Improvement In Primary Air Heater

Why it is required ?

In a coal based Boiler, heat loss through escaping flue gas, is recovered by means first by
preheating feed water in Economiser and then preheating combustion air (Primary and
Secondary) in Air Pre Heater (APH).

Corrosion and erosion have been taking place in APH tubes and they started leaking. Hence
primary air (PA) and Secondary (SA) flow through APH started escaping through leaky
tubes out through Chimney and thereby PA and SA availability for coal combustion started
coming down slowly.

This loss of air could not be compensated even after fully loading the fans.

Due to APH leakage, flue gas temperature was reduced below 110°C, (as against 130 ° C at
MCR)so APH was bypassed partly and later on it was bypassed fully to get PA flow .
But due to increase of leakage in APH it was even difficult to maintain PA flow @20 Kg/ Sec
at full PA fan loading. (Amp-180).
Before shutdown of Boiler-1 on 14 th July ’06 , Primary Air flow was 20 Kg/ Sec ( as against
30 Kg/ Sec) at 80% ( maximum) IGV and 180 AMP and 98% T/Tn and O2 in Boiler is 1%
( > 3 % normal) only at 105 TPH steam generation.

Short term modification

.
Short term modification was done during boiler outage on 14th July’06.
APH outlet duct( 2m* 2m) blinded at height of 20mtr before its connection with APH
bypass duct and short circuiting of Primary Air is avoided.

Due to above modification, 27 Kg/Sec PA is possible from PA bypass duct as bypass duct is
smaller than APH inlet duct. But above modification has some disadvantages like :

Disadvantages:

1. Flue gas temperature reached to 147 °C when APH was bypassed totally for Primary
Air
2. Primary Air temperature was remained 45 °C against design temperature of 220°C.
3. Only 27 Kg/Sec air was possible due to smaller size of bypass duct.
4. Combustion efficiency deteriorated and hence coal rate increased.

To overcome above losses, during September’06 boiler-1 shutdown APH is inspected

thoroughly and repaired.
Step-1

During its preliminary inspection of Primary air section of APH some of the tubes found
with ash inside and some tubes found damaged.

All the damaged tubes identified , marked both side of the air section and plugged

Step-2

After plugging 378 No. of tubes in all four section of APH, ID fan started for inspection.

During this exercise - 40mmwc to - 80mmwc draft was maintained across the air heater and
all section were inspected , another 66 Nos. of tubes were found leaking in all section again
these tubes were plugged .

Details of APH tube plugging

APH Section No. of tubes plugged

1. 1st Section 86
2. 2nd Section 174
3.3rd Section 104
4.4th Section 80

Total 444

Total 444 Nos. of tube plugged out of total 6720 Nos. of tubes in Air Heater.i.e.6.7% tube
were plugged.

Benefits :

1. 30 Kg/Sec air is taken through APH and more air is possible.

2. During start up of boiler bed temperature remains high and to control this high
temp, high airflow is required but due to air leakages in APH it was not possible.
After major overhauling 30 Kg/Sec primary air was utilized to control bed
temperature and within 15 Hrs of boiler operation boiler is normalized and boiler
generation reached to 110 TPH. During major overhauling, boiler was cleaned and
there was no ash inventory during start up.
3. Flue gas exit temperature is reduced from 147°C to 110 °C. So heat losses are
recovered and boiler combustion efficiency is improved.
 Dry flue gas losses without APH ( Condition before Boiler overhauling)

Dry flue gas losses= 1.01x12.5 Kg of Air per kg of coal x ( Flue gas temp-Ambient
temp.)
= 1.01x12.5x (147- 30)
= 1483 KJ/Kg of coal
= 354 Kcal / Kg of coal
= 354 x100/5950
= 5.95 % dry flue gas losses

Dry flue gas losses with APH ( Condition After Boiler overhauling)

Dry flue gas losses = 1.01x12.5 Kg of Air per kg of coal x ( Flue gas temp-Ambient
temp.)
= 1.01x12.5x(110- 30)
= 1010 KJ/Kg of coal
= 241 Kcal / Kg of coal
= 241 x100/5950
= 4.05 % dry flue gas losses

1.9 % (5.95-4.05) efficiency is improved after heat recovery form flue gases with
Air Preheater improvement .

4. Primary air temperature increase form 45 °C to 198 °C and hence boiler combustion
is improved.

5. Coal rate of boiler-1 improved after APH improvement .

CONDITION DATE STEAM COAL

GENERATION CONSUMPTION
(MT ) (MT)
BEFORE S/D 15th Aug. to 28th Aug. 33820 4718
AFTER S/D 1ST Oct. to 5th Oct. 12757 1652

Coal rate before shut down(14aug.’06 to 28 aug.06)=0.1395 ton per ton of steam
Coal rate before shut down ( 1st Oct. to 5th Oct.) = 0.1295 ton per ton of steam

Above result shows that 0.01 coal rate is improved after air heater improvement.

6. ESP inlet temperature is reduced from 147 °C at 100 TPH load to 110 °C at 110 TPH
boiler steam generation. Which high flue gas temp may have created load
restrictions at continuous generation of 120 TPH.