Fire Tube Boiler

Hot gases pass through the tubes and boiler feed water in the shell side is converted into steam. Fire tube boilers are generally used for relatively small steam capacities and low to medium steam pressures. As a guideline, fire tube boilers are competitive for steam rates up to 12,000 kg/hour and pressures up to 18 kg/cm2. Fire tube boilers are available for operation with oil, gas or solid fuels.

Water Tube Boiler

Boiler feed water flows through the tubes and enters the boiler drum. The circulated water is heated by the combustion gases and converted into steam at the vapour space in the drum. These boilers are selected when the steam demand as well as steam pressure requirements are high as in the case of process cum power boiler / power boilers.

 Most modern water boiler tube designs are within the capacity range 4,500 120,000 kg/hour of steam, at very high pressures.
Many water tube boilers nowadays are of packaged construction if oil and /or gas are to be used as fuel. Solid fuel fired water tube designs are available but packaged designs are less common. The features of water tube boilers are: Forced, induced and balanced draft provisions help to improve combustion efficiency. Less tolerance for water quality calls for water treatment plant. Higher thermal efficiency levels are possible

Packaged Boiler
It comes as a complete package. Once delivered to site, it requires only the steam, water pipe work, fuel supply and electrical connections. generally of shell type with fire tube design so as to achieve high heat transfer rates by both radiation and convection.

The features of package boilers are: Small combustion space and high heat release rate resulting in faster evaporation. Large number of small diameter tubes leading to good convective heat transfer. Forced or induced draft systems resulting in good combustion efficiency. Number of passes resulting in better overall heat transfer. Higher thermal efficiency levels compared with other boilers.
These boilers are classified based on the number of passes the number of times the hot combustion gases pass through the boiler. The most common boiler of this class is a three-pass unit with two sets of fire-tubes and with the exhaust gases exiting through the rear of the boiler.

Atmospheric Circulating Fluidized Bed Combustion Boilers (CFBC) In a circulating system the bed parameters are so maintained as to promote solids elutriation from the bed. They are lifted in a relatively dilute phase in a solids riser, and a downcomer with a cyclone provides a return path for the solids. There are no steam generation tubes immersed in the bed. Generation and super heating of steam takes place in the convection section, water walls, at the exit of the riser. CFBC boilers are generally more economical than AFBC boilers for industrial application requiring more than 75 100 T/hr of steam.

Traveling-grate Stoker
Coal is fed onto one end of a moving steel grate. As grate moves along the length of the furnace, the coal burns before dropping off at the end as ash. ensure clean combustion leaving the minimum of unburnt carbon in the ash. The coal-feed hopper runs along the entire coal-feed end of the furnace. A coal gate is used to control the rate at which coal is fed into the furnace by controlling the thickness of the fuel bed. Coal must be uniform in size as large lumps will not burn out completely by the time they reach the end of the grate.

Waste Heat Boiler

Wherever the waste heat is available at medium or high temperatures, a waste heat boiler can be installed economically. Wherever the steam demand is more than the steam generated during waste heat, auxiliary fuel burners are also used. If there is no direct use of steam, the steam may be let down in a steam turbine-generator set and power produced from it. It is widely used in the heat recovery from exhaust gases from gas turbines and diesel engines.

Thermic Fluid Heater

Application for indirect process heating. These heaters provide constantly maintainable temperatures for the user equipment. The modern oil fired thermic fluid heater consists of a double coil, three pass construction and fitted with modulated pressure jet system. The thermic fluid, which acts as a heat carrier, is heated up in the heater and circulated through the user equipment. There it transfers heat for the process through a heat exchanger and the fluid is then returned to the heater. The flow of thermic fluid at the user end is controlled by a pneumatically operated control valve, based on the operating temperature. The advantages of these heaters are: Closed cycle operation with minimum losses as compared to steam boilers.

Water tube boiler

A type of boiler in which water circulates in tubes heated externally by the fire. Water tube boilers are used for high-pressure boilers. Fuel is burned inside the furnace, creating hot gas which heats water in the steam-generating tubes. 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 used to drive turbines. 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. A advantage is that there is less chance of a catastrophic failure: there is not a large volume of water in the boiler nor are there large mechanical elements subject to failure.

Stirling boiler
Has near-vertical, almost-straight watertubes that zigzag between a number of steam and water drums. They are mainly used as stationary boilers, owing to their large size, although the large grate area does also encourage their ability to burn a wide range of fuels. Originally coal-fired in power stations, they also became widespread in industries that produced combustible waste and required process steam.