To develop a Predictive Tool for Boiler Tube Failure

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background
The thermal power plants all over the world frequently face the problem of
Boiler Tube Leakages (BTL). These leakages lead to a great loss of electricity due to
outage period and hence huge financial loss. This outage period depend on type of
failure and the location of failure. If the location of failure is remote, then it becomes
quite difficult to find the spot of failure and then to repair the tube. This problem of
boiler tube leakage is more critical when the power plants are running on full load. It
becomes one of the critical reasons among numerous reasons of the energy crisis.
Utilities have been fighting boiler tube failure since long. The tube failure cost
Millions of Rupees lost, as it causes loss in generation.
Nashik Thermal Power Station, Eklahare, Nashik, Maharashtra, India is
suffering from BTL since long. Boiler tube failures continue to be the leading cause
of forced outages in fossil-fuel fired boilers. To get the boiler back on line and reduce
or eliminate future forced outages due to tube failure, it is extremely important to
determine, diagnose and rectify the cause. There are various causes for boiler tubes
failure. Few of them are erosion, erosion-corrosion, stress corrosion, water corrosion,
weld attachment failure, dissimilar metal joint failure, overheating, fretting, air
ingress, weld joint porosity, fatigue wear, wear by abrasion etc. In many cases failures
are caused repeatedly because tools are not available to analyze the data collected. An
integrated program is required that would not only provide an easy way to track and
document tube failures, but would also provide tools for data and root cause analysis.
Hence it is necessary to study the different causes of failure and then try to
minimize the failures. Prediction of failure is also necessary because it will lead to
reduction in outage period and thus the financial losses. A predictive tool is required,
with the main objectives of using a package to:
• Improve availability
• Reduce forced outage costs
• Reduce cost to repair
• Extend component life
• Perform root cause analysis
• Determine commonalities across the boiler fleet

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 To develop a Predictive Tool for Boiler Tube Failure

• Plan for future outages

1.2 Status of Pulverized Coal Fired Boiler tube failure in India.
1.2.1 Cause wise Trend of Failures
The failure data obtained from the power plant under study is given bellow.
The boiler tube leakages are classified as per the causes and zones in Table 1.1 and
1.2. The cause wise failure in units 1 to 5 for the years from 2001-02 to 2008-09 is
given in the following Table 1.1. Figure 1.1 shows that flue gas erosion and
overheating are major contributors to the boiler tube failures. Study of the above
failure data of power plant cause wise can shows that major problem in the power
plant is erosion followed by the overheating and HP Joint failure. In most of power
plants failure due to corrosion is less, as the BHEL recommended water chemistry is
maintained. Few dissimilar metal joints and HP joint failure do occur but the major
cause is workmanship rather than operational parameters. Different boiler tube
failures and their causes are discussed in details in subsequent chapters. As compared
to other failures erosion and overheating contribute about 80% of total failure. Flue
gas erosion contributes around 30% of total failure of a 210 MW power plant.
Overheating includes the short-term overheating, high temperature creep, dissimilar
metal weld failure, vibration fatigue, and thermal fatigue. Erosion itself includes fly
ash erosion, falling slag erosion, soot blower erosion and coal particle erosion.
However field investigation shows that there is no soot blower except in WW and
hence less erosion due to falling slags. So the focus of the study is on the fly ash
erosion and coal particle erosions.
Table 1.1 Year wise Trend of Failure
2003-04

2004-05

2006-07

2007-08

2008-09
2005-06
2002-03
2001-02

Sr Year
Total

No. Causes

1 Erosion 13 12 10 11 11 5 6 5 73
2 Stress Corrosion 2 4 1 0 0 0 0 0 7
3 Water Corrosion 0 1 2 0 0 0 0 0 3
4 Diss. Joint. 4 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 7
5 Overheating 7 11 9 9 3 5 8 7 59
6 HP Joint. Failure 6 3 2 4 0 1 1 1 21
7 Freeting 2 1 2 0 0 0 0 1 6
8 Air Ingress 0 1 2 0 1 1 0 0 5
Total 35 38 31 45 19 12 15 14 181

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 To develop a Predictive Tool for Boiler Tube Failure

Study of the above cause wise failure data of power plant show that major failures are
Table 1.2. Zone wise and Cause wise Failure Data

Total (Cause
Economizer
Platen WW
Wall(WW)
Zones
Sr. No.

