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24 March, 2014 REPORT ON 30 MW CFBC BOILER START UP LOAD RAISING AT M/S ACB (INDIA) LIMITED, VILLAGE CHAKABURA, KORBA

A DISTRICT, CHHATTISHGARH

BY K.K.PARTHIBAN, B.TECH (I.I.T M), M.E - THERMAL POWER ENGINEERING VENUS ENERGY AUDIT SYSTEM, 181, SOMASUNDARAM LAYOUT, TEACHERS COLONY, UDUMALAI ROAD, POLLACHI, TAMILNADU 642001

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24 March, 2014 REPORT ON 135 TPH CFBC BOILER START UP STEAM GENERATION PROBLEM By Venus Energy Audit System The visit was made to diagnose the problem of boiler steam generation in the newly commissioned 135 TPH Chinese make CFBC boiler. The visit was made on night of 20th March 2014. The boiler was shut on the previous day for attending a tube failure in pressure parts. Hence at the early hours of 21st March 2014, the furnace and loop seal were inspected. Discussions were held with the operating team on the modifications required at the loop seal. The modifications were finalised the next day morning. Accordingly the loop seal air nozzles were modified. The boiler was fired in the evening hours. At around 12.30 midnight the boiler operation was stabilised for 12 MW power generation. On 22nd March 2014 morning, the boiler generation was taken to 24 MW. Then the limitation of ID fan was encountered. The boiler II pass oxygen profile revealed that there is considerable air ingress. This prevented the further load rise. The boiler was stopped at around 1.00 PM following a grid change work in the existing plant. It was informed that the boiler would be cooled & the sealing work would be completed first so that plant could be run at full load at the next light up. The detailed report is as under. PART I - MODIFICATIONS and STUDY CARRIED OUT BEFORE LIGHT UP- See annexure 1 The following are the modifications carried out in the boiler before this light up. Loop seal air nozzle modification Two number loop seals are provided at this unit. The loop seal is to be provided with two types of air buttons as per OEM drawing. All air buttons were found to be identical. The buttons at down leg are generally with less number of holes or less hole diameter. The holes diameters were found to be varying from 2.5 to 3.5 in the spare nozzle. The number of holes in the nozzles was 12 in all air nozzles. Down legs needed only 3 numbers of holes are per calculations for nozzle drop of 250 mmWC. 34 nozzles in downleg area were altered. The holes were plugged. The remaining 40 nozzles were left as it is. See photo 1 to 4. The DP drop calculation is attached for the loop seal nozzle DP. This corresponds to MCR capacity of loop seal. The capacity of transfer can be adjusted with loop seal blower rpm / by dumping part of the air to PA duct. No partition / no valve / no flowmeter for loop seal windbox Following are the lacuna in the design of the loop seal system. There is no partition plate provided between the down leg and return leg of the loop seal.

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The air line sizes for the loop seal wind box are of same size. There is no valve for differentiating the air flow between the downleg and riser leg. This type of design is seen in some units. Since the fuel is of high ash coal, this may be OK. There is no flowmeter individually for each loop seal. However there is a common flowmeter for the total flow to loop seal.

