Fuel Gas Bolier Tested with N-1 Burner

[Orangel]

Hello Everybody:

My Client has requested to test a Fuel Gas Boiler with at least one burner out of operation, and that the remaining burners shall meet 100% of MCR together in that case.

The manufacturer will supply Three Fuel Gas Boilers with 3 burners each one and indicate that test the boilers with 2 burners and meeting 100% of MCR will imply a new design and increase in cost. The Manufacturer indicates since each boiler operate with fuel gas and there will be three boilers operating in paralell, is unnecessary this test because this situation will never occur (one boiler operating with a burner out of operation per maintenance or other situation, however, my client requested it.

What do you think about this?

Can occur that one burner fail and the boiler continue operating with two burners safety?

Regards

Eng. Orangel Roca
Venezuela

 

[PaulV7427]

It really depends on the design of the boilers. For example, depending on the design, runing the boiler with two of the three burners operating could create a situation where fuel pressure increases enough to damage a line or cause a leak. Another scenario could be that the boiler is designed to have all three running in order to ensure a proper fuel to air ratio inside and without the third burner, the boiler would be so inefficient that it would be better to simply not run the boiler at all.

In this scenario to give you something of an answer, I would go with what the manufacturer indicates as proper or safe operating conditions. If the manufacturer indicates that the boiler should not be run without all three burners operating correctly, then your company should not plan on running the boiler with only two. This is no different than with any other product. You can run it outside of the manufacturer specifications but you do so at your own risk.

 

[dougarthur42]

This is just my experience We actually operate 2 boilers one with 4 burners and one with 3 burners. The one that has 4 burners has 2 above another 2 and we can get full load with one out of service. But we had trouble with the other, it has 3 burners side by each. When firing 3 burners and operating at full load we would have a burner trip, we would try to maintain full load. What we found was that the flame would impinge on the rear wall and severely over heat it. So we would have to reduce load to about 77% load with only 2 guns. How ever we talked to our burner manufacturer (COEN burner) and they developed a burner with larger holes in the top of the nozzle and smaller ones in the bottom. This allowed the flame to burn higher not deeper into the furnace. It allowed us to use these burners at all times and when one burner was out of service we could get 95% of full load. I think if a boiler is designed right it may be possible to operate this way. any way good luck.
Doug