Water

LTSH

wise)
PSH

RH
Cause

1 FG Erosion 8 0 0 8 5 10 31
2 Soot Blower Erosion 10 0 0 0 0 0 10
3 Stress Corrosion 2 0 0 3 1 0 6
4 Water Corrosion 1 6 0 0 0 0 7
5 Diss. Metal Joint Failure 0 0 1 6 0 0 7
6 Weld Attachment Failure 3 0 0 1 1 2 7
7 Weld Joint, Porosity 0 0 0 0 3 9 12
8 Overheating 5 1 2 6 1 0 15
9 HP Jt. Failure 0 0 0 0 1 1 2
10 Fretting 0 0 0 1 1 0 2
11 Air Ingress 7 0 0 0 0 0 7
Total(Zone wise) 36 7 3 25 13 22 106
due to fly-ash erosion and Overheating.
1.1.2 Zone wise Trend of Failures
Zone wise trend of failure shows that occurrence of boiler tube failure is most
prominent in Water wall, Re-heater, Super-heater and economizer zones. Flue gas
erosion, overheating and weld joint failure are the major factors causing the boiler
tube leakages. Overheating failure is due to flow starvation and water chemistry. Its
occurrence is less as compared to erosion failure. In this project the main focus of
study is on flue gas erosion as it is one of the prominent causes of failure.
Cost of boiler tube failures
The cost of boiler tube failures is comprised of three main components; the cost of
the repair, the cost of startup fuel to return unit to service, and the cost of lost production.
Repair costs are generally in the range Rs. 10000 to Rs. 100,00,000 depending on the
extent of damage and difficulty accessing the failure location. A rule of thumb for repairs
costs Rs. 150,000 per day out of service. Average loss of availability translates to
approximately 2.6 days out of service per leak, or average Rs. 12, 48, 000 repair cost per
boiler tube failure.

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 To develop a Predictive Tool for Boiler Tube Failure

1.3 Methods adopted in boiler tube failure detection [1]

Detection of steam leaks in boiler tubes is traditionally accomplished by sight,
sound and changes in condensate makeup water requirements. The Acoustic Steam
Leak Detection (ASLD) system, notifies plant operators of the occurrence and
location of boiler tube leaks before conventional methods can detect a problem, and
therefore helps minimize repair costs by reducing damage to adjoining tubes and by
reducing required downtime to find and repair the leak. The ASLD system consists of
a number of tuned microphones, which are strategically located within the steam
generator. The audio signal is filtered and amplified locally and transmitted to a
signal-conditioning unit where it is further filtered and enhanced. The noise generated
by the leak is differentiated from background noise by filtering out the low frequency
noise of combustion and gas flow and attenuating external noise. A 1-mm leak located
10 m from a microphone, not audible to the human ear, is easily detectable by the
ASLD system. But still the effectiveness over the period of time is questionable.
Some other methods used to detect boiler tube leak include the use of:
• Operation process performance deviations
• Thermal hydraulic performance calculation
• Use of an expert system
All these methods have their own advantages and disadvantages. They require
some hardware to be installed in the flue gas passage. This questions the suitability of
methods. Construction of power plants is complex. Tube length is approximately 90
to 100 km depending on the capacity of the plant. Tube bundles and loops are erected
very dense. If any boiler tube failure takes place, many times it is very difficult to
detect the location of failure. The locations are so remote that to reach to the spot,
many times it is required to cut few good tube bundles and remove them. This
generates new places prone to failure. All operation engineers wish to predict the
failure to reduce the outage period. Unfortunately no full-proof method, which will
predict the failure few hours before actual failure take place, exists. Most of operation
engineers get the alarm of failure after actual failure take place. This is known with
abrupt changes in operational parameters. Variations in operational parameters are
noted and further correlated with probability of failure. Many variations exist in the
boiler tube banks. Major causes of these variations include:

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 To develop a Predictive Tool for Boiler Tube Failure