Arrangement to dump to PA duct The air requirement for loop seal is 1428 m3/h. The loop seal blower is selected for 2340 m3/h. 50% margin has been considered in the selection. It may be required to dump the extra air during start up / during regular operation to reduce the loop seal transfer capacity. Since the pressure drop is very less at the loop seal, even PA air may be sufficient unless & until the ash percentage goes up. Venturi meter calibration range The venturi meter calibration range was found to be 1048 m3/h. This is wrong. Since the blower capacity is 2340 m3/h the range has to be this value. The meter DP was seen to be 100 mmWC for 1048 m3/h. The transmitter was recalibrated for a higher range of 600 mmWC which would correspond to 2567 m3/h, with same K value. Later this was found to be very much helpful during operation. Fuel spreader air / feeder seal air / chute pushing air Cold PA is taken and given for sealing the feeder, for fuel spreading and for pushing air along the chute. The feeder sealing air line was 200 nb. At the feeder inlet end, this is 100 nb. This is too big for sealing purpose. A 50 mm orifice plate was introduced in the flange at the feeder inlet. The chute pushing air is an 80 nb line. The fuel spreader is a 100 nb. The fuel spreader valve is already converted to manually operated type. Air density for SA & PA The molecular weight of air at mean sea level is 28.5 with 60% relative humidity. The density is thus 1.278 kg/Nm3. At 45 deg C and with elevation correction factor this is 1.065 kg/m3. The air density at 165 deg C is 0.7735 kg/m3. The density used for flowmeter calculations is seen to be wrong. No change was done on this. However the conversion from m3/h to kg/h was changed as per the density calculated and provided by undersigned. SA & PA thus show lesser TPH now. Bed material feeding arrangement Bed material feeding system was not considered in this project. During start up, the bed is started with a height of 400 mm. Once the bed is heated up and coal feeding is commenced, the bed height has to be gradually increased to 800 mmWC for load carrying purpose. It was decided to manually charge the makeup material through the fuel feeder. A small feed hopper with a gate was immediately arranged.

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Start up bed material required is like an AFBC boiler which size range from 0.85 to 2.35 mm. However the makeup material that is required for CFBC is 100% less than 600 microns. Since the bed material available was only AFBC material, the same material was used in the start up. It is advised to procure a long rotary screen with two sections of different mesh openings. The first section has to be of 0.85 mm opening. This will be makeup material for CFBC. The second section should have 3 mm opening. The material passing this screen will be the start-up material. The rejects will not be useful to the boiler. Cold fluidisation The bed was prepared with 350 mm bed height. The cold fluidisation was checked at different air PA flow. The onset of fluidisation was like two flowers, such in the line of PA duct inlets to windbox. As the flow was increased the fluidisation was found to be good. The coal spreader damper was set full open to check if it was affecting the fluidisation or not. There was no problem seen. The cold fluidisation was found to be good at total PA flow of 80000 m3/h. Fluidisation at loop seal The loop seal fluidisation should be checked with minus 600 micron particles. Since the material was not available, only minus 3 mm particles were used. The loop seal blower was switched on and checked. The relative air jet was felt at the nozzles. The downleg air nozzles just aerated the material. The return leg air nozzles could transfer some material. It was advised to empty the material to the furnace. This did not happen due to 650 mm high wall on the return leg side. PART II LIGHT UP & LOAD CARRYING- See annexure 2 Start up After the light up and heating of the boiler metal, refractory and water, the steam pressure came up to 10 to 15 kg/cm2. The hot air generator could generate gas at 450 deg C with about 60000 m3/h PA flow. When some of the thermocouples started reading 350 deg C, coal sprinkling was done. The bed temperatures could stabilise at 850 900 deg C with left out bed height of 350 mmWC. The bed material feeding was commenced. The PA flow was maintained at 58000 m3/h and SA flow was maintained at 13750 m3/h. The airbox pressure was increased up to 557 mmWC by addition of bed material through the coal feeder. SA was initiated only at the bottom level & in order to bring stack CO under visible range. The oxygen was maintained at 16% during oil firing. It gradually came down to 4-6% by raising the coal feeding. PA flow was never reduced below 55000 m3/h. The bed temperatures stabilised with 850-870 deg C. The loop seal blower had to be kept running to ensure the transfer of material takes place. As the loop seal air flow of 2500 m3/ h was found to maintain a return loop temperature of 750 deg C, it was left such. The flow was not reduced. The steam temperature could be achieved to 500 deg C after raising SA and after raising the firing

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rate. With this start up generation was 12 MW. The screen shot just prior to rolling is attached in annexure 2. Screen shots for 13 MW & 17.7 MW are attached in annexure 2. Air flow guidelines The air flow requirement was calculated for the design coal of 2050 kcal/kg and a standard D grade coal of 3800 Kcal/kg. The PA / SA split was considered as 60:40 since this coal is high ash coal. The PA flow meters are located in hot air duct. The SA flowmeters are located at the cold air ducts. The air flow figures were given for full load. For part load, the air flow can be taken as proportional. However minor variations are expected due to low fluidisation velocities at part load & the particle size distribution of coal.

