IDEAL DRUM INTERNAL ARRANGEMENT By K.K.PARTHIBAN, Boiler Consultant Venus Energy Audit System Email ID:parthi2006@gmail.com / venus.energy@gmail.

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The number of boilers being installed for Cogeneration / captive power generation is increasing day by day. I happen to diagnose water carryover problems in some boilers. One of the causes for carryover is improper design of the drum internals. A steam drum internal if not designed properly / erected properly can lead to failures related to mechanical carryover / poor boiler water chemistry situations. Hence I have chosen to bring a review of the fundamentals of drum internals in this article. The article is basically for natural circulation boiler of 66 kg/cm2 pressure and above. A steam drum of the boiler is meant for performing the following. 1. Steam is purified by the steam drum internals which may have the baffle separators, cyclone separators, Chevron separators, demisters / Screen driers. 2. Acts as reservoir and provides the necessary head for the circulation of water through evaporative surfaces. 3. Supplies water for a brief period in the event of stoppage of water supply. The steam drum sizing criteria are as follows. 1. The length is decided based on the number of cyclones to be housed. The number of cyclones is so decided that the steam water mixture velocity is 5 to 6 m/s. The pressure drop across the cyclone is limited to 4-5 psi. Higher pressure drop drastically affects the circulation ratio. 2. The diameter is so decided to hold the required water volume between normal water level and trip level. For Waste heat recovery boilers, the process shut down time / gas isolation time may last from 4-5 minutes. Accordingly the hold up time is provided. Depending upon the nature of process one may go for 10 minutes hold up time too. The arrangement of drum internals should meet the following performance criteria. FEEDWATER DISTRIBUTOR PIPE 1. Should distribute the fresh water through out entire drum length so that the fresh water mixes well with boiler water. It should lead to uniformly sub cooled water through out the drum length. The feed distributor should not disturb the drum water level. It should not lead to localized swelling of water level. 2. It should not obstruct the water entry into the downcomer. Otherwise it may lead to circulation failure of evaporator section. 3. The pipe should not direct the cold water to drum surface. It may lead to differential metal temperature and may strain the metal. The feedwater outlet velocity from distributor shall be restricted to 1.2 m/s. The distributor shall be located at 250 mm away from the steam drum internal surface. 4. The feed distributor pipe shall be flanged for easy removal and flanges shall have proper machining done on the mating faces. Gaskets are not to be used as they fail over a period. 5. The location of feed distributor shall be in the steam space with proper baffles in case of steaming economizer. The steam shall take a tortuous path to facilitate water droplets separation.

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SAFETY VALVE 1. Should be so located that the steam when vented out should not disturb the steam drawal by the saturated steam links to superheater. It should not lead to starvation of Superheater. Hence it is generally located outside the steam drier unit. 2. The stub inlet diameter should not be less than that of the design orifice area which was selected based on the required steam relieving capacity. 3. The stub length of safety valve should be as short as possible. If the stub is long, there will be pressure drop in pipe causing frequent reseating & lifting. CHEMICAL DOSING PIPE In order to maintain desirable boiler water chemistry, suitable chemical is added directly into the drum water. The chemical is dosed through the chemical distributing pipe. In high pressure boiler, the pH and phosphate management is a type of program being adopted. There are other proven treatment programs such as all volatile treatment (AVT) and polymer treatment. 1. Concentrated chemicals are being dosed in the boiler water. Hence the piping shall be of non corroding material. The piping shall be of stainless steel construction. 2. The chemical should be well distributed through out the drum length. Or else it can be connected to feedwater pipe itself so that it helps for better mixing. 3. The chemical distribution piping should not get choked due to chemical. The hole diameter shall be 6 mm. Holes shall be pitched at 300 mm. 4. The chemical should not get drained off through the blow down pipe. It should be so located that the chemical gets mixed well with the fresh water before entering in to the downcomers. 5. The chemical could be dosed in feedwater pipe just before drum. This will ensure a good mixing of the water & chemical. It would also ensure a very good distribution. CONTINUOUS BLOW DOWN PIPE The boiler water is evaporated continuously and the relative pure steam leaves the boiler drum. This mechanism is leads to concentration of boiler water with more dissolved solids. Since the solubility of various dissolved solids is limited based on the operating pressure, it is necessary to limit the concentration of dissolved solids in the boiler water. There is always a carryover of dissolved solids of boiler water in to the steam. This is called vaporous carry over. The percentage of carryover of each constituent is a function of operating pressure of the boiler. Hence it is necessary to limit the concentration of boiler water with dissolved solids. Silica is a bad water constituent that leads to hard deposits on turbine blades. The continuous blow down pipe is required to meet the following criterion. 1. It should blow down the high TDS boiler water only. In should not lead to blow down of fresh water. 2. It should be so located that it does not drain the dosed chemical. 3. Since it is customary to take the boiler water sample from a CBD line, the sample should be a representation of boiler water solids. 4. The CBD pipe should be able to draw the boiler water from the entire length steam drum. Any localized sampling will lead to a wrong sample of the boiler water.

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DRUM LEVEL GAUGE The drum level is not something that is truly a single level inside. Depending on the downcomer size, number off, distance between downcomers, circulation rate, and boiler operating pressure and baffle arrangement, the drum level varies along the drum length. The drum level tappings need to be strategically located so that the water level is safe on low water level. There should be a device which snubs the minor wavy level changes. To summarize, the level gauge should meet the following criteria. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. It should show the true level near the downcomers area. It should have device that filters minor level variations. The drum level gauge tappings should be at the same level as that of level transmitters. Level gauge centre shall coincide with the desired drum normal water level (NWL). Both the level gauge locations should be such that the inside level conditions will not be different.

