ENERGY, ENVIRONMENT, ECOSYSTEMS, DEVELOPMENT and LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

Impact of the HP Preheater Bypass on the Economizer

Inlet Header
Dr.-Ing. Henning Zindler Dipl.-Ing. Andreas Hauschke and
E.ON Kraftwerke Prof. Dr. techn. Reinhard Leithner
Tresckowstrasse 5 TU Braunschweig
30457 Hannover Institute for Heat- and Fuel Technology
Germany Franz-Liszt-Strasse 35
henning.zindler@eon-energie.com 38106 Braunschweig
Germany
a.hauschke@tu-bs.de and r.leithner@tu-bs.de
Abstract: In the case of high pressure preheater tube leakages feed water can flow to the turbine and
cause damages. To protect the turbine a hp (high pressure) preheater bypass is installed. When this
bypass opens the feed-water inlet temperature will drop by approximately 120K in modern super-critical
steam generators causing fatigue due to additional thermal stresses in the economizer inlet header. To
get a better understanding of the impact and the numbers of the possible load cycles the results of a
transient power plant-simulation by the program ENBIPRO are used as input for the simplified method
for calculating fatigue of the EN 12952. Tubes, pipes and heat exchangers are simulated dynamically
by using FVM (Finite Volume Method) and solving the resulting equation system by the SIMPLER-
Algorithm (Semi Implicit Momentum and Pressure Linked Equations Revised). The FVM calculates all
data needed for calculating the temperature distribution over a thick walled pipe like a header. This
includes information like fluid temperatures and heat transfer coefficients. The temperature distribution
in the pipe wall itself is calculated in a post processing by using the numerical method of Crank and
Nicolson. Based on the transient temperature distribution in the wall pipe the thermal stresses and the
fatigue is estimated by using the EN 12952.

Key–Words: FVM, SIMPLER, Fatigue, High pressure preheater bypass, EN 12952, Crank and Nicolson

1 Introduction
In the case that a high pressure preheater tube
has a leakage, e.g., a weld fails, feed water of high
pressure flows through the leakage to the extrac-
tion line of the turbine. If the damper in the ex-
traction line also fails the turbine can be flooded
and damaged. For safety reasons a HP preheater
bypass is installed to protect the turbine. A flow
diagram with the bypass is shown in figure 1.
When opening the HP preheater bypass the
feed water inlet temperature will drop by ap-
proximately 120 K. This temperature difference
is much higher in modern super-critical steam
generators than in older ones with lower pres-
sure. Therefore, the thermal stresses in the thick
walled components especially in the economizer Figure 1: HP Preheater Bypass
inlet header have to be checked more accurately.
The question is raised how often the HP preheater
bypass can be opened before the life time of the
economizer inlet header is consumed by fatigue.

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2 Approach The energy balance of the pipe wall at a cer-

tain cross section is:
A fatigue analysis can be performed by either us-
ing FEM (Finite Element Method) analysis or by
dϑR Q̇0 − Q̇in
a simplified method like it is described in the EN 0 = −cR ρR + (7)
12952. In both cases simulation data of fluid tem- dt AR
peratures and heat fluxes to the pipe wall are ENBIPRO discretizes the partial differential
needed. This data can be generated by transient equations system by using a FVM described in
simulation programs like ENBIPRO that is de- [5]. The FVM is solved by using the SIMPLER
veloped at the Institute for Heat and Fuel Tech- algorithm described in [4]. The ability of EN-
nology at the TU Braunschweig. ENBIPRO is BIPRO to couple partial and ordinary differential
described in [1], [2] and [3] and based on [4], [5] equation systems is described in [1].
and [6].
ENBIPRO doesn’t calculate the temperature 3.2 Calculation of the Temperature
distribution in the wall of the pipes. There-
Distribution in the Pipe Wall
fore, in a post processing the fluid temperatures
and the heat transfer coefficients calculated by The heat flux in the pipe wall of each volume el-
ENBIPRO are used as input data for a Crank- ement is modelled by
Nicolson-Algorithm as described in [7] that solves
the transient energy balance inside the pipe wall.  
∂ϑ 1 ∂ ∂ϑR
The result is the transient temperature distribu- cR ρR = rλ (8)
∂t r ∂r ∂r
tion in the pipe wall.
Based on the temperature distribution a sim- Figure 2 shows a discretised pipe wall.
plified fatigue analysis is performed as described
in the EN 12952.

