Type of boilers

This section describes the various types of Boilers: Fire tube boiler, Water tube boiler, Packaged boiler, Fluidized Bed Combustion Boiler, Atmospheric Fluidized Bed Combustion Boiler, Pressurized Fluidized Bed Combustion Boiler, Circulating Fluidized Bed Combustion Boiler, Stoker Fired Boiler, Pulverized Fuel Boiler, Waste Heat Boiler and Thermic Fluid Heater.

Fire Tube Boiler

In 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. For economic reasons, most fire tube boilers are nowadays of “packaged” construction (i.e. manufacturers shop erected) for all fuels.

Water Tube Boiler

Fig: Simple Diagram of Water Tube Boiler Reference: http://www.yourdictionary.com/ images/ahd/jpg/A4boiler.jpg

In 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

The packaged boiler is so called because it comes as a complete package. Once delivered to site, it requires only the steam, water pipe work, fuel supply and electrical connections to be made for it to become operational. Package boilers are 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 combustion chamber is taken, as the first pass after which there may be one, two or three sets of fire-tubes. 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.

Fluidized Bed Combustion (FBC) Boiler

Fluidized bed combustion (FBC) has emerged as a viable alternative and has significant advantages over conventional firing system and offers multiple benefits – compact boiler design, fuel flexibility, higher combustion efficiency and reduced emission of noxious pollutants such as SOx and NOx. The fuels burnt in these boilers include coal, washery rejects, rice husk, bagasse & other agricultural wastes. The fluidized bed boilers have a wide capacity range- 0.5 T/hr to over 100 T/hr.

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”.

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 840 OC to 950 OC. Since this temperature is much below the ash fusion temperature, melting of ash and associated problems are avoided.

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. The gas velocity is maintained between minimum fluidisation velocity and particle entrainment velocity. This ensures stable operation of the bed and avoids particle entrainment in the gas stream.

Atmospheric Fluidized Bed Combustion (AFBC) Boiler

Most operational boiler of this type is of the Atmospheric Fluidized Bed Combustion. (AFBC). This involves little more than adding a fluidized bed combustor to a conventional shell boiler. Such systems have similarly being installed in conjunction with conventional water tube boiler.

Coal is crushed to a size of 1 – 10 mm depending on the rank of coal, type of fuel fed to the combustion chamber. The atmospheric air, which acts as both the fluidization and combustion air, is delivered at a pressure, after being preheated by the exhaust fuel gases. The in-bed tubes carrying water generally act as the evaporator. The gaseous products of combustion pass over the super heater sections of the boiler flow past the economizer, the dust collectors and the air preheater before being exhausted to atmosphere.

Pressurized Fluidized Bed Combustion (PFBC) Boiler

In Pressurized Fluidized Bed Combustion (PFBC) type, a compressor supplies the Forced Draft (FD) air and the combustor is a pressure vessel. The heat release rate in the bed is proportional to the bed pressure and hence a deep bed is used to extract large amount of heat. This will improve the combustion efficiency and sulphur dioxide absorption in the bed. The steam is generated in the two tube bundles, one in the bed and one above it. Hot flue gases drive a power generating gas turbine. The PFBC system can be used for cogeneration (steam and electricity) or combined cycle powergeneration. The combined cycle operation (gas turbine & steam turbine) improves the overall conversion efficiency by 5 to 8%.

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 down-comer 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. For large units, the taller furnace characteristics of CFBC boilers offers better space utilization, greater fuel particle and sorbent residence time for efficient combustion and SO2 capture, and easier application of staged combustion techniques for NOx control than AFBC steam generators.

Stoker Fired Boilers

Stokers are classified according to the method of feeding fuel to the furnace and by the type of grate. The main classifications are spreader stoker and chain-gate or traveling-gate stoker.

Spreader Stokers

Spreader stokers utilize a combination of suspension burning and grate burning. The coal is continually fed into the furnace above a burning bed of coal. The coal fines are burned in suspension; the larger particles fall to the grate, where they are burned in a thin, fast-burning coal bed. This method of firing provides good flexibility to meet load fluctuations, since ignition is almost instantaneous when firing rate is increased. Due to this, the spreader stoker is favored over other types of stokers in many industrial applications.

Chain-grate or 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. Some degree of skill is required, particularly when setting up the grate, air dampers and baffles, to 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.

Pulverized Fuel Boiler

Most coal-fired power station boilers use pulverized coal, and many of the larger industrial water-tube boilers also use this pulverized fuel. This technology is well developed, and there are thousands of units around the world, accounting for well over 90% of coal-fired capacity.

The coal is ground (pulverized) to a fine powder, so that less than 2% is +300 micro meter (μm) and 70-75% is below 75 microns, for a bituminous coal. It should be noted that too fine a powder is wasteful of grinding mill power. On the other hand, too coarse a powder does not burn completely in the combustion chamber and results in higher unburnt losses.
The pulverized coal is blown with part of the combustion air into the boiler plant through a series of burner nozzles. Secondary and tertiary air may also be added. Combustion takes place at temperatures from 1300-1700°C, depending largely on coal grade. Particle residence time in the boiler is typically 2 to 5 seconds, and the particles must be small enough for complete combustion to have taken place during this time.

This system has many advantages such as ability to fire varying quality of coal, quick responses to changes in load, use of high pre-heat air temperatures etc.

One of the most popular systems for firing pulverized coal is the tangential firing using four burners corner to corner to create a fireball at the center of the furnace.

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

In recent times, thermic fluid heaters have found wide application for indirect process heating. Employing petroleum - based fluids as the heat transfer medium, these heaters provide constantly maintainable temperatures for the user equipment. The combustion system comprises of a fixed grate with mechanical draft arrangements.

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 heater operates on low or high fire depending on the return oil temperature, which varies with the system load

The advantages of these heaters are:

• Closed cycle operation with minimum losses as compared to steam boilers.
• Non-Pressurized system operation even for temperatures around 250 0c as against 40 kg/cm2 steam pressure requirement in a similar steam system.
• Automatic control settings, which offer operational flexibility.
• Good thermal efficiencies as losses due to blow down, condensate drain and flash steam do not exist in a thermic fluid heater system.

The overall economics of the thermic fluid heater will depend upon the specific application and reference basis. Coal fired thermic fluid heaters with a thermal efficiency range of 55-65% may compare favorably with most boilers. Incorporation of heat recovery devices in the flue gas path enhances the thermal efficiency levels further.