Open Source Ecology Heat Exchange Coil Winding, 4 Feb 2012

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From YouTube: Steam generator overview

Description

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A

Okay, terry, okay, um we have two two dimensions in a boiler or two two uh main areas of concern. We have.

B

In a flash steam general, you call it a flash steam generator.

A

This isn't this isn't really a flash one.

B

Okay, steam generation.

A

Man, I don't want to get into detail glass steam generators is different, um theoretically and um physically different shaped.

A

So this is just a common monotube steam generator, and what we do here is we start with cold water in here and that's why we have our pressure gauge and our electronic pressure switch, because if you put hot water on these, it will destroy them or will it significantly shorten the life?

A

So you put your you read your pressure where it's coming into the boiler and that that tells you how much pressure is inside the coils that are wound inside of here now called into the boiler that you've turned.

B

A

It uh exits here, so this is the coldest point of the part of the boiler, even though it's hot, it's still the coldest part. So now, as you push the water in, it starts to go this way and the farther this way it goes, the hotter it gets and then eventually, when it gets to this end of the boiler, the generator.

A

You've got steam and out it comes right here we have a quartz rod, controller that senses the temperature inside of the steam, and we also have a manual gauge.

A

To show us what the temperature is now.

B

A

That is your throttle.

A

And or a scale trap okay scale traps are are a good thing to have, because very rarely do you get water. That's that's, pure enough to keep you from scaling up inside the coils of the generator, so.

B

Now, there's a blower here this this happens to be an oil burner. Yes, instead of for our case, we'll have biomass pellets, burning right, so yeah any other controls so that you've got basically that.

A

That's basically, basically, these are the two controls.

B

And how does the, how does the pressure control work so.

A

Upon that being, if, if for some reason, the boiler just is making more steam than you're using pressure rises well, when the pressure rises too high, that's a dangerous, undesirable thing to happen. So what happens is before it hurts or ruins anything? This switch will turn all the electricity off and the burner will stop will stop um burning. However, the fan will stay on to help cool it down.

A

But if you keep that fire burning and keep adding water well, that water is going to turn to steam and it's going to expand and it's going to cause the pressure to rise and rise and rise and rise so before it does that it turns off the heat and it stops putting more water. In now,.

B

And the pressure the pump pressure has to overcome the the pressure of the.

A

Pressure generator steam inside the steam generator yeah, yep, typically um in most modern steam applications, your um developing steam at temperatures and pressures well above 800 degrees and 800 psi.

A

Some of the earlier versions like in the 60s and 50s because of the technology advances from the early steam cars.

A

They I forgot where I was going with this.

B

What temperature they were running.

A

They ran at uh temperatures and pressures much lower, and these are we rarely get to 800 psi and 800 degrees in the keem car. So that's designed to to operate at lower pressures. There are people theoretically who wanted to make 2000 psi and 2000 degrees steam in that situation, that's where you would have to have a normalizer like I showed you where they puff a little bit of cold water in with the steam to cool it down. That's.

B

Like the cyclone engine- yes yeah, yep and the way the quartz rod works, controller for the.

A

Temperature senses the temperature of the steam um if the pressure's low, but but the temperature is too high. You also want to turn off your fire, otherwise you're going to burn things up in there.

B

So upon temperature getting too high the fire, also the fire.

A

Stops does the water fan stays on fast? Does.

B

The water stay on no.

A

The water will continue pumping because the boiler is hot, so we need water to cool it down and your.

B

A

Is still low so as long as you don't reach that that over pressure point the the pump is is uh programmed to keep pumping water in there. Okay.

B

So upon too high pressure, you have water stop, but.

A

Upon too high temperature, you continue if, if you reach yes, so if you reached an over temp condition, you still pump the water in to cool the generator down. Okay, excellent. So now, ideally, what you would like to have is this thing running at about 600 psi. I don't oh, this is the the red mark is at 800, that's that's the the danger zone or the the over pressure zone, and then um we're marked at uh 650 degrees here. So we're.

B

Trying to keep.

A

Our temperatures low, so we don't, we don't destroy the thing.

B

My steam generator can handle that type of pressure.

A

Yeah that that that we built over these last three days, it will handle just what this is handling.

B

And this one is made with all schedule, 80 or schedule, 40.

A

Basically, yeah it's it's a another industry type uh tubing or something I don't know how they buy it, but it's just a slightly different dimension than the the black pipe that we weld together and use. Okay, excellent.

B

A

You so you're welcome and I'm sorry we didn't get to fire this up, because it's really neat to watch.