Sonic soot blowers
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Sonic soot blowers offer a cost-effective and non-destructive means of preventing
The sonic soot blower can in some ways be compared to a musical
The sonic soot blower operates in the same manner, the ‘base tone’ being produced by passing
Construction
Sonic soot blowers are normally constructed from fabricated, 316 grade
Performance
Sonic soot blowers create a rapid series of very powerful sound induced pressure fluctuations which when transmitted into the ash or particulate, cause them to de-bond from other particles and from the heat transfer surface to which they are bonded and so carried away in the gas stream. This prevents the ash from building up and sintering onto the boiler tubes thus significantly reducing thermal efficiency. This is in contrast to the operating principles of steam soot blowers which are usually only employed at most once every eight hours by which time the ash has built up and baked hard onto the heat transfer surfaces. The steam soot blower then tries to blast away his hard deposit, usually only from the leading edge of the steam tubes.
Advantages
Sonic soot blowers are a proven alternative to conventional steam soot blowers in power generation plants which burn a range of fossil fuels and other waste fuels including biofuels. Depending on the application and boiler plant design, sonic soot blowers usually totally replace existing high maintenance steam soot blowers whether of the retractable or rotary type. In a few cases, sonic soot blowers can be used to supplement steam soot blowers. Sonic soot blower cleaning technologies can be applied in superheaters, generating sections, economizers, and airheaters as well as downstream equipment such as electrostatic precipitators, baghouse filters and fans.
The main advantages of sonic soot blowers over steam soot blowers are:-
- Elimination of opacity spikes due to more regular, more efficient cleaning
- No structural damage to tube bundles or boiler structure
- Elimination of tube corrosion and erosion problems
- 360° cleaning of all tube surfaces – not harsh leading edge tube cleaning as with steam soot blowers
- Prevention of ash build up and sintering on steam tubes due to sonic soot blowers regular operation
- Extremely low maintenance or operational costs
- Eco-friendly – helps to combat global global warming