Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Design and Analysis of Compact Boiler: July 2018
Design and Analysis of Compact Boiler: July 2018
net/publication/329863370
CITATIONS READS
0 4,574
3 authors, including:
Anand Chakaravarthi M C
Sri Sairam Engineering college
5 PUBLICATIONS 5 CITATIONS
SEE PROFILE
Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:
All content following this page was uploaded by Anand Chakaravarthi M C on 22 December 2018.
S.M. Suresh
Professor, B.M.S. College of Engineering, Bangalore, Karnataka, India
ABSTRACT
Package boilers occupy a larger share of market in numbers compared to
industrial and utility boilers. Almost all process industries such as the textile industry,
paper industry, plastic industry, food and pharmaceutical industry etc. employ
package boilers for heating. As such they consume large fraction of input energy not
only due to numbers but also due to less design freedom. Eventually, there is a quest
for ideas which can contribute considerably to the design and cost reduction of
package boiler.
This project discusses innovative idea of increasing convective heat transfer by
introducing turbulators. Initial experiment on improvement of heat transfer with
turbulator was encouraging. Turbulator increases convective heat transfer more than
50% to 100% and dispenses away large number of tubes. A one dimensional
mathematical model has been developed for the design and performance evaluation of
package boiler with trubulators and result has been compared with conventional
boiler. Analysis indicates that compact boiler with turbulators can be a good
alternative to multi-tubular boiler. A two pass boiler with turbultors give identical
performance to three pass multi-tubular boiler. Introduction of tabulators gives many
mores advantages apart from increasing the heat transfer and making boiler compact.
Compactness is achieved at the cost of increased pressure drop. These aspects have
been high-lighted in this study. Paper also discusses future scope of work before such
a boiler is introduced in market as a regular product. Paper is first part of an
integrated approach in design, modelling, and manufacturing of compact boiler.
Keywords: Turbulator, Compact boiler, multi-pass boiler.
Cite this Article: Dr. Rajendra Prasad A, Dr.Vaidyanathan S, M. C. Anand
Chakaravarthi and S.M. Suresh, Design and Analysis of Compact Boiler, International
Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Technology, 9(7), 2018, pp. 1525–1534.
http://www.iaeme.com/IJMET/issues.asp?JType=IJMET&VType=9&IType=7
1. INTRODUCTION
First known use of steam boiler was made with Newcomen‟s engine in 1711 for draining
water from colliery for its safe operation [1]. Very little information is available on the design
and engineering of this boiler. Technological history of boiler can be traced back to the
development of Cornish boiler, which can be called as first successful commercial boiler [2].
Cornish boiler had single flue and resulted in engineering problems. This was improved upon
by incorporating additional flue in the boiler which was called Lancashire boiler. However,
Lancashire boiler is not just an addition of flue over Cornish boiler but resulted in more
uniform stress distribution, making it one of the most successful boilers of that era. This was
the time when the heat transfer technology was in its infancy and little knowledge was
available on heat transfer. Both Lancashire and Cornish boiler absorbed heat predominantly
by radiation and resulted in poor thermal efficiency.
These boilers were not only low efficient but were also dangerous and resulted in
explosion. Explosion of Sultana ship killing nearly 1200 persons being the most ferocious
accident [3]. At this time „Polytechnic Club‟ prevailed upon and codes were implemented for
the safe design and operation of boilers [4].
Better understanding of heat transfer resulted in development of multi-tubular boiler.
Multi-tubular boilers absorbs almost equal amount of heat by convection and radiation. Better
understanding of heat transfer resulted in higher thermal efficiency of boiler, which peaked to
88%. Subsequent to multi-tubular boiler no new innovation has been done on the
development of package boiler [5,6]. With better understanding of technology there appears
to be scope for further improvement, which can reduce manufacturing cost and make boiler
more compact [7]. Heat transfer enhancement, design, engineering and development of such a
compact boiler are the objective of this exercise.
2. BOILER CONFIGURATION
transfer. Analysis shows a stoichiometric air fuel ratio of 3.90 whereas actual air fuel ratio and
gas fuel ratio is 4.49 and 4.98 respectively. Entire calculations were performed by developing
a Matlab program. Output of Matlab model is shown in the subsequent sections. Predicted
flue gas exit temperature for the assumed configuration is about 350 degree C. This is in good
agreement with the design practice in vogue in the industries. Temperature can be further
reduced by installing an economiser at the downstream end.
Annulus between two shells is the zone where inserts are employed and heat is absorbed by
convection. These annuli carry inserts which are also called turbulators. A large number of
designs are possible with inserts and each need separate study. Bergels [11] have documented
these studies. Twisted tape has been chosen as the inserts due to its ease of manufacturing and
self-cleaning possibility. Thin metallic strip with width slightly less than internal diameter of
tube is twisted to a constant pitch helix. Three possible designs of twisted tapes are,
a. Full length twisted tape.
b. Modified twisted tape.
c. Compound enhancement twisted tape.
First occupies the full length of heat transfer channel. Modified twisted tapes are of short
length placed at the inlet of tube. Compound enhancement tapes are used with one or more
enhancement techniques. This investigation is done with full length twisted tape. Apart from
improvement in heat transfer such a design offers other mechanical advantages.