CYCLONE BOX CHAMBER When the boiler is fitted with cyclone separators, all the water steam mixture is collected in a chamber. The mixture is made to pass through multiple cyclones. The cyclones are mounted through flange system to the cyclone box chamber. The cyclones separate the water and return to the water space of the drum. The steam leaves through the top chevron unit. The total system should meet the following requirements. 1. The steam separator box shall be fully dismountable in the case of bi drum boiler in order to facilitate bank tube replacement. The box shall be of welded construction for single drum boiler. 2. The steam separator box shall be leak tight. There shall not be any bypassing of steam / water. The water / steam may cause localized splashing of drum water to the demister section. 3. The cyclone shall be removable. Its mounting flanges shall be leak-proof. A good care is required while fabricating this. Any leaks here again would lead to splashing of water to the demister section. 4. The cyclone design should be such that there is enough seal leg in the water side when the water level comes down. In the case of tangential entry cyclone the water separated leaves through the bottom. Hence the seal leg should be at least 200mm below the low water level. In the case of axial cyclone the water discharged from top and hence such a situation does not arise. 5. The fit up of chevron separators should be proper on the top of cyclone. 6. Crimping direction in the chevron should be such that the water droplets separated does not reentrain in to the steam. STEAM PURIFIER / STEAM DRIERS / DEMISTER Demister can be two stage Chevron driers / demister / screen driers. Its purpose is to trap the droplets and lead them back to drum water. 1. There should 300 mm distance between HWL and steam purifier, so that the water does not directly enter in to the steam driers / demisters. 2. Demister mounting frame has to be leak proof. It has to be seal welded to drum. 3. Chevron / Demister packing should be sloped so that the water droplets collect to the lower part. The separated water droplets should be collected in a trough and shall be drained off to the water side. The droplets should not re-entrain in to the steam. 4. Demister / drier area should meet the minimum theoretical area requirement. If not the steam velocity will so high, that the water droplets will be carried with the steam.

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SATURATED STEAM OUTLET PIPES There is lot of meaning in taking a distributed steam outlet from entire length of driers. Once the drier area is designed and incorporated, it is meaningless to take the saturated steam through a single outlet. It implies that the drier effectiveness would come down. A manifold connection inside the drum or outside the drum is preferred. 1. Baffles are required to prevent the direct entry of steam in to the steam outlet pipe. 2. Number of tappings shall be provided in order to draw the steam in a distributed manner across the entire length of the demister. DOWNCOMER Depending upon the circulation ratio, the downcomer flow area is selected. It is advisable to draw the water from the entire length of the drum. This avoids the very low dip of water level just above the downcomer. When low water level occurs, the steam may directly enter in to the downcomer and the circulation head will be lost. 1. To avoid flow induced swirl at the downcomer inlet, Vortex breakers are a must for downcomer of 100 nb and above. 2. Vortex breaker shall have a cap plate to prevent the eye seeing the steam space. 3. It is preferred to have more number of downcomers pitched to cover the drum length. INTERMITTENT BLOW DOWN PIPE It is apt to name it as emergency drain valve through which the water level is brought down in case of high level. In low pressure boilers, the intermittent blow off valve was strategically located for removal of settled sludges generated by phosphates reaction with calcium and magnesium salts. 1. This tap off is generally located in such a way that it does not disturb the water level indication. 2. The arrangement should not disrupt the flow through downcomers. CASE STUDY -1 The Photo 1 shows the drum internals of well maintained Boiler water chemistry. The Continuous blow down line is closer to chemical dosing line. Naturally the sampling line taken from CBD line will be containing more chemical and its water chemistry is different from bulk water. The steam drum shows the undergoing corrosion within the boiler. CASE STUDY 2 The photo 2 shows the routing of CBD line closer to the chemical dosing line. Water sample will not be representative of boiler water. The chemical loss will also be more. The concentration of chemical could be more in sample and will misguide the treatment. CASE STUDY 3 Photo 3 shows the carryover due to improper cyclone box fit up. The steam drum bears the mark of water going to the screen drier directly. The incomplete welding of cyclone box caused this. Photo 4 shows the deposits inside SH coils, which failed due to subsequent overheating.

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CASE STUDY 4 The photo 5 shows one of the best steam drum internal layout. The photo 6 shows the steam drum with a good magnetite layer protection. IMPORTANCE OF DRUM INTERNALS INSPECTION The above cases are some sample cases which had been offered to me by boiler users. When there are repeated carry over related failures / water chemistry related failures, the cause mostly hangs inside the drum. The drum internals assembly needs to be inspected by an expert who has the knowledge of the design. The drum internals conditions speak on how well the water chemistry is maintained. I always preferred to critically examine the drum internals when I had a chance.

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Photo 1: Chemical dosing line is laid closer to blow down line.

Photo 2: Chemical dosing line is laid closer to blow down line. Cyclones dismantled.

Photo 3: Physical carryover of water from cyclone separator box to drier section.

Photo 4: Deposition seen inside the SH tube, due to mechanical carryover.

Photo 5: Right way to locate the FW piping, HP dosing pipe & CBD pipe

Photo 6: Drum condition with the right piping layout.

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