Load raising On 22nd morning, the load was increased from 13 MW to 24 MW gradually in one hour. The bed material inventory inside the furnace was fairly OK in the previous 6 hours of operation. This seemed possible because of the dosing of material. All SA dampers at furnace end were 100% open. Both SA fans were running. The SA flow was raised to 60000 m3/h. SA header pressures were at 485 mmWC. The PA was increased to 100000 m3/h. The O2 was showing 5.38% and Stack CO was showing 33.6 ppm. There had been swings of CO to 500 ppm which is full range of CO sensor.

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The upper furnace inventory was up to 70 mmWC. All the temperatures across the furnace, loop seal and cyclone inlet was at 850 875 deg C. The screen shots can be seen in annexure 2. The furnace pressure was going positive since the ID fan dampers were at 100% open condition. The ID fan A discharge damper was partly closed condition. See photo 1. This was manually opened. It gave some relief on the load rising. The ID fan 2 suction damper is not full open. See photo 2. This is due to lever arm being not set at 45 deg to horizontal in closed / open condition. This needs to be corrected. Twice during the load raising, one of SA fans got tripped. It did not affect the furnace temperatures since the bed inventory was reasonable. The operators felt the difference between this load raising and the previous load raisings. The wind box pressure was at 812 mmWC. The boiler operation was stable. The bed temperatures were in the range of 870 -900 deg C. Cross checking the oxygen and CO levels in the II pass The oxygen and CO levels were checked by Kane plus portable flue gas analyser, UK. The O2 levels and CO levels indicate alarming levels of air ingress. The table below shows the various readings taken when the load was at 24 MW. See the readings in photos 3- 9.

Looking at the leakage levels and the limitation by ID fans it seemed worth rectifying the air ingress defects first. Otherwise the load test of the boiler would become pending. The boiler had to be slumped after 3 hours of operation due to grid change work in the adjacent power plant. As the boiler was to be shut for attending the air ingress, the boiler was cooled. PART III WHAT WENT WRONG IN ALL PREVIOUS START UPS & LOAD RAISING? see annexure 3 1. The start up procedure was OK. The start up this time went smooth. The engineers seemed to

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have got experienced in light up and control of the fans, though the ID fan power cylinder was slightly sluggish. 2. The point missed by the engineer was the inadequate bed material support required for load carrying. The entire furnace height is the combustor. The bed material is required for load raising. Simply raising the primary air left practically less material inside the furnace. For 15-17 MW itself, the PA required for 90% load was given. See the screen shot in annexure 3 taken earlier. The bed was being cooled by the PA. Since the coal started burning in suspension without the supporting igniting bed material, the flue gas was practically igniting the incoming coal. Thus the boiler was working more like a burner. Hence small reduction of coal feed itself started putting off the fire. The oxygen indicated in this screen shot can be due to coal feed reduction at this point. 3. CFBC needs two types of bed material. Start up bed material is similar to AFBC requirement. For load carrying the finer dust minus 600 micron particles are required. There should be a bunker with this size material so that the load carrying can be taken faster. The upper furnace inventory should be 75-80 mmWC. Lower bed inventory will lead to poor combustion as well. There are some additional requirements for CFBC bed ash chemistry. See the recommendations in photo 13. 4. The air buttons at loop seal were of same type. This would prevent the seal formation. This should have delayed / prevented the dust retention in the furnace. Hence load raising was being delayed. CONCLUSION The start up was smooth. Engineers who were present in start up and load raising, had understood what was wrong in all the previous attempts. The loop seal defect could not have been resolved by them. PART IV -LIST OF RECOMMENDATIONS- See annexure 4 As it was planned to have a shut and attend to the leakages, this list of recommendations is put forth for consideration of plant head. 1. The inspection door frame and door plate thickness shall be increased to 12 mm in all inspection doors in the lower & upper furnace and at cyclone inlets. Additional number of fasteners shall be added. See photo 1 & 2 showing leakages from inspection doors. Loss of fines from furnace doors delay the rated steam generation during start up. 2. Every time when the inspection doors are sealed, insulating castable or ceramic wool / mineral wool shall be filled between the cast blocks and the door plates. Plastering by POP is preferred before the door flange is sealed. 3. A rotary screen shall be procured for making the start up bed material and start up bed material. See photo 3 with screen specification. Such screens are dealt by construction material dealers or by agro machinery traders. 4. The bed material filling arrangement at feeder shall be through a rotary air lock feeder. Bunker

