A fouling monitor alarm to prevent forced outages
Many utilities rely on coal blending to meet emissions and boiler performance goals, but the increased variability in coal quality can adversely impact ash deposition and soot blowing requirements. Other utilities are experimenting with lower quality coals and burner zone blending of coals fired from different bunkers as part of a deregulation strategy to reduce fuel costs. However, these strategies can lead to slagging/fouling episodes, a possible outage, or a decrease in unit availability if boiler operations are not carefully monitored. This paper summarizes the development of software to monitor boiler fouling and to provide an advanced warning to the control operators when a fouling episode is imminent. With adequate warming, preemptive action can be taken (e.g., soot blowing, a change in coal blend, etc.) to potentially avoid a costly outage. The software utilizes a unique combination of combustion diagnostic techniques and convective section heat adsorption analyses to identify boiler operating conditions where ash deposition rates may be high and conductive to triggering a fouling episode. The paper outlines the history of the fouling problem and the implementation of the software on Wabamun Unit 4, a tangentially-fired unit with relatively narrow reheat tube spacing. The unit had a tendency to foul when burning a high alkaline (but low ash) coal seam. The paper discusses the software development, implementation, and data acquisitions activities. Preliminary test results are provided for Wabamun 4 and for Sundance Units 1 and 2 where the software was recently installed.
- Research Organization:
- Fossil Energy Research Corp., Laguna Hills, CA (US)
- OSTI ID:
- 20034386
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 25th International Technical Conference on Coal Utilization and Fuel Systems, Clearwater, FL (US), 03/06/2000--03/09/2000; Other Information: PBD: 2000; Related Information: In: 25th international technical conference on coal utilization and fuel systems: Proceedings, by Sakkestad, B.A. [ed.], 969 pages.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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