BOILER EFFICIENCY IMPROVEMENT BY CONTROLLING DRY FLUE GAS HEAT

LOSSES

(3x275 TPH F.B.H.E. BASED CFBC BOILER)

SUBMITTED BY

ARUP CHANDRA PAUL

PRIYAJIT SAHOO

UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF

Mr. SUNIL KR. SINGH

Head-Operation

TATA POWER COMPANY LIMITED

(M/s BHARAT OMAN REFINERIES LIMITED)
VILLAGE-AGASOD, POST-BINA, DISTT-SAGAR
MADHYA PRADESH-470113
Year-2015-2016
1) Dry Flue Gas Losses

Introduction

Dry flue gas losses are those heat losses resulting from the heating combustion air
and fuel from ambient conditions to the temperature of the flue gas leaving the unit.
The magnitude of heat loss is directly proportional to the excess air flow and to the
difference between the inlet air temperature and the flue gas outlet temperature.
Reducing these losses presents the greatest potential for improving boiler efficiency.
High excess air and low heat absorption in the boiler system can cause exit gas temperature
higher than the expected resulting dry gas loss
An every 22 degree C rise in air heater outlet temperature can rise the heat rate by
1%.

Dry GasLoss (Ldg)% on GCV basis= Wg(TgTa)XCpX100

GCV
Dry GasLoss (Ldg)% on NCV basis= Wg(TgTa)XCpX100
NCV
Where,
Wg=weight of gas leaving the system in kg/kg of fuel burnt (notified)
Wh=weight of moisture in air in kg/kg of fuel burnt
Tg =temperature of flue gas leaving the system in 0C
Ta =temperature of air entering the system in 0C
Cp=mean Specific heat of gas between Tg and Ta

Cause of Deviation

Excess air at boiler outlet.

Air ingress in Boiler

APH tube leakages.

Deposits on boiler heat transfer surfaces (Lack of soot blowing)

An incorrect PA/SA ratio causing delayed combustion.

a) Excess air (O2)

The terms excess air and excess oxygen are commonly used to define combustion.
They can be used synonymously but have different units of measurements. The percentage
of excess air is the amount of air above the stoichiometric requirement for complete
combustion.

How is excess air calculated?

Excess Air = 100 x (20.9%) / (20.9% - O2 m%) - 100%

Where O2 m% = The measured value of oxygen in the exhaust.
Examples:

When O2 m% = 0% Then excess air = 0

When O2 m% = 6.7% Then: excess air = 100 x (20.9%) / (20.9%-6.7%) - 100%
Excess air = 100 x (20.9%) / (14.2%) - 100%
Excess air = 100 x (1.47%) - 100%
Excess air = 147% - 100%
Excess air = 47%
Controlling of Excess air:
Proper control of the right amount of excess air maintains optimum Combustion
efficiency. Amounts of CO2 and O2 in combustion gases are indexes of excess air. The desirable
CO2 level depends on the fuel and optimum excess air for furnace (fig. 1.a). Desirable O2 values
depend much less on the type of fuel. This makes O2 measurement the preferred method for
combustion control. If the measured O2 content is more than desired, the air supply is to be
reduced. If the measured O2 is less than desired, air supply is to be increased.

b) Air ingress in Boiler:

Many boiler users are ignorant about the air ingress in their boilers. In balanced draft
furnace, the FD fan / SA fan / PA fan pump the air in to the furnace. The flue gas produced is
drawn through the boiler by the ID fan. Hence the furnace and downstream the furnace the
boiler is under negative pressure. Thus if some leakage spots are there, the ambient air is
drawn through such openings.

WHY IS THIS AIR INGRESS?

By virtue of boiler configuration, openings are to be made in the boiler enclosures /
Waterwall enclosure. If a seal is improperly designed or improperly erected the seal may fail
and develop leakages. The seals may not have been erected properly. It is possible some of
the seals are not taking care of thermal expansion or the service conditions and thus leakage
may develop. One step further the repairer has not put back the seals as per design. A user
can be pardoned for not doing the seal work during a maintenance since he may not have the
blue print of the original design. Let us begin on what is this air ingress.
HOW TO LOCATE THE AIR INGRESS?
There can be many more possible locations where the air leaks in. An easy way in solid
fuel fired boiler is of course the ash would leak out in locations where the air goes in. You can
always see the fresh ash spillages around leakage points.
To locate the leakage points the smoke test is done. Another way is to carryout a flame test
with ID fan running. Having identified the leak points measures are to be taken to arrest the
leakage. Some leakages are simply rectified. But at some locations, the design may be faulty,
for which one has to call up the designer / consultant for help. The seals may call for better
contemporary design. The design may need for a review from the boiler thermal expansion
point of view.

