”
the brick using their trowels. In-
dustrial chimney brick are not
d i p p e di n a mortarslurry, a method
common in some refractory work.
Following industry practice,
the walls of the flues got thinner
as they got higher. ASTM C 1298
limits the maximum height of
any wall thickness to 250 feet.
For example, the tapered, 562-
foot-high bypass liner was built
16 inches thick for the first 72
feet, 12 inches thick the next 240
feet, and 8 inches thick the top
250 feet. Masons achieved these
thicknesses by using varying com-
binations of header and stretch-
er brick. For better bond, they al-
ternated header and stretcher
courses. C 1298 recommends
staggering the bond at least ev-
ery three courses. It also recom-
mends staggering each course
around the circumference to pre-
vent stacking of vertical joints.
The masons laid 8 to 10 verti-
cal feet of liner every shift. Each
mason laid 750 to 800 brick a day.
“Bricklayers have to average
750 brick per man [per day] for
us to make money. That’s an in-
dustry standard,” says Naylor.
It’s also a lot of hard work.
Each brick weighs more than 11
pounds. They’re called double-
solids because at 8x33⁄4x41⁄2 inch-
es, they are twice the size of typi-
cal house brick.
The contractor ran two shifts,
with about 24 masons per shift,
about eight on each liner. One or
two mason tenders on each work
platform kept the masons sup-
plied with brick and mortar. Four
laborers down below provided
ground support: two mixed mor-
tar and two helped move materi-
als. Each platform had its own
hoist to haul materials. Each
hoist had its own operator, and
there were three forklift opera-
tors. Two forklifts did nothing but
haul brick from a remote storage
yard 1⁄2 mile away. The project re-
quired 350 tractor-trailer loads
of brick.
Not for every job
Brick flue liners resist the acids
in power plant gas emissions at
less cost than any other system.
But they can’t always be used.
C 1298 says they shouldn’t be
used in Seismic Zones 3 and 4.
For chimneys taller than 1,000
feet, they may not be economical
to build. And some power plants
lack the space brick liners re-
quire. Brick liners must be large in
diameter for gases to rise up the years, as older plants go out of
chimney slowly. This requires phase and as developing areas
more brick, a larger concrete ped- require more power, some people
estal, and more land. Steel and expect an upswing in new con-
FRP liners can be smaller. Be- struction.
cause steel and FRP liners have “It’s going to come,” says Petro.
smoother inside surfaces, gases “It’s just a matter of when.”
a r ea l l o w e dt om o v et h r o u g ht h e m
faster. Mark A. Wallace is a freelance writer
Three or four contractors build based in Chicago and the former editor of
most of the power plant chim- this magazine.
neys in the United States, often
designing them as well. Two mor-
tar manufacturers supply most of
the potassium silicate mortar
that’s used, and most of the acid-
resistant brick is supplied by half
a dozen brick manufacturers. Ob-
viously, the industrial chimney
market is not large enough to ac-
commodate a lot of players.
Even so, industrial chimneys PUBLICATION #M950486
are the greatest user of chemical- Copyright © 1995, The Aberdeen Group
resistant masonry. In t h en e x t five All rights reserved