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may not be necessary as the addition of makeup material is required only for start up. 5. The waterwall top header area shall be sealed well. There should have been castable filling between the front and rear headers. See photo 4 showing the location. See photo 4 & 5 showing the location and the ash leakage. SS wire mesh shall be laid over the headers to support the further insulation and plastering. 25 mm thick ceramic blanket shall be laid over the wire mesh. A layer of 125 m thick mineral shall be laid. Chicken wire mesh of two layers is advised for the support of plaster of paris (POP). The POP shall be applied for a thickness of 15 mm. Two layers of hessian clothe shall be wrapped and finished with two coats of black bitumen paint (shalikote paint). See photo 6 giving the details. Photo 7 shows the POP finish typically carried out at another plant. 6. The headers in the second pass are now seen to allow air ingress. See photo 8 & 9. Photo 10 shows the arrangement suggested by the OEM. This is not foolproof. The headers shall be provided with seal box. Before welding the seal box to the structural frame, mineral wool application shall be complete as per the service temperatures. The headers to be covered include the HT superheater headers, LT superheater headers, Economiser headers. The stub openings, header end cap openings shall be covered as per the illustration in photo 11. Photo 12 shows the seal box arrangement in another Chinese boiler. 7. The ESP inlet gas sampling point shall be kept at an accessible location. This will be required to check that the sealing is completed. There should be very minimum oxygen rise across the APH. In case it increases, we can conclude that the APH tubes have given way. 8. The ID fan 2 damper operating lever shall be corrected for 100% open and close position. See photo 13. 9. The cast iron door frames in 2nd pass shall be seal welded to casing to avoid air ingress. See photo 14 & 15. 10. Buckstay corner links are not erected as per OEM drawings. This can result in straining the boiler. See photo 16 to 18. Photo 19 shows the OEM drawing in which the corner link is set at 90 deg to buckstay beam. Photo 20 shows the corner link plate arrangement by BHEL. The arrangement is for cold beams. 11. APH casing shall be made leak proof. It is to be sealed with structure with expansion joint at one end and without expansion joint at another end. This shall be ensured. Flame test shall be carried out. 12. The kick off zone refractory design at this plant is seen to be wrong. Photo 21 shows the arrangement. The excess refractory beyond the fin line is not to be there. It shall be corrected to avoid erosion failure. See photo 22 showing the polishing of the waterwall. Photo 23 shows the details of drawing at kick off zone by three different boiler makers. See photo 24 showing the refractory tipping to be done in annexure 3. 13. The fin weld beads and tube butt weld beads in the waterwall panels shall be removed by grinding. This is to avoid erosion failures. See photo 25 to 27 showing the erosion experienced at another plant due to improper finishing of tube & fin butt welds. The waterwall panel at this plant seems to be at 5 m above the refractory. The welds are not proper. They can cause erosion. See photo 28 showing the reasoning for localised erosion failures. The failures are always close to tube & fin joint only. See the photos 29 to 33 showing the erection notes by various boiler makers. The boiler maker here did not stress on this point in the construction drawings.

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14. II pass insulation shall be removed. See photo 34 showing the plain casing at another plant. Insulation at this plant was done due to inadequate steam temperature during commissioning. The problem is now resolved by proper operation parameters. Air ingress removal will resolve this further. Paint the casing with heat resistant aluminium paint to reduce the heat loss. The low emissivity of aluminium paint will help in reducing the heat losses. The emissivity of aluminium is 0.13 and steel is 0.9.

K.K.Parthiban

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ANNEXURE 1 MODIFICATIONS BEFORE LIGHT UP

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34 no 41no

41no 34no

Photo 1 & 2 : The above is the nozzle arrangements at loop seal. In down leg area the air nozzles ( 34 nos) should have been with less number of holes. In the return leg side the no of holes should be more as the tranfer of the material from loop seal is done here. Since there is no separate air line valves, the nozzle holes are to be selected with proper calculation.

