Effect of Chemical Cleaning on Steam Generator Tube Performance

Boiling experiments were performed on new, chemically cleaned, and fouled steam generator tubes to determine the heat transfer performance of each. It was found that the heat transfer performance of the fouled tube was the best, followed by the chemically cleaned tube. The performance of the new tub...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Heat transfer engineering 2002-01, Vol.23 (1), p.38-47
Main Authors: Sridharan, A., Hochreiter, L. E., Cheung, F.-B., Webb, R. L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Applied sciences
Boilers
Boiling liquids
Chemical cleaning
Deposits
Energy
Energy. Thermal use of fuels
Equipments for energy generation and conversion: thermal, electrical, mechanical energy, etc
Exact sciences and technology
Fouling
Heat flux
Heat transfer
Nucleation
Scanning electron microscopy
Thermocouples
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Summary:Boiling experiments were performed on new, chemically cleaned, and fouled steam generator tubes to determine the heat transfer performance of each. It was found that the heat transfer performance of the fouled tube was the best, followed by the chemically cleaned tube. The performance of the new tube was the worst. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) photographs of the boiling surfaces were taken to identify differences in surface characteristics. Results revealed the presence of significant amounts of porous deposits on the surface of the fouled tube that provided ample nucleation sites for boiling. Chemical cleaning removed most of the deposits such that the boiling performance of the cleaned surface was degraded. The new tube was very smooth and there were relatively fewer nucleation sites as evidenced in the SEM photographs. Available correlations were used to predict the heat flux for a given wall superheat and were compared with the experimental data.
ISSN:0145-7632
1521-0537
DOI:10.1080/014576302753249598