Power, Vol.151, No.10, 72-74, 2007
Harness detonation waves to clean boiler tubes
Air and steam sootblowers have been the power industry's solution to the slagging and fouling of boiler convective passes caused by flyash and combustion products. Manual cleaning systems have been superseded by computers and neural nets, but the basic cleaning apparatus remained unchanged-until now. Say hello to detonation waves. They can knock those deposits loose while markedly improving boiler heat transfer efficiency.