3 Mathematical Model
ri

3.1 ENBIPRO dr
ra
For calculating the water and steam flow inside
the tubes and pipes ENBIPRO uses the following
numerical models for the momentum, mass and
energy balance:

∂ρw ∂ρw2 ∂p Figure 2: Discretizised pipe wall of a thick walled

0 = + − − Sw (1) component
∂t ∂x ∂x
∂ρ ∂ρw
0 = + (2) λ is regarded as constant. The boundary con-
∂t ∂x
ditions at the inner side and outer side of the pipe
∂ρh ∂ρhw Q̇in
0 = + − (3) are modelled as
∂t ∂x Ast

The mathematical model of the momentum, dϑR α

= (ϑR − ϑu ) (9)
mass and energy balance of the flue gas side is dr λ
simplified to: The discretization of the partial differential
equation is done by using the implicit finite dif-
ference method of Crank and Nicolson described
dp 1ρ 2
0 = − + λR w (4) in [7]. The algorithm becomes implicit by dis-
dx d2 cretising the storage term over the half time step:
dṁ
0 = (5)
dx  
∂ϑ ϑi,k+1 − ϑi,k
0 =
dṁh
− Q̇0 (6) ≈ (10)
dx ∂t i,k+ 21 Δt

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For all other terms arithmetic mean values of
time step k and k + 1 have to be calculated. The
result is an implicit equation system for each time
step of a tridiagonal structure that can be solved
easily by using the TDM-algorithm as it is de-
scribed in [4].
3.3 Fatigue Analysis
The fatigue analysis is performed for a bore hole in
the first (inner) discretised volume element of the
pipe wall by using EN12952 [8] part three chapter
thirteen and appendix B and D.
4 Simulated System and Bound-
ary Conditions
The simulated system is shown in figure 1. It
shows the feed water pump, the HP preheater, the
bypass, the three way valve, the non return valve
and the economizer inlet header. The HP pre-
heater is simulated by only one heat exchanger.
The bypass is kept warm by a small mass flow.
The temperature distribution and the fatigue is
calculated in the first cross section of the econ-
omizer inlet header because the thermal stresses
are highest due to the fastest temperature change
and highest mass flow. The economizer inlet
header is overflown by flue gas like in current two
pass boiler designs. During the simulation the
three way valve stops the mass flow through the
HP preheater within five seconds. The geometries
of the components of the original design have been
slightly modified.
During the simulation the feed water temper-
ature upstream of the economizer will drop by 117
K. The mass flow of 325 kg/s is constant, the in-
ner diameter of the economizer is 114 mm and the
wall thickness 55 mm. The connected economizer
heat exchanger tubes have an outer diameter of
44.5 mm and a wall thickness of 6.3 mm. The
pipe material is 13CrMo45.
The feed water has an inlet temperature of
315 ◦ C at the beginning and a constant pressure
of 320 bar. The flue gas has an inlet temperature
of 357 ◦ C and a mass flow of 296.7 kg/s.
5 Results
Figure 3 shows the temperature distribution over
the time and the wall of the first cross section of
the header wall. It can be seen that the temper-
ature drops very fast at the inner surface of the
header.

