FIRE TUBE AND WATER TUBE

BOILER
MARINE ENGINEERING AND NAVEL ARCHITECTURE

Course title: M.P.P - NAM 241

Level 2 (Fall)

Prof. Dr. Mohamed M Elgohary

Names, ID:

Kenzi Yasser Hassan Abdel Fattah 19017366

Fatma Wasim Helal 18011237

Fatma Al-Zahra Labib Abdel Rahma 18011228

Mohamed Baher Belal 19016323

Ahmed Naser Gomaa Attia 18010258

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 FIRE TUBE AND WATER TUBE BOILER

arine Power Plants (NAM-241)

INTRODUCTION

Figure-1(Water vs Fire tube boiler)

Water-tube boiler
A high pressure water-tube boiler is a type of boiler in which water circulates in tubes heated externally by
the fire, Fuel is burned inside the furnace, creating hot gas which boils water in the steam-generating tubes.
In smaller boilers, additional generating tubes are separate in the furnace, while larger utility boilers rely
on the water-filled tubes that make up the walls of the furnace to generate steam.

Fire-tube boiler
A fire-tube boiler is a type of boiler in which hot gases pass from a fire through one or many more tubes
running through a sealed container of water. The heat of the gases is transferred through the walls of the
tubes by thermal conduction, heating the water and ultimately creating steam.

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 FIRE TUBE AND WATER TUBE BOILER

WATER-TUBE BOILER
The design of water tube boilers is strictly opposite to that of fire tube boilers design. In water tube boiler
systems, the water to be heated is enclosed inside the boiler tubes whereas the hot combustion gases
exhausted by the burner keep circulating around the tube surfaces. The water within the tubes then gets
heated via the hot flue gases and finally converted into steam. The diameter of the boiler tubes is kept
very small in these boiler systems to provide them the capability to withstand higher pressures for the
equivalent amount of stress. Water tube boiler designs are particularly suitable for high steam output
requirements. Hence, their use is mainly preferred in industries for various types of process applications
over home heating systems.

Operating Principal

Figure-2(thermo-siphoning)

Natural water circulation, also referred to as “thermo-siphoning” is the major working principle for almost
all water-tube boilers. This principle is illustrated shown in Figure-2, Cooler feed water is introduced into
the steam drum behind a baffle where, because the density of the cold water is greater, it descends in the
‘downcomer’ towards the lower or ‘mud’ drum, displacing the warmer water up into the front tubes, Due
to continuous heating, steam bubbles gets created in the front side of boiler tubes, In the boiler drum, these
bubbles get automatically separated from the heated water and finally carried out, As soon as the pressure
rises inside the boiler, the deviation between the water density and saturated steam density tends to reduce
resulting in less circulation. To keep the same level of steam output at higher design pressures, the
distance between the lower drum and the steam drum must be increased, or some means of forced
circulation must be introduced.

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 FIRE TUBE AND WATER TUBE BOILER

Main Features
Key features of water tube boilers:
1. They usually exist in larger sizes as compared to fire tube boiler designs. The size of a typical
water tube boiler can go up to quite a few million pounds per hour of steam generated.
2. They are proficient in dealing with steam pressures which can be as high as 5,000 psig.
3. Their recovery is much quicker than their fire tube counterparts.
4. Besides, they are designed to attain extremely high temperatures
5. Water tube boilers which are smaller in size can be easily prepared and made available in the form
of single packaged units similar to packaged fire tube boiler units. On the other hand, large sized
water tube boiler units are unable to be manufactured in packaged form; hence the large sections
are carried to the work site where they are finally assembled.
6. A typical water tube boiler system consists of several burners positioned on the walls, each having
a choice of either horizontal or vertical firing. Also, temperature control option is available in
many sections of the boiler. These features must be specifically considered when the boiler
contains an integrated super heater whose temperature is required to be controlled for getting
adequate superheated steam.

