06-10-2014, 03:32 PM
Abstracts: Boiler is one of the most important components for any power generation system. Performance of a boiler, like efficiency and evaporation ratio directly affects the overall performance of the electricity generation process and it reduces with time, due to poor combustion, heat transfer fouling and poor operation and maintenance. The easiest and most cost effective method is to estimate the efficiency value on five broad elements: Boiler stack temperature, Heat content of fuel, Fuel specificatio, Excess air levels & Ambient air temperature and relative humidity. Conducting a thorough evaluation of boiler equipment requires a review of boiler type, feature and benefit comparison, maintenance requirements and fuel usage requirements. These evaluation criteria, a key factor is fuel usage or boiler efficiency. Boiler efficiency, in the simplest terms, represents the difference between energy input and energy output. A typical boiler will consume many times the initial capital expense in fuel usage annually. Consequently, a difference of just a few percentage points in boiler efficiency between units will result in substantial fuel savings. The efficiency data used for comparison between boilers must be based on proven methods to produce an accurate comparison of fuel usage. Over the years, however, efficiency has been represented in confusing terms or in ways where the efficiency value did not accurately represent proven fuel usage values. Sometimes, the representation of “boiler efficiency” does not truly represent the comparison of energy input and energy output of the equipment. The current study puts forward an effective methodology for the performance evaluation of a boiler based on work done by some of the experts in the field of thermal/energy studies and enlists some of the factors that affect the performance of the boiler.