In the balance draft furnace there are several areas for ingress. The possible locations include
 Roof top where SH coils penetrate in
 Membrane walls where the convection banks penetrate
 Roof tubes termination in steam drum
 Boiler bank tubes termination in side, front, rear of steam drum
 Boiler bank tubes termination in side, front, rear of water drum
 Between boiler bank hopper and water drum
 Hopper manholes
 Hopper isolation gates & flanges
 Worn out rotary ash feeders
 Failed fabric expansion joints
 Corroded metallic expansion joints
 Incomplete fastened flange joints
 Improper roped flanged joints
 Refractory wall cracks
 Eroded / corroded APH tubes
 Economiser casing joints
 Access doors
 Roof panel to side walls side joints
 Water drum to bank casing plates
 Nose panel to Water drum termination
 Soot blower openings
 Gas pressure tappings
 Leaky view holes
 Boiler bank casing plate joints

The list is quite long. Some of the points cost heavy for some boiler users.

1. High unburnt carbon in fly ash

It is a general practice to trim the air flow based on O2 indication from flue gas. When the
air leakage is present the O2 indicated by the on-line O2 meter would mislead the operator.
The furnace runs in to substochiometeric condition. This ultimately leads to increase to
unburnt.
2. Increased fuel consumption
The air ingress downstream the flue path leads to increased heat loss in the chimney. To
compensate for the heat loss one has to feed more fuel.

3. Overloaded ID fan
When we experience that the ID fan is falling short of capacity, we tend to invest in new
ID fan / we start with fan vendors for increasing the fan capacity. In many cases the second
ID fan is opted with higher capacity with the assumption that the existing ID fan is short of
capacity. In some cases even the second ID fan may also prove useless as the leakage persists
and the furnace still goes with positive pressure. The boiler operating expenses increase due
to additional power consumption.

4) Secondary combustion in superheater zones

The furnace begins to starve when the air ingress is more from roof seal box / Convection
SH seal box. The leakage air allows secondary combustion of volatiles. The SH temperature
becomes uncontrollable. Particularly at the time of load variation, the fuel feeder rpm is
regulated by the operator and he finds the SH steam temperature rises faster than the
pressure. This is seen in boilers fired with biomass fuels.

5) Excess Desuperheater spray

In most of the designs the furnace is designed to be hotter as the combustion is to take
place here. The furnace dimensions are so chosen, to achieve the necessary residence time
for the fuel particle to burn fully. Starvation occurs when the air can bypass the furnace and
enter the flue gas downstream. No one can assess the amount of air ingress at leaky zones.
Under such conditions the combustion zone shifts to SH section. Simultaneous combustion
and heat transfer at SH section leads to excess Steam temperature. To our luck if excess
capacity is available in the spray control valve, we tend to spray more. More spray will lead
to solids added to SH section. The solids leave behind in SH leading to deposit related failures.
More the spray the turbine blade deposition is experienced.

6) High furnace temperatures and refractory walls cave in

The excess air when not given in the furnace, the furnace temperature exceeds the design
gas temperatures. When the fuel does not have much of ash, the furnace temperatures go
up. The refractory walls expand unusually leading to furnace walls caving in.