Applications
The ability of water tube boilers to generate superheated steam makes these boilers particularly attractive
in applications that require dry, high-pressure, high-energy steam, including steam turbine power
generation, so the use of water tube boilers is highly preferred in following major areas:
• Variety of process applications in industries
• Chemical processing divisions
• Pulp and Paper manufacturing plants
• Refining units
Besides, they are frequently employed in power generation plants where large quantities of steam (ranging
up to 500 kg/s) having high pressures i.e. approximately 160 bar and high temperatures reaching up to
550°C.

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Advantages
Major advantages of water tube boiler systems include:
1. These boiler systems contain very small quantity of water hence; their response is fairly quick
towards variations in load and heat supply.

2. The small diameter tubes and steam drum mean that much higher steam pressures can be tolerated,
and up to 160 bar may be used in power stations.

3. Water tube boiler systems are mainly applied in applications requiring high steam pressures (i.e.
up to 3,000 psi) owing to their capability to tolerate higher pressures built up inside the boiler
tubes.

4. Moreover, water tube boiler designs provide highly efficient performance due to which they can be
even employed to produce saturated or superheated steam.

Disadvantages
Few limitations associated with the usage of water tube boiler plants are given below:
1. Unlike fire tube boilers, these boiler systems can not be manufactured in packaged form. Hence,
their installation procedure at the job site tends to be comparatively difficult and time consuming.

2. The installation and initial cost of these boiler systems happens to be very high.

3. Although one can employ several burners together to attain a flexible system yet the use of more
than 30 burners in power generating plants is generally avoided due to increased complexity.

4. As opposed to fire tube boiler systems, the water tube boilers are not available in compact physical
sizes. Besides, their cleaning process is quite complicated.

5. Moreover, replacement of tubes is not possible in water tube boilers since there is no accord
between tube designs.

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Components of Water-Tube Boiler

• Boiler Shell: This shell is the external cylindrical part of a pressure container.
• Mud Drum: This is a cylindrical formed space at the base of the water space. The impurities like
mud, sediment, and others will be gathered.
• Strainer: This is a type of device as a filter to hold solid elements letting a fluid to supply.
• Sight Glass: A glass tube is utilized on steam type boilers for giving observable signs of the water
level in boilers.
• Security Valve: A spring-loaded tap that unlocks when force gets the location of the valve. This
can be used for stopping the unnecessary force from the construction of a boiler
• Boiler: This is a surrounded space offered for the fuel combustion.
• Feed-Test Tap: The high-force water flows via this tap, which releases to the boiler simply and
supplies the water to the water type boiler.
• Steam-Stop Tap: It controls the steam flow supply at outside.
• Burner: This is one type of device for the beginning of air and fuel into a boiler at the preferred
velocity. This is the most essential apparatus for the firing of gas or oil.

Types of Water Tube Boilers

1. Simple Vertical Boiler

This is one type of water tube boiler. In this type of boiler, the axis of direction is
perpendicular with respect to the position. The major components of this boiler
include ash pit, grate, feed check tap, fire hole, firebox, cross box, hand hole, fusible
plug, water gauge, cylindrical shell, steam space, manhole, pressure gauge, steam
stop tap, safety tap, chimney.
When the water heats up and generates vapor as a result of water heating then
collects at the boiler’s vapor space. Vapor is gathered until an assured force is
conquered & vapor moves out to activate engine or turbine. These boilers are used in
steam powerdriven vehicles as well as mobile machines like railway steam engine,
steam tractor, Steam shovels, and steam cranes.

Figure-3(Simple Vertical Boiler)

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2. Stirling Boiler
The Stirling boiler is one type of water tube boiler, used for
generating steam (50,000 kg steam/hour and 60 kgf /cm2 pressure)
in the large area of the stationary plant. This type of boiler consists
of 3 steam drums as well as 2 mud drums. The steam drums are
located on the top section of the boiler whereas mud drums are
located on the base of the arrangement. The steam drums and mud
drums are connected through bent tube banks.
When the tubes are turned then the mechanical pressures due to
pipes extension throughout heating cannot influence the system.
The two drums as well as tubes are designed of steel which will
support the total system.

