A steam boiler plant must operate safely, with maximum combustion and heat transfer efficiency. To help achieve this and a long, low-maintenance life, the boiler water can be chemically treated.
The operating objectives for steam boiler plant include:
Safe operation.
Maximum combustion and heat transfer efficiency.
Minimum maintenance.
Long working life.
The quality of the water used to produce the steam in the boiler will have a profound effect on meeting these objectives.
A process load is usually a high-pressure steam load. A process load pertains to manufacturing operations, where heat from steam or hot water is used in the process. A process load is further defined as either continuous or batch. In a continuous load, the demand is fairly constant - such as in a heating load. The batch load is characterized by short-term demands. The batch load is a key issue when selecting equipment, because a batch-type process load can have a very large instantaneous demand that can be several times larger than the rating of the boiler. For example, based on its size, a heating coil can consume a large amount of steam simply to fill and pressurize the coil. When designing a boiler room for a process load with instantaneous demand, a more careful boiler selection process should take place.
Package boiler is a boiler that had been fabricated and available as a complete package. The entire pressure parts have been assembled in the workshop and ready to be sent to the field or site where power plant is located. On the field/site requires only connection and integration of course work in electrical connections, water pipes, steam pipes and fuel piping system to operate. Package boiler is one of classification of boiler based on erection. Design package boilers in general are the type of Fire Tube Boiler and have made up shell and tubes. This type has high heat transfer both radiation and convection.
In a boiler, energy from the fuel is transferred to liquid water in order to create steam. Once the water is heated to boiling point, it is vaporized and turned into saturated steam. When saturated steam is heated above boiling point, dry steam is created and all traces of moisture are erased. This is called superheated steam.
All boilers, whether hot water or steam, depend on fuel to run. The heating process is initiated when the burner heats or evaporates the water inside it, which is ultimately transported via pipe systems. Hot water boilers rely on pumps to move the heat through the system, while steam boilers are transported with the pressure generated in the heating process. Eventually, cooled water or condensed steam is returned back through the pipes to the boiler system so that it can be heated once again. While the boiler is generating energy in the form of heat, flue gases, a byproduct of this process, are removed through a chimney system - which is why regulating the emissions of industrial boilers is taken very seriously.
There are a number of considerations to factor when determining the best boiler for your steam generation needs like operating pressure, steam pounds/hour output, demand fluctuation, general application requirments and total cost of ownership, etc.
Two primary boiler types, the firetube boiler and the watertube boiler, are essentially opposite in design. The firetube boiler passes combustion gas inside a series of tubes surrounded by water in a vessel to produce steam, while a watertube instead sends water through a series of tubes surrounded by combustion gas used to transfer heat energy and produce steam.
A fire tube steam boiler is a boiler where the combustion gases from the burner are channeled through tubes that are surrounded by the fluid to be heated. The boiler body is the pressure vessel and contains the fluid. In most cases, this fluid is water that will circulate for heating purposes or become steam for use in processing.
Each set of tubes through which the combustion gas passes, before making a turn, is considered a "step". Consequently, a three-step boiler will have three sets of pipes with the outlet located at the rear of the boiler.
Biomass steam boilers recover the heat generated during the biomass combustion process to heat the water in the boiler exchanger circuit. The hot water is then diverted to the heating circuit.
Occasionally it is necessary to remove the ashes generated by biomass combustion and clean the burner.