Heat transfer with inserts depends on number of parameters viz. thickness of tape, helical
flow path, pitch to diameter ratio, and fin effects. Mathematically it can be expressed as
Nu = Nu (Gz, Re, Ra, y, Pr , ) 1
Among the large numbers of available models, three models viz;,Drizius, Ibragimov, and
Manglic et.al. Were attempted [12]. Literature review indicates that most analysis with inserts
have been carried out for heat transfer inside pipe. Gupte and Date [13] have numerically
analysed heat transfer in an annulus. No experimental information is available on flow
through annulus with turbulator in turbulent flow. In this design analysis model of Manglik &
Bergles for turbulent has been adopted for the turbulators design and analysis.
Model developed in this investigation combines all the steps mentioned above. It includes
combustion, radiation and convection heat transfer. Thus complete boiler can be designed and
analysed as one run through program. This is the aim of boiler industry. Model can be further
linked to the mechanical design of boiler, which has been kept separate from this paper. Table
3 below show boiler design parameters as well process design parameter.
convergence in flue gas exit temperature from the boiler. These parameters match well with
conventional multi-tubular boiler confirming the efficacy of tubeless boiler.
Model run shows that the Total heat transferred in the boiler with installation of turbulator
is 3238.6 kW. This is about 108% of expected output from the boiler. Calculated flue gas
outlet temperature is 343 degree C, which is in conformity with the observation with most fire
tube boilers. Almost all fire tube boilers in multi-tubular construction give flue gas outlet
temperature around 350 deg C. Further reduction is flue gas outlet temperature can be
achieved by putting an external economiser. For the above flue gas temperature thermal
efficiency works out to be 77.38%. Installation of economizer will bring this flue gas
temperature further down and make a tubeless boiler thermally as lucrative as a multi-tubular
boiler. Calculated value of heat transfer coefficient with inserts of chosen design works out to
be 165.56 W/m2 K. Average heat transfer coefficient in second pass of multi-tubular boiler
normally ranges between 30 to 35 W/m2 K. This shows the importance of turbulator. Heat
transfer area needed with this high heat transfer coefficient is approximately 25 m 2.
Convection heat transfer in the boiler is around 68%.Complete result of model run is shown
below.
4. MODEL RESULTS
4.1. Result
Thermal model of Compact Boiler Design
Title : 5.00 TPH COMPACT BOILER DESIGN
Objective: Final Year 2016 Project. Development of 5 TPH Boiler
Guide : Dr. S. Vaidyanathan.
Professor- Department of Mechanical Engineering.
-----------------------------------------------
Date of execution: 08-Jul-2016
Two Pass Boiler (Single convection pass)
------------------------------------------
4.2. Output
Table 7 Combustion analysis
Thermal efficiency 77.38 %
Fuel consumption 0.301 [kg/s] 1084.689 [kg/h]
Stoichiometric air fuel ratio 3.90176 [SAir]
Air fuel ratio 4.48702 [kgA/kgF]
Gas fuel ratio 4.97989 [kgA/kgF]
Molecular weight of flue
29.17 [kg/mol]
gas
Mass flow rate of flue gas 5401.634 [kg/h] 1.500 [kg/s]
5. CONCLUSION
Following conclusions are drawn from this study.
1. A two pass boiler with turbulator can be the alternative for a three pass multi-tube
boiler.
2. A simple one dimensional model with two zones can predict the performance of
compact boiler with turbulators.
3. There is a scope of further analytical study on this subject which can be topic of
good research.
REFERENCES
[1] Babcock and Wilcox;“Steam its generation and Use” , 1978, page 3 ;
[2] Carl D. Shields; “Boilers: Types, characteristics, and Functions”, F.W. Dodge
Corporation, 1961; Chapter 1 and 2.
[3] Accident of Sultana ship.
[4] Polytechnic club,
[5] Personal communication with Dr. Bimal Acherjee; Former Director, Calorex India Private
Limited.
[6] Personal Communication; Anna Chattrey U.N. Late; Former Technical Director; 3M
Boilers Private Limited.
[7] Heat transfer enhancement.
[8] Hottel H.C. and Saroffim A.F; “Radiative Transfer”; McGraw Hill Book Co. (1978).
[9] Siegel R. and Howell J.R; “Thermal Radiation Heat Transfer”, McGraw-Hill Kogaksha
Ltd. 1972; chapter 17.
[10] Mikheyev M. “Fundamentals of Heat Transfer”; Peace Publishers, Moscow.
[11] Bergels: “Techniques for increasing heat transfer” ; Handbook of heat transfer, Rohsenow
J.P., Hartnett , Cho Y.I. , Chapter 11, MacGraw Hill, New York.
[12] Advances in Heat Transfer, v 36, Thomas F. Irvine, Jr (1922-2001) Memorial Volume;
Academic Press-2001, pp 184-257.
[13] Gupte N and Date A. W. “Friction and heat transfer characteristics of helical turbulence
air flow in annuli”, Journal of Heat Transfer, vol 111, pp 337-341.
[14] Aasha R, Shanmugapriya M. Guide – Dr. S. Vaidyanathan; 3rd Engineering Project;
Sairam Engineering College; 2015
[15] Saha S.K., Gaitonde U.N., Date A.W. “Heat transfer and Pressure Drop characteristics of
laminar flow in a circular tube fitted with regularly spaced twisted tape element”,
ExpTherm Fluid Sci., vol 2, pp 310-322
[16] Nae – Hyun Kim, “Principles of Enhanced Heat Transfer‟ Taylor and Francis, 2005, Ch 7