Temperature in ◦ C over the Header Wall and Time

330
320
330 310
320 300
310 290
300 280
290 270
280 260
270 250
260 240
250 230
240
230
0.17
0.16
0.15
0 2 0.14
4 6 0.13 Radius in m
8 10 12 0.12
Time in s 14 160.11

Figure 3: Temperature distribution in the pipe wall

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 ENERGY, ENVIRONMENT, ECOSYSTEMS, DEVELOPMENT and LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

Figure 4 shows the most important temper- the integral average pipe wall temperature are
ature curves over the time. For calculating the needed.
fatigue the temperature of the inner surface and

Temperature over the pipe wall

450 ◦C
Water Temperatur in
Inner Header Wall Temperature in ◦C
Integral Header Temperature in ◦C
400 ◦C
Outer Header Wall Temperatur in
Flue Gas Temperature in ◦C
Temperature in ◦ C

350

300

250

200
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
Time in s

Figure 4: Wall and Fluid Temperatures

The integral average temperature is defined destroy the magetite film. This will have an im-
by pact on the wall thickness and the life time of the
turbine. But it should not be necessary to have
an emergency shut down of the boiler because the
2 N
frequency of a failure of a HP preheater is very
ϑm = 2 Δrϑi ri (11)
ro2 − rin i=1
low.

To protect the magnetite film the maximum

thermal tension at the inner side of the bore hole
N
has to be less than 200 mm 2 . The protection of
the magnetite film stipulates the maximum tem-
perature differences in the pipe wall. In the sim-
ulated case the maximum temperature difference
as defined by EN 12952 is 39K and the maximum
temperature decrease velocity is 0,35 K/s. The
simulated maximum temperature difference is 63
K and the simulated maximum temperature tran-
sient is 12 K/s.
The number of allowable cycles till the start-
ing of crack is approx. 5000.

6 Conclusion and Outlook

That means that even with new super-critical
boilers and high temperature rise in the HP pre-
heaters the bypass can be used, but each use will

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Symbols References:

Symbol Unit Description [1] H. Zindler, Dynamische Kraftwerkssimula-

tion durch Kopplung von FVM und PECE
A m2 Cross section area Verfahren mit Hilfe von Adjungiertenver-
c J/(kgK) Specific heat capacity fahren, Fortschritt-Berichte VDI Reihe 6 En-
d m Diameter ergietechnik, Nr. 573
h J/kg Enthalpy
[2] G. Stamatelopoulos, Berechnung und
l m Pipe length
Optimierung von Kraftwerkskreisläufen,
ṁ kg/s Mass flow Fortschritt-Berichte VDI Reihe 6 Energi-
p Pa Pressure etechnik, Nr. 340
Q̇ W/m Heat flux per unit length
r m Radius [3] Epple; Leithner; Linzer; Walter; ”Simulation
Sw N/m3 Source term von Kraftwerken und wärmetechnischen An-
lagen”, 2009, ISBN 978-3-211-29695-0
t s Time
w m/s Velocity [4] S. Patankar, Numerical Heat Transfer and
x m Axial coordinate Fluid Flow, Hemisphere Publishing Corpora-
α W/(m2 K) Heat transfer coefficient tion, 1980
λR − Friction coefficient [5] H. Walter, Modellbildung und nu-
λ W/(mK) Heat conductivity merische Simulation von Naturumlauf-
ρ kg/m3 Density dampferzeugern, Fortschritt-Berichte VDI
Reihe 6 Energietechnik Nr.: 457, Wien 2001
[6] K. Brenan, S. Campbell, L. Petzold, Numer-
Index Description ical Solutions of Initial-Value Problems in
in Inside Differential-Algebraic Equations, siam, 1995
i, k Counting indices [7] Stephan/Bähr, Wärme- und Stoffübertra-
m Mean gung, Springer Verlag
N Maximum number
o Outside [8] EN 12952 Wasserrohrkessel und Anla-
u Fluid genkomponenten
R Tube [9] J. Bausa, Dynamische Optimierung
st Steam energie- und verfahrentechnischer Prozesse,
w Wall Fortschritt-Berichte VDI

ISSN: 1790-5095 310 ISBN: 978-960-474-125-0