31 July, 2010 REPORT ON TUBE FAILURE REPORTED IN WHRB 1-135 TPH This boiler was supplied by thermal systems

about 5 years back. It was learnt that in February 2010, the WHRB had gone on dry operation. Of late there had been cracks developing in the secondary SH outlet offset bends. At the time of visit, the WHRB was in stopped condition for the SH tube failure. The location was inspected. On request the drum was opened for inspection. The distortions in waterwall panel and headers were also seen. Failed tube appearance The failure pattern is same as informed by Shyam DRI engineers. The crack is single long crack with rough edge. Mild deposits are seen inside the tube. The cracks are typical of hydrogen crack type. Inspection of boiler pressure parts 1. The steam drum is seen with mild deposits of burnt oxide layers. The steam drum is not affected by the starvation. 2. The left side waterwall and the baffle wall are seen heavily distorted in the upper half. 3. The front waterwall outlet header is seen distorted. 4. The distorted waterwall panels and headers indicate plastic deformation. This means the tubes are hardened. Once hardness has gone up, the residual strength of the tube will be less. The waterwall tubes / header can burst in the event of another incident and it can be fatal. Recommendations 1. It is a normal practice to have a residual life assessment to avoid catastrophe. At least headers should be covered immediately. 2. Since the SH offset bends alone have failed so far, it is advised to replace all the bends so that the no of shut downs can be brought down immediately. 3. The waterwall bottom header hand hole plates shall be cut and inspected. The loose oxides shall be removed out. Since the boiler has got good circulation arrangement, the oxidation debris would come down to bottom headers only. 4. Since the SH headers also had gone dry, it is advised to cut and inspect the headers and remove the oxide layers. These can damage the turbine. 5. The distorted header and panels are to be replaced at the earliest. The tubes have lost their strength. 6. During the discussions it was learnt that black out situations allow WHRB to go dry. This phenomenon does not occur with FBC. On power cut, bed slumps killing the heat transfer and fuel consumption. Then a new boiler BFP taking care of all WHRB, should be driven by DG set power. The transfer pump to deaerator and compressor are other items that need emergency power back up. Drum internal inspection and recommendations 1. The steam drum is seen with defects that can cause carryover. The riser boxes need top cover to prevent direct steam water path towards drier section. Only one riser box is seen with a cover.

2. The feed water distributor is fitted in steam space with water holes at 45 deg upwards. This can splash water in to drier. A hood shall be provided above the feed water distributor. A 150 nb half pipe can be used for this. The above recommendations are to prevent direct carryover of water to steam. REVIEW OF THE 135 TPH BOILER OPERATION The following were learnt from the operation team and from the DCS readings. 1. Both the ID fans have to be operated as the fans are not becoming sufficient. The causes have been already pointed out in earlier visits. a. The multi louver dampers placed immediate to fan discharge have to be removed. Guillotine gates have to be procured and installed in place. b. Generally Batliboi make fans fall short of performance due to poor inlet condition to fan. 2. The ID fan capacity is seen to be quite adequate. It has 15% margin on flow. Its head is 200 mmWC whereas the head required at present running condition is only 125 mmWC maximum. 3. The FD fan damper percentage opening is seen increasing from start up to now. This can happen due to sparger header piping being filled with bed ash / bed material. Drain pipes with valves are to be provided at the dead end of each header. 4. The ESP inlet gas temperature is right now 130 deg C. Operating engineers felt it is low. We have to check whether ESP outlet gas temperature is above 120 deg C or not. At less than 110 deg C, water starts condensing along with steam. It is advised to check the ash condensation in ESP electrodes. 5. It is seen that practically there is no spray required at DESH. This is due to removal of refractory in furnace. 6. The SA fan arrangement is said to help in controlling the SH steam temperature. This fan being a cold air fan, it is being used to dilute the flue gas lowering the temperature. This sort of arrangement was not required anywhere in so many boilers. The boiler has a tall free board which helps in good combustion. I am of the opinion that the bed might be settling on coarser particles and this can lead to free board temperature rise. This aspect was discussed at Mangalpur site. The thermocouples have to be located at 25 to 50 mm above the nozzle so that the operator resorts to draining the bed ash to ensure that each thermocouple reads >800 deg C. If the reading is less that < 800 deg C, the bed coils life will come down drastically. This is a funny phenomenon in many plants that have operated with settled coarser ash at the bottom. 7. It is learnt that the iron levels in boiler water less than 0.01 ppm in boiler water. The blow down level has come down to < 0.3 %. It is advised to take a snap of drum inside at the next opportunity and send to me. 8. It is learnt that the HP chemical dosing pump gets choked and gives problem often. Discontinuous pH maintenance will lead to damaging the magnetite layer often. It is advised to locate the HP dosing pump in compressor room or at DM plant.

K.K.Parthiban

Annexure 1- Tube failures at WHRB

Photo 1: At the time of visit, the SSH outlet offset band had failed. On earlier occasions more tubes have failed at same locations. This had happened after the dry operation of the boiler. No scale is seen here.

Photo 2: The failed tube of SSH outlet offset bend. Since the failure is at the bend and the type is hydrogen crack type, it is possible that low pH water had been used when the boiler went for dry operation.

Photo 3: The mid wall panel is distorted and the tubes are weakened. The gases would bypass and lead to high ESP inlet gas temperature. Later erosion will also show up.

Photo 4: WW panel distortion in WHRB. Tubes have been strained already.

Annexure 2: Feed back on first 135 TPH FBC boiler

Photo 1: Enormous gas leakage is seen at boiler top at first 135 TPH boiler. The ID fan will be loaded due to this. Further tube failures will be experienced at roof tubes due to high rate of air ingress.

Photo 2: One solution to arrest the air leakage at roof panel is to go for POP finish. The aluminum cladding has to be removed for this purpose. Additional layer of 50 mm will have to be applied and plastered as shown.

Photo 3: The Guillotine gates which have been received for PA fans should be erected immediately. We can conclude whether the PA fan has defect or is it the recirculating air that is asking for both PA in operation.

Photo 4: At present both ID fans are running. We need to arrest the air ingress at roof panel. The multi flap damper at ID fan delivery can cause under performance of the fan. Again guillotine gate is required at ID fan outlet. The guillotine cost is nothing compared to the cost saved by running one ID fan only.