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Photo 3 : The photo shows the loop seal air nozzle inside the bed. The hole diameter is seen to be around 3 mm. The drilling is not good. Higher diameter hole leads to more seepage. The number of holes are 12 in all air nozzles. It was advised to have only 3 number holes in the nozzles in the down leg area. This is required as otherwise the loop seal will not be developed.

Photo 4 : The above photo shows that there is no partition or valves or flowmeter in the loop seal compartments. This would work since the coal ash is high in this boiler.

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Photo 5 : The Seal air duct sizing to feeder is seen to be high. The valve is open / close. Hence it would develop more flow. Since the pushing air in the chute is of 80 nb size, the flow can be reduced here. It is advised to provide a 50 mm orifice plate in all feeder pressurising lines.

Photo 6 : The cold fluidisation was checked at main furnace. The fluidisation started as two flowers at the centre. A flow of 40000 m3/h in each PA line could achieve the vigorous & uniform fluidisaiton. With burner on the air temperature would rise to 450 deg C. A flow of 35000 m3/h in each PA line is more than sufficient for coal initiation. The seal air/ push air / spreader air were kept open. Spreader air was kept at 50% open position.

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Photo 7 : The above is the design check made for the revised nozzle configuration. The DP in both nozzle A & B would be more or less same. The jet velocity of 45 m/s is OK. Higher velocity helps to prevent agglomerations. Since the ash may have high AFT, there should not be any problem with this nozzle.

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ANNEXURE 2 AFTER LIGHT UP

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Photo 1 : The over travel of damper flaps was seen in ID fan 1. The damper was taken on manual mode and the lever angle was corrected to 45 deg. This had helped a little to improve the load.

Photo 2 : The ID fan 2 suction damper had not opened to 100%. The link plates are not at 45 deg. The linkage and the main lever need to be corrected.

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Photo 3 & 4 : The above are the Kane portable gas analyser readings taken on 22 March at a load of 23 MW. The location is below the secondary APH on the right side of the boiler.

Photo 5: The above are the gas analyser readings on the left side of the boiler below the SAPH.

Photo 6 & 7 : The above are the portable gas anlasyer readings at the same load as above. The location is below the economiser on the right side of the boiler. The actual field O2 reading was at 5% at this time.

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Photo 8 & 9 : The above are the Kane portable gas analyser readings taken on 22 March at a load of 23-24 MW. The location is below the economiser on the left side of the boiler.

Photo 10 : The above are the Kane portable gas analyser readings taken on 22 March at a load of 23 MW. The location is in the APH to ESP gas outlet duct.

Photo 11 : The regular sieve analysis of +90 microns and +75 microns would help to know if there is any problem with loop seal.

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Photo 12: The above are the details by Thermax. The bulk density of bed material is also important. All the make up material should be less than 500 microns.

Photo 13: The above are the guidelines for maintaining the bed ash chemical and physical properties.

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DCS SCREEN SHOTS TAKEN DURING LIGHT UP & LOAD RAISING ON 22ND 23RD MARCH 2014

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ANNEXURE 3 PREVIOUS START UP SCREEN SHOT

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ANNEXURE 4- RECOMMENDATIONS

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Photo 1 & 2: Photos show the leakages from inspection doors in the furnace bottom and at top.

0.85mm screen 3mm screen

Photo 3: The photo shows the arrangement of a rotary screen with two meshes to generate the start up material as well as make up material. Minus 0.85 mm shall be used for make up. Material between 0.85 mm and 3 mm shall be used as start up material.

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Photo 4: The above drawing shows the anadquate sealing arrangement between the front wall top header and the rear waterwall top header.

Photo 5: The above photo shows the ash leakage at boiler roof. The leakages can be arrested by plaster of paris mastic finish.

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Photo 6: The sketch above is our recommendations for the area between front & rear waterwall outlet headers.

Photo 7: The above photo shows the details of sealing beteen the headers and the entire roof in a AFBC boiler which had a complaint of ash nuisance to a nearby school. This sealing is by POP.

