Boiler & its auxillaries:

Boiler:
Boiler is the steam generating device of a power plant. It is capable of generating steam uninterruptedly and in a range of operating pressure and temperature. Boiler has a typical hollow cylinder like structure as shown in the figure. The wall of the Boiler is actually made up of large no. of water tubes. Thermal insulation is provided outside the tubes. Fire ball is created at the centre of boiler. Temperature of the fire ball is around 1200C. Coal particles are burned inside the boiler & heat thus generated is utilized to convert the water into steam. There are mainly two types of Boiler:

Fire Tube Boiler:

In this type of boiler, hot flue gas, which is generated due to combustion of coal, flows through the tubes inside the boiler. The tubes are kept submerged in the water which is to be converted into steam.

Water Tube Boiler:

In this type of boiler, hot flue gas, which is the source of heat, flows outside the tubes and the water to be heated is inside the tube. In NTPC Farakka, Water Tube Boilers are used because of their higher efficiency.

The boilers of NTPC Farakka are manufactured by BHEL. Total capacity of the boiler is 18000 tons of coal & air mixture. Inside the boiler, negative pressure is to be maintained so that flame inside the boiler cant come out of it under any circumstances.

RAW MATERIALS FOR THE BOILER:

1) coal - fuel for generating heat energy 2) ambient air (for combustion) 3) water -working fluid for steam generation

Coal:
Coal is the main raw material of any thermal plant. So, most of the plants are situated at short distance from the coal mines. For, NTPC Farakka, source of coal is Rajmahal coal field, Bihar. Coal is transported from mines to the plant via rail wagons in merry-go-round fashion. At first, coal is unloaded at the track hopper. Now, coal is carried to the bunker through the conveyor belt. In its way to bunker, coal comes across crusher which breaks up the coal into 20mm40mm particles and magnetic separator which is used to remove the magnetic pieces from the coal. Bunker is called the live storage of coal. There is an outlet valve of the bunker. When the valve is opened, coal particles falls on another small conveyer belt known as coal feeder. It carries the coal particles to the bowl mill where pulverization of coal is done. Bowl mill consist of a motor driven rotating bowl and three rollers, fixed in space. Coal particles get crushed between bowl and rollers. Bowl mill provides fine coal particles (75 micron diameter) which are suitable for burning inside the boiler. This process is known as Pulverization which is essential for complete combustion of coal. From the bowl mill, coal particles are carried to the boiler by the primary air. Boiler can be classified on the basis of coal firing schema i.e. the position of the inlet of coal and air mixture to the boiler. In 200MW unit, corner firing is used where burners are provided at four corners at each elevation of the boiler. In 500MW unit, front and rear firing is used where burners are provided in front and rear side of the boiler at different elevation. The flow of air-coal mixture into the boiler is controlled by a damper.

Air:
The air inlet and outlet of the boiler is mainly governed by three types of fan. They are: Primary Air Fan (PA fan): It sucks air from the atmosphere and forces the pulverized coal to the boiler. So its main function is to transfer the pulverized coal from the mill to the boiler. The temperature of Primary air is around 55C.

Forced Draft Fan (FD fan): Now the primary air which is carrying the coal, dont have sufficient oxygen required for complete combustion of the pulverized coal. We cant allow incomplete combustion from economical point of view. So for burning smoothly extra air is required and this is mainly done by forced draught fan. It sucks air and forces this air to the boiler to fulfill the oxygen requirement. This air is known as Secondary Air. The temperature of Secondary air is around 335C. To maintain as steady flame inside the boiler, we have to provide certain amount of secondary air at a suitable temperature. To achieve this, in the boiler section, a wind box is provided for the storage of hot secondary air. This hot secondary air is mixed with cold secondary air (at ambient temperature) in appropriate proportion with the help of dampers. Then, the mixed air is feed to boiler via FD fan.

