• Plants owning steam generators,waste heat boilers and HRSGs such as refineries,process or chemical plants,power plants, cogen plants often have to evaluate the thermal performance of boilers or their components such as superheater,economizer,boiler bank,evaporator,air heater etc from time to time. The steam temperature may be too high or low, exit gas temperature may be different from that predicted by the supplier or superheater tubes may be overheating or furnace tubes may have failed or the efficiency may not that envisaged etc.The component may not working per design or the plant may be operating at a different load for which data from the boiler supplier is not provided or the plant may have made changes to the fuel/water/steam parameters or would like to increase the capacity or study the impact of fouling etc. They may also like to see if the boiler circulation is fine,whether efficiency can be improved or check the impact of a different fuel or excess air or flue gas recirculation on the boiler/HRSG performance.

  Plants also buy new boilers,HRSGs and unfortunately solely depend on the supplier to provide all the thermal performance data but this is not easy and many boiler suppliers may not do so in a timely manner.Some DO NOT PROVIDE THE BASIC INFOMATION and the customer unfortunately does not even know it!! (It is like buying a car and you have not been shown what is under the hood! The paint looks great but god knows how the car will perform!)So it is better for your plant to have access to someone who can study these issues and make suggestions or ask the boiler supplier the right questions or challenge them on their thermal performance or guarantees before your place the purchase order. It is like getting a second opinion on the design from thermal performance view point.[examples: different designs of a HRSG were proposed to a customer for the same gas turbine and the variations in surface areas was nearly 50-60 % ; the customer did not know if the designs offered would perform and why so much of variation in surface areas?! another plant wanted to change the fuel,excess air and add FGR to their gas fired boiler to meet NOx regulations and wanted to know the impact on boiler performance. Another plant wanted to see if their HRSG economizer would steam due to the change in exhaust gas flow conditions)

  Hence my consultancy services is on thermal process,heat transfer and performance evaluation,verifying the component design for thermal performance projected by the boiler supplier; if you are buying a new boiler and not sure if the design is good, a second opinion can be proivided. MINE IS NOT A RUN OF THE MILL CONSULTANCY. I do not get involved in preparing drawings,checking welding or heat treatment or analyzing stress problems,piping flexibility or do field erection,boiler cleaning etc. Mine is purely process,heat transfer,thermal design and performance evaluation oriented. There are not many engineers offering this kind of service as it is a specialized subject. Having actually designed several hundred water tube,fire tube waste heat boilers and packaged steam generators and unfired/fired HRSGs for over three decades, I am aware of the design aspects. Boiler customers are unfortunately ignorant of several design aspects and boiler performance issues which come to haunt them after they buy the boiler!! I have seen this!)

   
• Thermal design issues(sizing,surface areas,material selection,off-design performance calculations,thermo-hydraulic studies etc)
• Performance evaluation(studying operating data of boilers/hrsg and their ccomponents, problem analysis,suggesting modifications if required,evaluating off-design performance)
• Suggestions for improving energy recovery, design aspects(optimization of temperature profiles,addition of heat recovery  etc)
• Review of specifications, proposals from technical considerations(suggesting better value for the end user,asking the right questions of the boiler supplier regarding the design)
• Conducting courses on Boilers,HRSGs and also training your engineers to appreciate the process and thermal performance aspects so that they can perform these thermal/process studies if required. Software for performance evaluation of boiler/hrsg components can also be demonstrated

ASSISTANCE IN THE FOLLOWING AREAS

• Reviewing proposals to ensure that clear thermal and process data and tube geometry data are provided( How many boiler/hrsg proposals come with information as shown here?)
• Reviewing operating data of boilers/hrsgs and correlating them with actual design and evaluating the extent of deviations
• Reviewing field data to see if fouling could be a problem
• Studying reasons for deviations from field data to see if they are due to boiler/hrsg design or operating conditions
• Suggestions for improving the fuel utilization or energy optimization

BOILER TYPES -fire tube boilers -water tube boilers -unfired/fired waste heat boilers and HRSGs in chemical plants, refineries, cogeneration/ combined cycle plants,utility ,industrial plants -air heaters,fluid heaters,special designs

V.Ganapathy has over 35 years of experience in the engineering of steam generators,waste heat boilers and process design with emphasis on heat transfer,performance design aspects(over 21 years with ABCO,USA and 12 years at BHEL trichy)). He also conducts courses on boilers,hrsgs. He holds a Masters degree in Engineering. Author of over 250 articles on boiler related topics,he has written five books, his latest book being,"Industrial Boilers and HRSGs".

 

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