Figure-4(Stirling Water Tube Boiler)

3. Babcock and Wilcox Boilers

This is a horizontal straight water tube boiler; it has a steam drum which is made of steel. The two ends of
the drum are associated with a series of two end headers with short riser pipes. These are disposed at 15o0
angle to the horizontal axis of the steam drum. The disposed of the arrangement of tubes assists in the
supply of water, and the water level in the drum is indicated with a water level indicator.
The fire door in the water boiler will be located at the bottom and the fuel will be supplied through
this door and burns in a grate. The burning fuel will
generate the hot gases that are forced in the grate to
supply upward with baffle plates. At the bottom of
the water boiler, mud collector is located for
removing the mud particles using blow down a cock.
Therefore, a nonstop water circulation from the
steam drum toward the water tubes is maintained by
convective currents because of the difference in
concentration and it is called as normal circulation.

Figure-5(Babcock and Wilcox Boiler)

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FIRE-TUBE BOILER
They are popularly known as Shell boilers since in these boilers all the surfaces contributing towards heat
transfer are enclosed inside a shell made up of steel, They can be also called as Smoke tube boilers. in fire
tube boiler systems, the hot exhaust gases emanating out of combustion reaction are passed through the
boiler tubes, These tubes are in turn surrounded by the water which needs to be heated, Heat is then
transferred to the circulating water via the hot gases produced by the burner. In fire-tube boilers, the
combustion gases pass inside boiler tubes, and heat is transferred to water on the shell side.
In this way the water gets converted into steam for utilization into various process applications. The most
widely used boilers for industrial applications are Scotch marine boilers.

SCOTCH MARINE BOILER

Scotch marine boilers are typically cylindrical shells with horizontal tubes configured such that the
exhaust gases pass through these tubes, transferring energy to boiler water on the shell side.”2

This type of fire tube boiler is considered to be an industry workhorse owing to its several advantages.
Most common of them include:
• They are highly proficient and strong.
• Their use proves to be very economical because they involve very low initial price.
• These types of boilers usually hold quite huge quantities of water due to which they are capable of
retorting to load changes occurring with reasonably small variations in pressure.

this category of boilers suffers from few limitations too which are listed below:
• Since, these types of boilers consist of large amount of water; they consume somewhat extra time
to set off steaming operation and put up with variations occurring in steam pressure.
• In these types of boilers steam generation takes place in the shell portion which offers a big surface
area. Due to this fact, the quantity of pressure generation tends to be less.
• Typically, the use of Scotch marine boilers is not recommended in areas requiring high pressures
(normally beyond 300 psig).

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 FIRE TUBE AND WATER TUBE BOILER

Main Features Key features of fire tube boiler

systems include:
1. Fire tube boilers are often characterized by their number of passes, referring to the number of
times the combustion or flue gases flow the length of the pressure vessel as they transfer heat to
the water.

2. Each pass enables the hot combustion gases to pass through the boiler tubes in the different
direction. Every time, for conceiving next pass, the flue gases in the boiler make a shift of 180
degrees and go back via the shell.

3. A typical three-pass boiler consists of three sets of boiler tubes whereas a four-pass boiler contains
the four sets. The stack outlet in case of former one is normally positioned at the back end of the
boiler while the latter one will have the stack outlet located at the front end.

4. Various types of boiler tube arrangements are available for fire tube boiler systems depending
upon the number of passes made by the hot flue gases emerging from the boiler furnace till the
time they get cleared out of boiler system.

5. In case of boilers made up of plain steel, the hot combustion gases going in to the reversal chamber
are required to be cooled down to a temperature of 420°C prior to their entrance whereas in case
boilers having alloy steel construction, this temperature should be at least 470°C. If the
temperature of combustion gases happens to be more than recommended then problems like
overheating and cracking of boiler tubes may take place.

6. Since a fire tube boiler system consists of a considerable quantity of water within it maintained at
saturation temperature point, it usually serves as significant energy storage ground to deal with
very quick short term load applications. However, this fact can pose a major limitation also since
re-buildup of energy reserve would be required which may consume large time.

