3.

BOILERS
FIRE TUBE BOILER
In the Fire tube boiler, fuel is burnt in a firebox to produce hot combustion gases. The firebox is
surrounded by a cooling jacket of water connected to the long, cylindrical boiler shell. The hot gases are
directed along a series of fire tubes, or flues, that penetrate the boiler and heat the water thereby
generating saturated ("wet") steam. The steam rises to the highest point of the boiler, the steam dome,
where it is collected. The dome is the site of the regulator that controls the exit of steam from the boiler.
In the fire tube boiler, the saturated steam is very often passed into a superheater, back through the
larger flues at the top of the boiler, to dry the steam and heat it to superheated steam. The superheated
steam is directed to the steam engine's cylinders or very rarely to a turbine to produce mechanical work.
Exhaust gases are fed out through a chimney, and may be used to pre-heat the feed water to increase
the efficiency of the boiler.
The fuels (normally coal) burnt in the furnace and combustible gasses move into the fire tubes, travel
through these tubes from rear to front of the boiler drum and finally the gases come into the smoke box.
The hot gasses in the tubes under water transfer heat to the water via the tube walls. Due to this heat
energy steam bubbles are created and come upon the water surface. As the amount of steam is
increased in that closed drum, steam pressure inside the drum increases which increase significantly the
boiling temperature of the water and hence rate of production of steam is reduced. In this way a fire tube
boiler controls its own pressure. In other words this is a self pressure controlled boiler.

Advantages of Fire Tube Boiler

Compact in construction.

Fluctuation of steam demand can be met easily.

Cheaper than water tube boiler.

Disadvantages of Fire Tube Boiler

Due to large water the required steam pressure rising time quite high.

Output steam pressure cannot be very high since the water and steam are kept in same vessel.

The steam received from fire tube boiler is not very dry.

In a fire tube boiler, the steam drum is always under pressure, so there may be a chance of huge
explosion which resulting to severe accident.

WATER TUBE BOILER

A Water tube boiler is a type of boiler in which water circulates in tubes heated externally by the fire. Fuel
is burned inside the furnace, creating hot gas which heats water in the steam-generating tubes. In smaller
boilers, additional generating tubes are separate in the furnace, while larger utility boilers rely on the
water-filled tubes that make up the walls of the furnace to generate steam.
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 defined as steam that is heated above the boiling point at a given pressure.
Superheated steam is a dry gas and therefore used to drive turbines, since water droplets can severely
damage turbine blades.
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. (In large utility boilers, the feed water is supplied to the
steam drum and the downcomers supply water to the bottom of the waterwalls). 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. Such water tube boilers in thermal power station are also called steam generating units.

Advantages of Water Tube Boiler

There are many advantages of water tube boiler due to which these types of boiler are essentially used in
large thermal power station.

Larger heating surface can be achieved by using more numbers of water tubes.

Due to convectional flow, movement of water is much faster than that of fire tube boiler, hence
rate of heat transfer is high which results into higher efficiency.

Very high pressure in order of 140 kg/cm 2 can be obtained smoothly.

Owing to their superb working properties, the use of water tube boilers is highly preferred in following
major areas:

Variety of process applications in industries

Chemical processing divisions

Pulp and Paper manufacturing plants

Refining units