Boiler Tube Failure in High Pressure Steam Generator Singh Binod Kumar, Asstt. Professor, Nayak Manoj, Asstt. Professor Deptt. of Mech. Engg., CITM Faridabad, India. Abstract Availability is one of the most important factors for the economy of a power plant. There are many reasons for unplanned outages to which boiler tube failure contributes the lion's share. Hence, reducing the number of boiler tube failures is a very effective measure to increase availability. Boiler tube failures are one of the major cases for the forced outages in a coal-fired power station. One single tube failure in a 500MW boiler can cost as much as Rs. 6–7 crores revenue loss to the utility. Apart from this direct loss, outages of 500MW units will have adverse effects on the stability of the grid. Further, as spinning/stand by reserve is not available in most of the states in India, any unit outage will result in power cut for the industrial users, which in turn leads to indirect loss of production. The detrimental effect of boiler tube failure is not limited to loss of availability and industrial production. It also increases the number of tripping and start-ups of the plant, casting adverse effect on the life of the other equipment's. Further sometimes, the steam leakage cause major secondary failures, which leads to costly repairs both due to increase in quantum of work and duration of completion of work. Hence, it is very much essential to identify the root cause of every failure and eliminate it fully in order to prevent/minimize the tube failures and other costly repairs. Top Abstract Metallography, Starvation, Heat loading, EPRS. Top |