• Slagging and fouling

• Modes of operation changes
• Changes in tube dimensions and tube materials throughout the tube bank
• Variations in tube quality and initial tube dimensions
• Fireside wastage rate variations due to change in gas velocity, gas
temperature, local heat flux, and soot-blower operation
• Temperature variations due to steam flow imbalance or non-uniform flue gas
temperature distributions across the boiler
• Temperature increases along the length of a given tube circuit due to
increasing steam temperature
• Variation in effective tube surface area inherent in the design and affected by
deposit build up
• Variations in creep strength of similar tube materials
• Variation in steam pressure along the length of a given tube circuit
• Systematic and stochastic variations in boiler operations
There is an increasing interest in BTF rate prediction. Few methods adopted
are monitoring the degradation rate, crack growth rate, mean-time-to-failure, or by
statistically tracking the BTF history and using the Weibull technique to predict future
failure. [2] Weibull parameters give some clue as to the type of failure (wear-in, wear-
out, end-of-life, random failures) and provide some indication of mixed mode
populations so that analysis can isolate different causes of failure. However, boiler
failure prediction is difficult mission to perform due to following reasons:
(i) There are many BTF mechanisms. It is not possible to have all past data for
all failures. Hence, in these cases, there may not be enough data to perform a
meaningful prediction.
(ii) It is not hard and fast that boiler tube failure will occur only by the known
failure mechanism. Sometimes the failure may lead to addition of new failure
mechanism to the list. This can mislead the prediction. The four major failure
mechanisms—creep, fatigue, corrosion, and erosion—each has its own characteristics.
A simple degradation or wear-out assumption is an oversimplification.
(iii) If the purpose of the BTF prediction is business planning, then the results
may be marginal. If the purpose of the prediction is preventive maintenance, not only
are the results not accurate, but the repair and replacement cannot be performed due to
unknown failure locations.

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 To develop a Predictive Tool for Boiler Tube Failure

(iv) Routine boiler inspections are performed in the coal-fired power plant for
the majority of utilities. Current practices in boiler inspection focus on boiler tube
thickness reduction due to corrosion and erosion. When a tube thickness is below a
threshold number, the tube will be replaced locally. With few exceptions, cracking
discovered in boiler tubing will also result in tube replacement, as crack propagation
rates are difficult to predict accurately in boiler tubing. Crack propagation monitoring
is normally applicable to headers only. These maintenance practices substantially
reduce the BTF rates that make the statistical prediction too conservative. This leaves
creep as the only wear-out mechanism. Large amounts of design safety margins and
many operation variations also make the prediction a difficult task.

1.3.1 Methods used in NTPS to Detect the BTL[3]

Following methods are being practiced in the power plant under study, to
detect the boiler tube leakages
a) Fall in drum water level
In normal operating conditions the water level is maintained at the gauge
centre line (zero line). This line is continuously monitored. If there is a leak in the
boiler tubes the drum level falls down abruptly (limiting drum level fall -30 mm)
which gives the indication of BTL in the control room.
b) Rise in Furnace Pressure
The flue gas pressure within different zones of boiler is being monitored in the
control room. The flue gas pressure is maintained below atmospheric pressure by 2
induced fans. If steam leaks through the tubes, the flue gas pressure rises; this is
indicated in the control room giving possible indication of BTL in the zone. Also the
there is change in temperature of the flue gases in the leaking zone which provides the
location of BTL.
c) Rise in the Feed Water Flow Rate
Due to leak, there is a rise in the discharge of boiler feed pump which is also
one of the indication of possible boiler tube failure.
d) Audible Sound of Leaking Steam
A whistling sound is heard through the steam leaking tube. Site engineers
manually survey around the boiler and hear the whistling sound and detect the leak
zone. Correctness in this prediction depends on the experience and quality of
background noise.

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 To develop a Predictive Tool for Boiler Tube Failure

e) Hydraulic Test
The above methods only suspect the boiler tube leak, but the exact location of
the leaking tube cannot be detected. Hydraulic test is carried out to find the exact
location of the leak. To conduct hydraulic test it is required to shut down the boiler.
This is forced outage. The consequence is loss in power generation and monitory loss.
f) Dedicated Group
Considering the tremendous loss due Boiler Tube Failures, a dedicated group
of one or two engineers with supporting staff is deputed to look after the tube leakage
reduction programme only. Their responsibilities mainly include,
i) Tube thickness survey of various zones during every boiler outage
opportunity.
ii) Maintain record of these surveys as well as history of all tube leakage
instances.
iii) Supervision of H.P. welding joints.
iv) Laboratory testing of the failed sample and analysis of report to find the
cause of failure.
v) Take corrective action to avoid further leakage in the same coil or zone.

