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Acoustic Emission Examination of Metal Pressure Vessels Anatomy of a Catastrophic Boiler Accident Austenitic Stainless Steel Auto-Refrigeration Black Liquor Recovery Boilers - An Introduction Boiler Efficiency and Steam Quality: The Challenge of Creating Quality Steam Using Existing Boiler Efficiencies Boiler Logs Can Reduce Accidents Boiler/Burner Combustion Air Supply Requirements and Maintenance Carbon Monoxide Poisoning Preventable With Complete Inspection Combustion Air Requirements:The Forgotten Element In Boiler Rooms Creep and Creep Failures Description of Construction and Inspection Procedure for Steam Locomotive and Fire Tube Boilers Ensuring Safe Operation Of Vessels With Quick-Opening Closures Environmental Heat Exchangers Factors Affecting Inservice Cracking of Weld Zone in Corrosive Service Failure Avoidance in Welded Fabrication Finite Element Analysis of Pressure Vessels Fuel Ash Corrosion Fuel Firing Apparatus - Natural Gas Grain Boundaries Heat Treatment - What Is It? How to Destroy a Boiler -- Part 1 How to Destroy a Boiler -- Part 2 How to Destroy a Boiler -- Part 3 Identifying Pressure Vessel Nozzle Problems Inspection, Repair, and Alteration of Yankee Dryers Inspection, What Better Place to Begin Laminations Led to Incident Lay-up of Heating Boilers Liquid Penetrant Examination Low Voltage Short Circuiting-GMAW Low Water Cut-Off Technology Low -Water Cutoff: A Maintenance Must Magnetic Particle Examination Maintaining Proper Boiler Inspections Through Proper Relationships Microstructural Degradation Miracle Fluid? Organizing A Vessel, Tank, and Piping Inspection Program
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Paper Machine Failure Investigation: Inspection Requirements Should Be Changed For Dryer Can Pipe Support Performance as It Applies to Pow er Plant Safety and Reliability Polymer Use for Boilers and Pressure Vessels Pressure Vessels: Analyzing Change Preventing Corrosion Under Insulation Preventing Steam/Condensate System Accidents Proper Boiler Care Makes Good Business Sense:Safety Precautions for Drycleaning Businesses Putting a Stop to Steam Kettle Failure Quick Actuating Closures Quick-Actuating Door Failures Real-Time Radioscopic Examination Recommendations For A Safe Boiler Room Recovering Boiler Systems After A Flood Rendering Plants Require Safety Residential Water Heater Safety School Boiler Maintenance Programs: How Safe Are The Children? Secondary Low -Water Fuel Cutoff Probe: Is It as Safe as You Think? Short-Term High Temperature Failures Specification of Rupture Disk Burst Pressure Steam Traps Affect Boiler Plant Efficiency Stress Corrosion Cracking of Steel in Liquefied Ammonia Service - A Recapitulation Suggested Daily Boiler Log Program Suggested Maintenance Log Program System Design, Specifications, Operation, and Inspection of Deaerators Tack Welding Temperature And Pressure Relief Valves Often Overlooked Temperature Considerations for Pressure Relief Valve Application The Authorized Inspector's Responsibility for Dimensional Inspection The Effects of Erosion-Corrosion on Pow er Plant Piping The Forgotten Boiler That Suddenly Isn't The Trend of Boiler/Pressure Vessel Incidents: On the Decline? The Use of Pressure Vessels for Human Occupancy in Clinical Hyberbaric Medicine Thermally Induced Stress Cycling (Thermal Shock) in Firetube Boilers Typical Improper Repairs of Safety Valves Wasted Superheat Converted to Hot, Sanitary Water Water Maintenance Essential to Prevent Boiler Scaling Water Still Flashes to Steam at 212 Welding Consideration for Pressure
not have these relatively inexpensive devices. If your boilers do not have low-water trips, run, don't walk, to the phone and initiate their installation. You have an accident and expensive repairs waiting to happen. The needed repairs can range from retubing to total destruction of the unit if the drums overheat. In the event of low water, the low-water trips will trip the burner (or fuel flow for solid fuel boilers) and shut down the forced draft fan. This shuts down the heat input. The trips should be installed at a water level that will prevent damage. Normal operating level is generally near the centerline of the steam drum. Low-water trips are generally installed approximately 6" lower, but the manufacturer's drawings usually indicate normal and minimum water levels which vary from unit to unit. The potential for damage is more critical with solid fuel-fired boilers. A gas/oil boiler has no inventory or bed of fuel. When you trip the burner, for all practical purposes, the heat input immediately stops. With solid fuel units, however, a fairly large mass of bark, coal, etc., is still on the grate and even though starved of air by the loss of the forced draft fan, these units have more "thermal inertia" and will continue to produce some heat. The control of the boiler drum level is tricky and even the best tuned control systems cannot always prevent a low-water condition. The "water level" in a steam drum is actually a fairly unstable compressible mixture of water and steam bubbles that will shrink and swell with pressure changes and will actually shrink momentarily when more "cold" feedwater is added. Some common causes of low-water conditions include: Feedwater pump failure Control valve failure Loss of water to the deaerator or make-up water system Drum level controller failure Drum level controller inadvertently left in "manual" position Loss of plant air pressure to the control valve actuator Safety valve lifting Large, sudden change in steam load Unfortunately, an alarming number of boilers equipped with low-water trips are destroyed each year. Common reasons: Disabled trip