7) Furnace refractory failures

The refractory totally collapse often since they loose strength at higher temperatures. The
High temperatures are experienced when the excess air is less and the furnace temperatures
go up. The refractory design would be unstable at higher service temperatures unless the
design is modified for the new service conditions.
c) APH Tube Leakages:
Introduction
Modern high capacity boilers are always provided with an air preheater. Air pre-heater is an
important boiler auxiliary which primarily preheats the combustion air for rapid and efficient
combustion in the furnace Serving as the last heat trap for the boiler system, a regenerative
air preheater typically accounts for over 10% of a plants thermal efficiency on a typical steam
generator. Considering this, when evaluating the performance of an air preheater one should
take intoaccount all of the process variables.
A very good method to improve the overall efficiency of a thermal power plant is to
preheat the air. If the incoming air for combustion is not preheated, then some energy must
be supplied to heat the air to a temperature required to facilitate combustion. As a result,
more fuel will be consumed which increases the overall cost and decreases the efficiency.
There are many factors, which contribute to the deterioration of air preheater performance
like high seal leakage, deterioration of heat absorption characteristics of basket elements due
to fouling or plugging. Close monitoring of air pre heater performance and proper
instrumentation would enable timely detection of performance degradation. The combustion
air preheater for the large fuel-burning furnaces used to generate steam in thermal power
plants.

Reason for Air Preheater tube failure

Air preheater corrosion

Air preheater erosion

Air preheater corrosion

There are two modes by which the corrosion failures are initiated. The flue gas
contains water vapor, which is due to moisture and hydrogen in fuel and moisture in air. This
water vapor condenses on the cool surfaces of Air preheater. The temperature of the Air
preheater tubes will be closer to ambient temperature at air inlet section. This is where the
water droplets form. The sweating of the tubes here promotes corrosion spots. The ash in
flue gas also deposit at this point and leads to choking of the tubes.

With fuels containing sulfur, the acid formation takes place and the corrosion is accelerated.
The Air preheater failure in oil fired boilers would be faster as compared to coal fired boilers.
With high moisture fuels such as lignite, wood, bagasse the tube failures are common.

Air preheater erosion

The Air preheater tubes are subject to vortex erosion when flue gas passes through
the tubes. This happens only in ash containing fuels such as coal & rice husk, and with flue gas
flowing through the tubes.
The failure takes place at the inlet end of the tubes within a distance of 125 mm. To prevent
tube failures, concreting is done at gas inlet end to a height of 125 mm. Alternately, ferrules
are used, which can be replaced on failure.
Effects of Air preheater failure

In the event of tube failure, the heat gain from Air preheater will not be available for furnace heat
transfer. In order to compensate for this heat loss the fuel consumption would go up. As the
failures increase, beyond a limit the combustion airflow to the furnace would start coming down,
as the combustion airflow goes to chimney directly. This leads to poor combustion of fuel. The
unburnt in ash and flue gas will go up. The furnace draft cannot be maintained. Further the steam
generation would come down. Generally at this stage only, the failure is realized by many.

How to detect the failure

Draft loss and temperature drop can be checked with performance parameters of the installation
when it was new. In the absence of proper instrumentation / log procedures, only physical
checking can help.

Inspection doors are required at inlet and outlet of Air preheater both on air side and gas side.
Without which one cannot confirm the failure. With boilers operating on low load, the failure
happens but does not surface up with problems. Hence periodical checkup alone can be the
solution.
Air heater leakage is determined by an empirical approximation as following.

AL = (CO2 ge CO2gl) x 0.9 x 100

CO2 gl
AL = air heater leakage (%)
CO2ge = percent CO2 in gas entering air heater
CO2gl = percent CO2 in gas leaving air heater

CO2 measurement is preferred due to high absolute values; In case of any measurement
errors, the resultant influence on leakage calculation is small. Alternatively, the air heater
leakage may also be determined from the following equation:

AL = (O2 gl O2 ge) x 0.9 x 100

(21 - O2 gl)

AL = air heater leakage (%)

O2ge = percent O2 in gas entering air heater
O2gl = percent O2 in gas leaving air heater

In the case of plugging the APH tubes affect the boiler performance adversely.

The higher the plugging, the lesser the heat transfer surface available, and hence the
flue gas temperature leaving the air pre-heater increases. This reduces the boiler
operating efficiency and increases fuel consumption

Increases the velocity of flue gases thus leading to higher erosion rate of the heat
transfer surface

Increases the downtime of the boiler for maintenance of air pre-heaters

Increases the auxiliary power consumption of the boiler
d) Lack of Soot Blowing (Deposits on boiler heat transfer surfaces):

A sootblower is a device for removing the soot that is deposited on the furnace tubes of a
boiler during combustion.