This group is trained and is utilized for this particular work only. This
dedicated group is expected to do following task seriously and sincerely to reduce the
boiler tube failure.
i) To carry out Cold Air Velocity Test (CAVT) & take corrective actions.
ii) Extensive boiler tube thickness survey during annual overhaul as well as
short shut downs.
iii) Documentation of the tube thickness survey carried out from time to time.
iv) Proper operation and maintenance of water wall soot blowers.
v) Identify sources of air ingress in the boiler and take corrective actions.
vi) Effective and continuous supervision of high pressure welding activity.
vii) Monitoring water chemistry.
viii) Quick analysis of the tube failure.
1.4 Limitations of methods used
The methods discussed above are very rarely used for prediction of failure.
Most of the methods use the failure data, gather the data and compile it for analysis.
Effectiveness of the method completely depends on how correctly data is collected,

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 To develop a Predictive Tool for Boiler Tube Failure

noted and analyzed. Skill of person involved, nature of failure, location of failure,
method of data collection, instruments used etc also affect the correctness.
Construction and location of pressure parts is very complex, tube length is so long and
if the tube leakage takes place at a remote place, inaccessible to the workforce, then
so called prediction remains unscientific. In most of the power plants in India, though
few software applications are used to monitor the system, prediction of boiler tube
failure, few hours before the failure is still not possible. The programs in utility
industry emphasize on repairs of failures as early as possible to reduce the forced
outage. They many times use arresters, screens, shields etc. These actions reduce the
failure at one place but shift it to other new places.
Hence the methods used are not at all effective as far as prediction of tube
failure is concerned.
1.5. Scope and Objective of Study
The causes of tube failure are broadly categorized as Erosion, Over-heating,
Internal corrosion, Fretting, Dissimilar Metal Welds failures, Air Ingress, Lack of
quality control, Operational Practices etc. The tube failure data shows that Boiler
Tube Leakages take place more prominently in Water Wall and Economizer Zone and
the causes are Erosion, Over Heating and HP Joint Failure. Hence it is decided to
emphasize on failure due to erosion and High Temperature.
a) Mechanism of Erosion Caused Leakage [1]:
Erosion is the progressive loss of original material from a solid surface due to
mechanical interaction between that surface and the impinging solid particles. Erosion
is caused by the impact, cutting action, or abrasive wear of small solid particles freely
immersed in the direction of fluid flow that frequently undercut portions of the
material they strike. Pulverized coal is fired in the furnace. No process assures 100 %
combustion of coal particles. The flue gases carry some part of un-burnt coal. The
coal also carries some ferrous and non-ferrous impurities. This un-burnt coal and
other particles move along with the flue gases through the flue passages with very
high velocity. When these particles are in the high temperature zone (water wall and
pre-heater zone) they are relatively soft and blunt but as they travel in the low
temperature zone (super-heater and economizer zone) they relatively become hard and
edges become sharp. These sharp particles get bombarded on the tubes and tube
surface get eroded. Due to erosion the thickness of tube reduces. Due to high-pressure

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 To develop a Predictive Tool for Boiler Tube Failure