Induced Draft Fan (ID fan): Now up to this, burning of coal is done successfully. But the flue gases must have to be ejected from the boiler so that more fresh air can come and complete the process successfully. For doing this induced draught fans are used which sucks the air from the boiler and ejects it through the chimney. The capacity of the ID fan is more than others because it has the responsibility to maintain a negative air pressure inside the boiler as well as drive the residual fly ash up to around 300m through chimney for disposal.

Water:
We cant use ordinary water for steam generation purpose. Ordinary water contains Ca, Mg, & Na salts. So, after the vaporization, these salts will be deposited inside the water tubes. It will hamper the heat transmission process. The boiler operation will be uneconomical. So, water is demineralised before feeding it to boiler. This is done by different mechanical and chemical process in the DM plant. A Boiler Drum is provided with each boiler for the storage of water and steam. Cyclone separator is used inside the boiler drum to isolate water from steam. BFP pumps the water into the boiler drum. Boiler drum is kept at the highest elevation (51m for stage-I and 73m for stageII) of the boiler unit. Water comes from boiler drum through downcomers to the bottom header ring and then goes up through the riser tubes i.e. water wall tubes. In water wall, heat exchange takes place and water is converted into steam. Now due to lower density, steam goes up & collected into top header ring. Then, it goes to the boiler drum in unsaturated form. Then it is allowed to pass through superheater before entering into HP turbine. Saturated steam is carried by Main Steam pipe to HP turbine. Main Steam pipe is provided with a Main Steam valve and an Electromotive Safety Valve, which opens when steam pressure exceeds the rated value. Main Steam Valve remains closed during start ups of the unit. There is a By Pass pipe through which steam flows until the steam reaches the rated parameters. During this period, no steam

enters the turbine stages. It is allowed to pass through Superheater, Reheater, Condenser and again back to Boiler drum. Boiler Feed Pump is used to pump the water up to the boiler drum. In NTPC Farakka, BFP is the auxiliary of highest MW rating. For Stage-I (200MW unit), two motor driven BFP of 4MW rating is used. For Stage-II (500MW unit), during start ups single motor driven BFP of 10MW rating is used. After that, when a certain %of generation is reached, turbine driven BFPs are put into service and former BFP is turned off. Those BFP driving turbines are driven by auxiliary steam. i.e. steam tapped from HP turbines.

There are some auxiliary systems for proper functioning of boiler. They are:

Fuel Oil System:

During the start up of an unit, coal firing is not done because it is not suitable at lower temperature. So, at starting, oil firing is done inside the boiler to raise the temperature above a certain level. Heavy Fuel oil is used for this purpose. HFO pump supplies the oil to the burner from oil reservoir. There is a spark rod inside the boiler. High voltage is applied on it and to produce a electric spark. This electric spark is responsible for igniting the oil. But before injecting the oil inside the boiler, atomization of oil must be done. Atomization is done by spraying auxiliary steam into the oil. It breaks down the oil particles into fine droplets increasing the surface area which is essential for efficient oil firing. There is a control valve which controls the flow of Heavy Fuel oil through the burner.

Soot Blower System:

Ash particles are produced inside the boiler under running condition. They often are accumulated on the side wall of the boiler i.e. on the surface of the water tubes. These particles are called Soot particles. They hinder the heat exchange between flue gas and water. Even, they can give rise to local hot spots which may cause damage to water tubes. So, auxiliary steam is used to remove the Soot particles from the water walls. It blows out accumulated the soot particles periodically.

Scanner:
Scanners are provided inside the boiler wall at different elevation. Main function of a scanner is to observe the flame inside the boiler. It captures & sends picture of the flame to the control room. Thus, we can conclude weather the flame is stable or not by observing it on the monitor. So, scanners help to avoid the accumulation of huge amount of unburnt carbon particles inside the boiler, which is uneconomical and can cause blast in the boiler.

As temperature inside the boiler is very high, each scanner is provided with a cooling fan. Usually, the cooling fans are connected to AC supply. But there is also a provision to drive the fans by DC supply which ensures that scanner wall not damage due to excess heating under any faulty condition.