In this article, we will learn what a boiler is and how it works.
But first, let's consider the term heat. Heat is essential in everyone's daily life. Whether it's heating our environment or cooking food, we use it to some extent in our daily activities.
Water and steam are good heat carriers that do not damage our environment. The boiling point of water at atmospheric pressure is 100 ° C.
By pressurizing the boiling system, the boiling point of the water can be increased. That's how the pressure cooker works. A sealed vessel used to increase pressure to increase the boiling point. This makes the time to cook food much shorter than with a regular pot.
So how does this compare to industrial boilers?
How do industrial boilers work?
First, industrial boilers can withstand much higher pressures than autoclaves.
Industrial boiler systems are usually welded together with thick steel plates, resulting in extremely high pressures.
It has to be very strong to cope with high pressures, because if it can't do that, it will produce a power close to that of an explosive bomb!
The role of the boiler is to produce hot water or steam.
Hot water boilers heat water for domestic or commercial heating and hot water supply purposes.
Steam boilers produce steam to power turbines to generate electricity and a variety of other industrial heating applications.
To visualize the effect of using a boiler to produce steam, imagine steam driving a turbine. As steam passes through the turbine's blades, this force causes the blades to turn and accelerate the turbine.
Steam contains a huge amount of energy, so it makes the turbines very efficient, relying on the fuel used to boil water, it is also very energy efficient.
What are the different types of boilers?
There are different types of boilers, a variety of different applications.
We'll cover several different types, including how each method generates heat, so you can get familiar with them and be able to identify them correctly.
1. Fire tube boiler
The typical composition of a fire-tube boiler is: furnace, water tank, chimney
There are pipes through the water tank that carry heat from the furnace, the heat from the chimney exhaust and the heating effect produced by the gas, so the pressure will not continue to rise to the expected level.
So, the fuel is burned inside the furnace. These tubes transfer the heat of the furnace through the water in the tank. Once it is heated, the resulting steam moves downstream.
Fire tube boilers tend to be the cheapest type of boiler because they have a fairly simple structure, but are usually limited for low to medium pressure applications.
2. Water tube boiler
Now that we've talked about fire-tube boilers, let's take a look at water-tube boilers.
Its design is very similar to that of a fire tube boiler, but instead of heating the fire pipe with a stove to heat the water in the water tank, the stove is used to heat the water pipe inside the furnace.
Similarly, the fuel burns in the furnace, causing the water pipe inside the furnace to heat up. Similarly, when water is boiled, steam is generated and flown down.
Water-tube boilers are more thermally efficient than fire-tube boilers, but they are more complex to build, and the quality of the water can be a limiting factor.
Water may need to be filtered to run most efficiently.
Which fuel is used in the boiler?
Combustion is the process of burning a fuel source. To produce a reaction, there must be a fuel source, heat, and oxidizer.
Boilers can be designed to burn a specific fuel, using any number of different technologies, but the main component to consider here is the heat source, or fuel.
Fuel is one of the most important factors in the boiler, what is burned inside the boiler to produce heat.
There are many different resources that can be used.
Coal is the standard fuel source. In industrial boiler applications, coal is often ground into fine powder because it burns more thoroughly than conventional block coal.
Electricity can act as a heat source, heating coils or electrode units through resistors. Electricity is usually only used for small commercial or domestic use.
Electrode type applications require very high water quality and conductivity in order to work efficiently.
Maintenance is also key for electrode type applications, as insulators need to be cleaned to prevent arcing between the electrodes.
Gas boilers use propane or natural gas, while oil-fired boilers use gasoline or petroleum-based fluids.
Industrial boiler application examples
Boilers have many different uses.
They are used in the food industry. Food products need to be heated or cooked during processing at all stages of production. One of the fun uses of the boiler is to brew beer!
During the beer brewing process, the malt needs to be ground and mixed with water, a process known as mashing. This "malt syrup" is then heated for several hours with steam, and yeast is then added to trigger fermentation.
summary
Let's review some of the things we learned in this article.
Boiler is an extremely versatile and important engineering equipment, widely used in life production, industry and commerce.
To generate heat, we need a fuel source. Reactions with fuel sources, heat, and oxidants make the reaction occur. This keeps the heat source running.
By heating the water pipe and heating the water tank with a fire pipe, the steam is generated at extremely high pressure, producing a huge amount of energy!