Boilers

INTRODUCTION
 A Boiler is a enclosed vessel that provides a mean for
combustion heat to be transferred into water until it
become heated water or steam.
 When water is boiled into steam its volume increase
about 1600 times , producing a force that is almost
as explosive as gun powder.
 The process of heating a liquid until it reaches its
gaseous state is known as evaporation.
 MODES OF HEAT TRANSFER
Heat is transferred from one body to another by means
of ;
 Radiation
Heat is transferred from hot body to cold body without
a conveying medium.

 Convection
Transfer of heat by a conveying medium such as air/ water.

 Conduction
Transfer of heat by actual physical contact, molecule to
molecule.
 Boiler Specification

 Heating surface is any part of boiler metal that has hot gases of
combustion on one side and water on the other.
 The amount of heating surface of a boiler is expressed in m^2.
 The quantity of steam produced is expressed in tons of water,
evaporated to steam per hour.
 F & A means the amount of steam
generated from water at 100 C to
steam at 100 C.
 Boiler System
The boiler system comprises of 3 parts
 Feed water System
Steam system
 Fuel system
1.Feed water system: Provides water to the boiler and
regulate it automatically to meet the steam demand.
Water supplied to the boiler that is converted into
steam is called Feed water.
The two source of feed water are;
a) Condensate or condensed steam returned from the
process.
b) Make up water ( treated raw water ) which must
come from outside the boiler room.
 Boiler System

2.Steam system: It collects and controls the steam it

produced in the boiler. Steam is directed through a
steam pipe to the point of use and steam pressure
is regulated through valves and checked with
steam pressure gauge.
3. Fuel system: Includes all equipments 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 TYPE AND
CLASSIFICATION
There are virtually infinite numbers of boiler designs but generally
they fit into 2 categories;
1. Fire tube
2. Water Tube boiler
o Packaged boiler
o Stoker fired boiler
 Chain – grate or travelling – grate stoker
 Spreader stoker
o Pulverized Fuel boiler
o FBC Boiler
o Super critical boiler
 Fire Tube boiler

 Fire tube contain long tubes through which the hot gasses from a furnace
pass and around which the water to be converted to steam circulates.
 These boilers typically have lower initial cost and are more fuel efficient and
easier to operate.
 They are generally limited to capacities of 25 ton/hr and pressure of 17.5
kg/cm^2.
 Water Tube boiler

In these boilers conditions are

reversed with water pass through
the tubes and hot gasses passing
outside the tubes.
These boiler can be single or
multi drum type.
These boilers have high
efficiency than fire tube boilers.
 Packed boiler

It is so called because it comes as a complete

package. Once deliver to site, it require only fuel
supply and electric connection to become
operational
 It is generally shell type with fire tube design.
Features :
 Small combustion space and high heat release
rate resulting in faster evaporation.
 Forced and induced system resulting in good
efficiency.
 High thermal efficiency level in comparison of
other boilers.
 The most common boiler of this class is 3 pass
unit.
 Stoker Fired boiler
Stokers are classified according to the method of feeding fuel to the
furnace and by the type of grate.
The main classification are
 Chain grate or travelling grate stoker
 Spreader stoker
1. Chain grate stoker:
 Coal is fed at one end of a moving
steel chain grate. As grate moves
along the length of furnace , the
coal burns before dropping off at the
end as ash.
 A coal grate is used to control the rate
at which coal is fed into the furnace, and to control the thickness of
coal bed and speed of grate.
 As the bed thickness decrease from coal feed end to rear end ,
different amount of air are required i.e. more quantity at coal
feed end and less at rear end.
 Spreader Stoker boiler
 It utilize a combination of suspension
burning and grate burning. The coal is
continuously fed into the furnace
above a burning bed of coal.
 The coal fines are burned in
suspension; large particles falls to the
grate, where they burn in a thin, fast
burning coal bed.
 This method of firing provide a good
flexibility to meet load fluctuations.
 Hence spreader stoker is favored over
other type of stokers in many industrial
application.
 Pulverized Fuel Boiler
 Most coal fired power station boilers use pulverized coal and many
of larger industrial water tube boiler also use this pulverized fuel.
 The coal is pulverized to a fine powder, so that less than 2% is +300
micrometer and 70-75 % is below 75 microns , for a bituminous coal.
Too fine a power is wasteful of grinding mill powder and too coarse
powder doesn’t burn completely in combustion chamber and result in
higher unburnt losses.
 Coal is blown with part of combustion air through a series of
burner nozzle.
 Combustion takes place at temperature from 1300-1700 C. Boiler
residence time is usually 2-5 sec and particles must be small enough
for complete combustion during this time.
 Most popular system of coal firing system is tangential firing using 4
burner corner to corner to create fireball at the center of the furnace.
 FBC Boiler
 When an evenly distributed air is passed upward through a finely
divided bed of solid particles such as sand supported on fine mesh.
The particles are undisturbed at low velocity.
As velocity is gradually increased, a stage is reached when the
individual particles are suspended in the air stream.
 A further increase in velocity give rise to bubble formation, vigorous
turbulence and rapid mixing, the bed is said to fluidized.
 If the sand in the fluidized state is heated to the ignition
temperature of coal and coal is injected continuously in the bed , coal
will burn rapidly and due to rapid mixing bed attains a uniform
temperature.
 Proper air distribution is vital for maintaining uniform fluidization
across the bed.
 it has advantages such as fuel flexibility ,reduced emission of
noxious pollutants.
 Super Critical Boiler
In entropy temperature diagram of steam a temperature reached
where boiling water and dry saturated steam lines converge and at
that point latent heat is zero.
 The critical point corresponds to a pressure of 221.2 bar absolute
and a temperature of 374.18 C.
 If water is heated beyond the above condition, steam parameters
are referred to as super critical.
 A boiler producing steam above critical pressure is called
supercritical boiler.
While sub critical boiler has three distinct sections- economizer ,
evaporator and superheater, it has only economizer and superheater.
Its advantages are- higher heat transfer rate , more flexible in load
variations , grater ease of operation , high thermal efficiency, minimum
problem of corrosion and erosion.
Thank you!