Numerical Study on the Effect of Deposit Layer on the Minimum Wall Thickness of Boiler Water Tube under Different Operating Conditions

Water wall tube temperature is a major parameter in the steam generator design which has a significant role in keeping the steam generator available. Thus, knowing the tube average temperature in different operating conditions is very important to avoid the causes of tube failures. High temperatures are a major cause of various types of failures, such as overheating, hydrogen damage, thermal stress, etc. Furthermore, deposits on the inner tube wall contribute to such failure by changing the thermal resistance of the tube wall, which causes a significant increase in the tube wall’s average temperature, consequently lowering the allowable stress. Therefore, the model was created by using ANSYS FLUENT (Canonsburg, PA, USA) to determine the wall average water tube wall temperature considering the deposit layer thickness (magnetite). Furthermore, this model was verified. It was found that increasing tube thickness can increase the average tube temperature but combining it with increasing deposit thickness leads to higher temperatures. In other words, the effect of the deposit on the tube with higher thickness is higher than on the tube with lower thickness. By discussing the minimum thickness of the water wall tube, the suitable selection of the tube thickness and courses of action concerning the operating conditions that minimize the potential overheating of water tubes in the furnace section of the boiler can be determined.