circuits - very common - a $39 jumper cable will readily foil the best-made plans (with repairs often exceeding $100,000, this represents an attention-grabbing return on investment for a $39 expenditure!). A typical scenario involves disabling the trips to eliminate nuisance trips due to improperly tuned controls, etc. This is a "band-aid" to cover the real problem and should never be allowed. Inoperative trip switches - the trip switches should be blown down regularly to remove sludge. These switches are installed in "dead legs" where no circulation occurs. Sludge will eventually plug the piping or the switch itself. Have you checked your trips today? Nuisance trips should not be a concern with a properly tuned boiler with proper drum internals, so this is not a valid reason to disable low-water trips. Dysfunctional low-water trips should be a "no go" item and should be corrected before the boiler is fired. Poor Water Treatment Boiler feedwater is treated to protect it from two basic problems: the buildup of solid deposits on the interior or water side of the tubes, and corrosion. Prevention of scaling or buildup - The need for proper feedwater treatment is obvious if you will consider the comparison of a boiler and a pot of boiling water on the stove. The boiler is actually an oversized distillery in that the water that enters the boiler is vaporized to steam, leaving the solids behind. Depending on the amount of solids in the water, or hardness, the residue is sometimes visible when a pot containing water is boiled until all water is vaporized. This same thing occurs inside the boiler and, if left unchecked, can destroy it. Boilers rely on the water to protect the steel boiler tubes from the temperatures in the furnace which greatly exceed the melting point of the tube material. A buildup of deposits inside the tubes will produce an insulating layer which inhibits the ability of the water to remove the heat from the tube. If this continues long enough, the result is localized overheating of the tube and eventual blowout. In order to prevent the buildup of deposits on the tubes, the level of solids in the boiler feedwater must be reduced to acceptable limits. The higher the operating pressure and temperature of the boiler, the more stringent the requirements for proper feedwater treatment. Refer to the table below for the maximum recommended concentration limits in the water of an operating boiler according to ABMA. Drum Operating Pressure (psig) 0-300 301-450 451-600 601-750 751-900 901-1,000 Total Dissolved Solids (ppm) 3,500 3,000 2,500 1,000 750 625 Total Alkalinity (ppm) 700 600 500 200 150 125 Silica (ppm Si02) 150 90 40 30 20 8 Total Suspended Solids (ppm) 15 10 8 3 2 1
Unless a power generation turbine is involved, or the water quality is particularly bad, most industrial boilers operate at sufficiently low pressures to enable the use of simple water softeners for feedwater treatment. At higher pressures and when turbines and superheaters are involved, more complex feedwater treatment systems such as reverse osmosis, demineralizer systems, etc., are required to treat the feedwater. A state-of-the-art demineralization system is shown in the photo on the opposite page. Solids are also removed from the boiler through proper operation of the continuous blowdown system and by the use of intermittent or bottom blowdown on a regular basis. Blowdown flows reduce the solids by dilution. High conductivity or contamination of the boiler feedwater can create other problems such as drum level instability and foaming. This can result in high or low-water alarms and an increase in the carryover of moisture droplets into the steam header since the moisture separator of the drum cannot handle the resultant carryover. Prevention of corrosion - The most effective method of controlling corrosion is proper deaeration of the water. The removal of oxygen from the water drastically reduces the potential for corrosion. This is most often accomplished through the use of deaerators. These units typically utilize steam to both preheat the feedwater and remove the oxygen, carbon dioxide, and other gases from the make-up water. Oxygen scavenging chemicals are also commonly injected into the deaerator to provide an additional measure of protection. Additionally, the boiler steam drum, or feedwater, has generally supplied chemicals at a controlled rate for even further protection. A qualified water treatment specialist is invaluable in determining the best method for your plant and your site-specific water requirements. Preventive measures - In order to prevent problems with poor water treatment, the following are recommended: Verify that your boiler feedwater is of sufficient high quality for the temperatures and pressures involved. Water quality standards based on operating pressures and temperatures as recommended by ABMA should be followed. Verify that the water leaving the deaerator is free of oxygen, that the deaerator is operated at the proper pressure, and that the water is at saturation temperature for the pressure.
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Welding Consideration for Pressure Relief Valves Welding Symbols: A Useful System or Undecipherable Hieroglyphics? What Should You Do Before Starting Boilers After Summer Lay-Up? Why? A Question for All Inspectors
Editor's note: Some ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code requirements may have changed because of advances in material technology and/or actual experience. The reader is cautioned to refer to the latest edition and addenda of the ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code for current requirements.
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