CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION OBJECTIVE CIRCUIT DIAGRAM OPERATION/WORKING PRINCIPLE CALCULATIONS ADVANTAGES DISADVANTAGES APPLICATIONS REFERENCES

INTRODUCTION
A Regenerative air preheater is a type of air preheater used in thermal power

plants to preheat the steam generator's combustion air with the hot flue gas from the steam generator.
The types of Regenerative Air Preheaters are

1. Bisector 2. Trisector 3. Qudrasector

Here the discussion is carried on the Trisector Air Preheater.

OBJECTIVE
Mainly there are two types of Air Preheaters
1. Recuperative Air Preheater 2. Regenerative Air Preheater

The main objective of this project is to prove that the efficiency of

regenerative air pre heater is more, when compared to the recuperative air pre heater.
It is to say that the Trisector type of Regenerative air pre heater is more

advantageous than Bisector type.

CIRCUIT DIAGRAM OF BOILER

Steam generator

Primary air

Secondary air

Burner

Air preheater

Electric precipitator

Flue gas

Coal bunker Pulverized fuel

Intermed. Flyash bunker

Fly ash Coal mill FD-Fans Excess Air

CIRCUIT DIAGRAM OF AIR PREHEATER

WORKING PRINCIPLE
Air Preheater is a device which is designed to heat the air before the

combustion process.
The purpose of Air Preheater is to recover the heat from the flue gases

which are obtained from the boiler thus increases the thermal
efficiency of the boiler.
Due to the discontinuous action taking place in the air pre heater, it is

so called as regenerative air pre heater.

TRISECTOR AIR PREHEATER

There are three sections in the

Trisector Air Preheater.

Flue Gases

PRIMARY AIR FLUE GASES SECONDARY AIR

Primary Air
Secondary Air

Flue gases are sent through the

chimney through Induced Draft(ID) Fan.

 Primary Air (PA) is used to dry the fine particles of

pulverized coal, which is then forced into the furnace with the help of PA fan, from the gravimetric coal feeder.
Secondary Air (SA) is used to supply sufficient oxygen for

complete combustion of fuel and this is done with the help of Forced Draft (FD)fan.
Primary Air occupies 1/6th part of the Air Preheater. Flue gases occupies 1/2nd part of the Air Preheater. Secondary Air occupies 1/3rd part of the Air Preheater.

Sealings in air pre heater

 Temperature at inlet conditions: Flue gas 3600 c Air temperature 35o c

Exit Temperature:
Flue gas Air temperature

1400 c 180o c

CALCULATIONS
1)

2)
3)

air in 4)Weighted temperature

[(Fraction of primary air x Inlet air temperature of primary air sector) + = (Fraction of secondary air x Inlet air temperature of secondary air sector)]

5) Convective heat transfer takes place in air preheater i.e.

q = hA (t2 t1)

6) Area of Cross section occupied of flue gas, PA and SA systems:

i) Gas flow area ii) Primary air flow area iii) Secondary air flow area = 25.94 m2 = 8.96 m2 = 14.62 m2

ADVANTAGES
Trisector Air Preheater provides both Primary and

Secondary Air sections in a single plate.

Due to the presence of Primary section immediate to

the Flue Gas path, complete drying up of coal particles takes place.
It has quick response with variation of loads.

DISADVANTAGES
Leakages are more, but this can be avoided up to some

extent by perfect sealing system.

Constructional cost for regenerative air preheater is

more when compared to recuperative type.

APPLICATIONS
It is used where in waste heat recovery is possible for

increase in efficiency of particular device.

Hence it is installed in every thermal power station.

REFERENCES
Material provided by KTPS.
Thermal Engineering By R.K.Rajput, 6th Edition,

published by Laxmi Publications.

Heat And Mass Transfer By C.P.Kothandaraman and

S.Subramanyan, 6th Edition.

Heat And Mass Transfer By R.K.Rajput.