water/steam flowing through the tubes leads to bulge on the tube and then it may leak.
While evaluating the relative erosion tendency and resistance of materials, a number
of factors are to be considered. The obvious factors are temperature, velocity of the
impacting particles, their size and shape, and the impacting or impinging angle.
b) Mechanism of High Temperature Caused Leakage[1]:
This type of leakage usually takes place in water wall and super heater region.
Water wall and super heater are subjected to very high temperature fumes (@12000 C
and 8000C). The feature common to all water tubes is that they are meant to operate
under conditions of the highest possible heat transfer. Heat is supplied to the outer
surfaces of the tubes by the flue gases and removed from the inner surfaces by the
water circulating around the boiler. Obviously, anything that interferes with the
cooling action of the flue gases will lead to overheating. Deposits of hard-water scale,
layers of corrosion product and de-laminations in the tube wall offer disastrous
effective thermal barriers. In many water-tube boilers, the conditions for circulation
are insignificant. Risers and down-comers are mixed up and there are regions of the
boiler where it is water starved. Water-tube boilers are also prone to ‘‘steam
blanketing’’, where a stable layer of steam forms between the water and the inner
surface of the tube. This layer of steam acts as an insulation from inner side of tube
leading to reduced heat transfer and thus the tube surface is warmed. As the tube
warms up the steam blanket tends to grow and the whole tube boils dry. Once this
happens, there is almost nothing to prevent the tube from heating up to the
temperature of the surrounding gases. Worse, if a large number of tubes boil dry, the
furnace gases will not be cooled by the risers and the temperature of the gas around
the dried-out tubes can in principle be as high as the inlet temperature of the flue
gases. This reduces the heat transfer and surface temperature is not maintained
properly. This leads creep failure. Secondly some part of tube surface is exposed to
high temperature and another is exposed to comparatively low temperature. This
uneven temperature distribution leads to thermal stresses and may lead to creeping
failure.
Objective of Study
1. Find the triggering factors that lead to Erosion and Over Heating of tube
surface.
2. Find why these triggering factors become more active in the Water Wall and
Economizer Zone and cause failure.

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 To develop a Predictive Tool for Boiler Tube Failure

3. To develop the predictive tool that will highlight the effect of triggering
factors.
4. To develop the tool to predict possibility of tube leakage and erosion time.
Plan of Research:
a) Collection of past tube failure data at NTPS and corresponding flue gas
velocity, temperature, impingement angle, fly ash size and population density.
b) Formulation of correlation to determine wear rate with reference to failure.
c) Validation of deduced relation
d) Formulation of CFD model for prediction of flue gas velocity and temperature
across various pressure components.
e) To develop predictive tool for boiler tube leakage.
f) Check the applicability of results to the real size plant.
1.6 Structure of Thesis
The thesis consists of eight chapters. First chapter of the thesis gives an
introduction to the objective of the research. This chapter discuss the status of
Pulverized Coal Fired Boiler tube failure in India, the incurred Cost of failures,
Methods adopted in prediction of failure, Limitations of methods used, the Need to
develop modified method to predict failure. The chapter defines the Scope and
Objective of Study.
The second chapter discuss various types of boiler tube failure, different
factors affecting boiler tube failure, results of the study of few failed tubes. The failed
tube study highlights erosion as main cause of failure. Hence this chapter also discuss
failure Mechanism of Fly Ash Erosion. Uncertain tube failure results in greater losses
hence the chapter also discuss need of Prediction of Wear. This chapter also includes
the literature review. Exhaustive literature review is done to understand the work done
by different authors in domain of my interest. An effort is made to highlight
importance of the work with this research work by finding the similarities,
differences, gaps etc.
The third chapter describes the 210 MW utility boiler under study. This
chapter highlights the performance data of the boiler under study. This also includes
the boiler data related to failure, different outages, combustion, coal, air supply, steam
generation etc.

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Fourth chapter discuss the development of generalised wear rate equation and
its validation. Buckingham pi-theorem is used to deduce the wear rate relation. This
chapter also discuss the methodology applied for laboratory experimentation and on-
site-experimentation and validation of the deduced equation.
Erosion principally depends on the velocity of eroding particles and thus the
velocity of flue gas. If the flue gas velocity is predicted, it will help in predicting the
erosion. Computational fluid dynamics helps in predicting the flue gas velocity. Fifth
chapter discuss the necessity of Cold Air Velocity Test. The chapter is dedicated to
geometric modelling and meshing of 210 MW boiler. Cold Air Velocity Test is used
to validate the geometric modelling and suitability of the model for prediction of flue
gases velocity in the boiler.
Sixth chapter discuss the prediction of fire space temperature, prediction of
flue gas velocity and temperature in various zones. CFD is used as a tool for
prediction.
Seventh chapter emphasise on development of Boiler Tube Failure Predictive
Tool using the deduced wear rate equation, predicted velocity and temperature of flue
gases velocity. The process of determination of remnant life is also discussed in this
chapter.
Eighth is a concluding chapter and also discuss the future scope for research.
Boiler specifications, coal data, standard tables and graphs are provided as
Annexure. Excel sheets are used to determine inertia resistances of pressure parts,
adiabatic flame temperature and exhaust gas temperature. These sheets are given as an
Annexure.

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