Types of soot blowers:

1. Wall Blowers also known as IRs (Insertable Rotating)

2. Long Retractable Soot Blower (LRSB) or IK (Insertable Kinetic)
3. Air Heater Blower

Steam blowing medium:

Steam

Air

Steam is normally used as a medium for blowing away the soot since capital cost of steam
pressure reducing equipment and drain is less than the cost of compressor, motors and
control of air systems.

Problems caused by soot

1) Reduced efficiency

Soot deposited on the heating surfaces of a boiler acts as a heat insulator. The result is that
less heat is transferred to the water to raise steam and more heat is wasted up the chimney.
This leads to higher fuel consumption and/or poor steaming.

2) Soot fires

A soot fire can be damaging to a boiler because it can cause localized hotspots to occur in the
tubes. These hotspots may reach temperatures that weaken the materials of the tubes.
Sootblowers reduce the risk of soot fires and their resulting damage.

3) Operation

A sootblower may be operated manually or by a remotely controlled motor. The soot, which is
removed from the heating surfaces, will be blown out with the flue gases. If the boiler is
equipped with a dust collector, it will trap the soot. Otherwise, the soot will be ejected into the
outside air through the chimney stack.

e) An incorrect PA/SA ratio causing delayed combustion:

Circulating fluidized bed boilers are commonly used to facilitate high-efficiency air-
firing of fossil fuels with biomass in heat and power generation industry. The distributions of
temperature and solids concentration are key parameters for proper operating CFBC boilers.
It is well known that, these parameters directly affect on bed hydrodynamics, combustion,
the heat transfer and pollutant emissions in fluidized bed combustors. The most commonly
method used to an equalization of temperature furnace profile is flue gas recirculation. In the
case of oxy-fuel combustion technology, an external flue gas recirculation is the most
widespread option for controlling of the adiabatic flame temperature. Temperature is a very
important parameter which can cause some problems of uncontrollable slag formation and
fouling of the heating surfaces. However, flue gas recirculation can play a negative role in a
relation to flame stability, combustion efficiency and content of unburned carbon in the
bottom ash. Main advantage of oxy-fuel combustion technology with flue gas recirculation is
a possibility to reduce CO2 and NOx emissions from coal-fired fluidized bed combustion.

In order to operate the CFBC in an appropriate temperature range, about half of the
combustion heat needs to be extracted from the combustor system. To obtain an optimum
thermal state for combustion, and in particular for good sulfur retention the matching of the
distribution of heat liberation by the combustion process and the heat extraction by the
cooling surface, as well as the heating of the intake air is desirable. By testing and evaluating
the heat balance of the dilute phase above the bottom dense bed, the fraction of combustion
heat liberated in the bottom dense fluidized as as a function of the ratio of secondary to
primary air supply 2/ 1 . By considering the heat balance of the bottom dense FB region, we
write

- 0.35 1 Cpg (Tb- Ta) + R . Cps (Tb- Te) /(- H)f

This equation enables the temperature difference in the main combustion chamber to be
estimated. The temperature ratio Te/Tb between top and the bottom as a function of the
recycling ratio R and the secondary to primary air ratio 2/ 1. With increasing recycling ratio,
the temperature difference diminishes and the circulating bed material acts as a stabilizer to
equalize the temperature difference decreases and the effect is weaker when the recycling
ratio increases. For a CFB combustor with high recycling ratio, along with advantage of high
efficiency and smooth operation, it experiences a high power consumption and risk of
erosion. If the recycling rate is too low, the temperature difference will be too high in order
to attain a favorable performance. Besides the gain of low NOx emission, the
primary/secondary air supply gives the advantage of a smaller air distributor plate and less
power consumption of air supply.

The effect of the primary to secondary air ratio on the performance of the CFB boiler
was also determined. As the primary air ratio increased, the solid fraction and temperature
in the furnace freeboard increased. As a result, the solid circulation rate and the heat
absorption in the furnace increased with increasing the PA ratio. In the case of the amount of
heat absorption, the wall tube of the furnace absorbed much more generation heat in the
furnace than the wing wall tube. The SO2 emission decreased due to increase of the limestone
hold up in the furnace, and the combustion efficiency somewhat increased with increasing
the PA ratio. Therefore, from these results, we could expect to control the boiler performance
such as the furnace temperature, steam temperatures of superheater or reheater, gaseous
emissions and combustion efficiency through the changing the PA ratio of the CFB boiler.

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