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Photo 8 & 9: The above photographs of samples of the leakages around the header. The insulation is also very poor. It is advised to carry out proper insulation and finish with 100% sealing arrangement with a sealbox.

Photo 10: The above are the details around the header. It has already been suggested by boiler maker to provide asbestos cement. Exterior was to be covered with GI wire meash and to be coated with seal coating. The sealing was not done as per the notes here.

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Photo 11: The above sketches show the seal box recommendations by us. There will be no air ingress in this arrangement.

Photo 12: The above photo shows the sealbox arrangement in another Chinese boiler. In this plant the seal box work is compromised.

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Levershouldbeset at45deg@close& openposition

Levershouldbeset at45deg@close& openposition

Photo 13: The photo above shows the ID fan 2 multilouver damper linkage arrangement. The damper is not full open. The main link to power cylinder is at not 45 deg in close position / open position. This must be corrected first.
Sealweld here

Packwithwoolandplaster withPOP

Photo 14 & 15: The above are the inspection doors arrangement in II pass. These are with sinlge fastener. The door frame is thicker bit the base plate is 6 thick. There is seal problem between tehe frame and casing. It is advised to seal weld the frame with the casing plate. Inside the doors proper stuffing is advised. It can be mineral wool blankets with POP.

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Photo 16 to 18: The buckstays are not erected as per drawing. The drawing itself does not consider differential thermal expansion between the buckstay and the waterwall.

Photo 19 & 20: The photo @ left shows the corner linkage arrangement. This arrangement is OK when the buckstays are covered with insulation so that they also get heated to boiler metal temperature. Photo at right shows the corner link arrangement for cold beam arrangement. The preset is half the thermal expansion of the waterwall panel. Without thermal expansion arrangement waterwall will have distortions.

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Redlineshowsthe profilerequired.

Photo 21 & 22: Photo at left shows the OEM drawing. This is wrong. There should not be any refractory outside the red lines. Photo at right shows the erosion of excess refractory constructed at kick off zone. As the projecting refractory acts a brake for falling material, the tubes above get polished / eroded.

Photo 23: The above are the details of other boiler makers from India and china. If there is excess refractory the waterwall at kick off zone erodes faster. The accuracy of construction is very important. These manufacturers must have had a direct experince of erosion or the details must have been part of technology transferred from their collaborators.

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Photo 24: Sketch above shows the tipping of refractory in a sample manner.

Photo 25 to 27: The different erosion damages experienced in the CFBC boiler due to improper finishing of fin to fin joint, tube to tube butt joints.

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Photo 28: The above sketches show the erosion patterns / mechanisms in the tube failures at field butt-weld / shop butt weld.

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Photo 29: The erection note says that the furnace side welds between panels are to be flush ground smooth. This is because any projection leads to drifting of the bed material towards the fin base causing thinning down of tube. Both the notes are from the OEM drawing.

Photo 30: These drawings are taken from the pressure part drawings of a different boiler supplier. We can see that the fin joints can have a negative offset of 1.6 mm at the maximum. Positive offset is not allowed. Similarly tubes to tube joint can be with 1 mm offset. The bottom tube can go inside but not outside. The fin to fin joint is to be made from combustor side.

Photo 31: The erection note says that the inside welds between panels are to be flush ground smooth. This note is from a different boiler maker.

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Photo 32: The photo shows the slits made at factory for the purpose of tube matching at field joint. The weld has to be full penetration weld. The second side is also to be seal welded. It may be necessary to remove the insulation and seal from second side as well.

Photo 33: The erection note no 5 says that the inside welds between panels are to be flush ground smooth. Any projection leads to drifting of the bed material towards the fin base causing thinning down of tube.

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Photo 34: The photo shows the II pass casing design generally done by Chinese. There has to be no insulation.

Photo 35: It is seen that the II pass is being insulated due to the complaint that the steam temperature was not coming up for turbine rolling. This was not a problem when the TG was rolled this time. Air ingress and low combustion temperature has created this problem. Insulation shall be removed.

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END OF THE REPORT

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