7. Nowadays, the largest shell boilers offering 1,500 boiler horsepower i.e. approximately 50,000
lbs/hr have been made available.

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Fire tube boilers come in variety of configurations. The two most common configurations include: a)
Dry back boiler configuration the reversal of hot combustion gases is done via a refractory lined
chamber located at the external covering of the boiler.

Figure-6(Dry back boiler configuration)

b) Wet back boiler configuration or called “water back boiler configuration” which is considered to be
extra efficient than the former one since in this kind of arrangement the main chamber for reversal
of hot gases is totally enclosed inside the boiler. No refractory lining is required in this
configuration since the turn around zone is water cooled in this case. Hence, it makes available
larger area for transfer of heat. Also, it helps in heating boiler water at the side of the chamber wall
where the heat generated from the furnace is usually found to be of maximum intensity.

Figure-7(Wet back boiler configuration)

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Applications
The fire tube boiler systems mainly find their use in following areas:
• For operation of steam locomotives
• In small factories and industrial processes
• For home heating systems

Advantages the major advantages offered by fire tube

boiler plants:
1. The entire plant may be purchased as a complete package, only needing securing to basic
foundations, and connecting to water, electricity, fuel and steam systems before commissioning. In
this way, the installation cost of fire tube boiler systems gets reduced.
2. Also, due to their availability as packaged systems, they can be easily relocated from one place to
another.
3. The construction and maintenance routine of a typical fire tube boiler happens to be very simple.
4. Fire tube boilers usually consist of a single furnace tube and a burner. Hence, the control systems
meant for heating purpose inside these boilers is kept very simple.
5. Due to their comparatively low operating pressures, the accessories needed to support fire tube
boiler systems can be obtained at very economical rates.
6. These types of boiler systems are found to be very fuel efficient. Besides, their operation is easy.
7. They provide very cost-effective heating solutions.
8. Their cleaning procedure is very simple.
9. They are available in compact size and form. They generally exist in size ranging from 600,000
btu/hr to 50,000,000 btu/hr
10. They are designed in such a way that replacement of shell boiler tubes is very simple.
11. They are widely put into use for space heating purposes and variety of industrial applications.

Disadvantages The Major disadvantages associated with

fire tube boilers:
1. As a general rule, the maximum output generated out of fire tube boiler is around 27 000 kg / h. In
case of high steam requirements, one needs to combine multiple boilers together.
2. Besides, the fire tube boiler systems are not capable of working with applications which involve
high operating pressures i.e. beyond 250 psig. This limitation is experienced due to the large
diameter cylindrical construction of fire tube boilers. For getting higher pressures, water tube
boilers are generally employed.
3. Also, these boiler systems are not considered suitable for processes where high capacity steam is
required.
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Table of contents
Topic Page
1 Introduction 2
2 Water-tube boiler 3
3 Operating principal of water-tube boiler 3
4 Main features, applications of water-tube boilers 4
5 Advantages, disadvantages of water-tube boilers 5
6 Components of Water-Tube Boiler 6
7 Types of Water-Tube Boiler 6
8 Fire-tube boiler 8
9 SCOTCH MARINE BOILER 8
10 Main features of fire-tube boiler 9
11 Fire-tube boilers configurations 10
12 Applications, advantages and disadvantages of Fire-tube boilers 11

Table of figures
Number Name Page
Figure-1 Water vs Fire tube boiler 2
Figure-2 thermo-siphoning 3
Figure-3 Simple Vertical Boiler 6
Figure-4 Stirling Water Tube Boiler 7
Figure-5 Babcock and Wilcox Boilr 7
Figure-6 Dry back boiler configuration 10
Figure-7 Wet back boiler configuration 10

Reference:
• Boiler Operator's Handbook, By Kenneth E. Heselton, 1943.
• Thermal Engineering, By R.K. Rajput, sixth edition.
• Boiler Operations, By M. P. Murgai, Ram Chandra.
• Practical Guide to Industrial Boiler Systems, By Ralph Vandagriff, New York.

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