A forced circulation boiler was first introduced by La-Mont in the year 1925 which is used in

Europe and America. This is a modern high pressure boiler (water tube type steam boilers)
working on forced circulation system.

Working principle of La Mont Boiler
The image shows the flow circuit of La Mont Boiler.


I will explain working of each and every part in La Mont boiler one by one.

Steam separator drum
The la Mont boiler consists of a steam separator drum which is placed wholly outside the boiler
setting . The drum receives a mixture of steam and water from the evaporator tubes and feed
water from the economizer. The steam is separated from water in the drum.

Circulating pump
The water from the drum is then drawn to the circulating (centrifugal) pump through the down-
comer. The pump circulates water (forced circulation) equal to 8 to 10 times the weight of
steam evaporated. This prevents the tubes from being overheated.

Distributing header
The circulating pump delivers the feed water to the distributing header with orifices at a pressure
above the drum pressure.

Evaporator
The header distributes water through orifices into the evaporator tubes acting in parallel. Orifice
in the header controls the flow of water to the evaporator tubes. Here part of the water is
evaporated and a mixture of steam and water from these tubes enters the drum.

Convection superheater
The steam produced in the boiler is nearly saturated. This steam as such should not be used in the
steam turbine. The presence of moisture in it will cause corrosion of turbine blades, etc. to raise
the temperature of steam and thereby to increase the turbine efficiency, superheater is used.

The principle of convection superheater is similar to steam generating tubes of the boiler. The
hot flue gases at high temperature sweep over convection superheated tubes and raise the
temperature of steam. Convection superheater thus receives heat from the flue gases flowing
from the combustion chamber, entirely by convective heat transfer. Such a superheater may be
more conveniently located since it is not necessary for it to see the furnace.

Saturated steam from the top of the drum enters the convection superheater placed in the path of
the flue gases and is superheated.

Steam outlet
Superheated steam from the superheater passes out to the steam turbine through the steam outlet.

Economizer
The quantity of superheated steam thus delivered to turbine is continuously made up in the form
of feed water. Feed water supplied by the feed pump is heated in the economizer on its way to
the steam separator drum.

The economizer is a device used to preheat the feed water using the hot gases leaving the boiler.
Before the gases are let off to the atmosphere, they are made to flow in a definite passage in the
economizer so that some of the heat in the hot gases, which otherwise gets wasted, can be used to
preheat the feed water. The preheated water requires only a small amount of heat to be supplied
in the boiler, resulting in some saving of the fuel burnt. This results in an increase in the boiler
efficiency.

Air preheater
Since the heat of the exit gases cannot be fully extracted through the economizer, the air
preheater is employed to recover some of the heat escaping in these gases. These exit gases
preheat the air from the blower in the air preheater. The preheated air is supplied to the furnace
for combustion.

Capacity
The capacity of la-mont boiler is about 50 Tonnes/hr of superheated steam at a pressure of 170
kgf/sq.cm. and at a temperature of 500C.


benson

The presence of steam bubbles in contact with the surface of tubes seriously impairs heat
transmission from the flue gases to water. By rising the boiler pressure to the critical pressure of
steam (225 kgf/sq.cm.), this difficulty is overcome, as suggested by Mark Benson in 1922. At the
critical pressure water and steam have the same density and no bubbles are formed.

The first modern high pressure drumless boiler developed by benson was put into operation in
1927 in west Germany power station.

Working principle of Benson Boiler:
This boiler has a unique characteristic of absence of steam separating drum. The entire process of
heating, steam generation and superheating is done in a single continuous tube.

Economiser
The feed water by means of the feed pump is circulated through the economiser tubes. Hot flue
gases pass over the economiser tubes and the feed water is preheated.

Radiant evaporator
The feed water from the economiser flows into
the radiant evaporator with radiant parallel tube sections. The radiant evaporator receives heat
from the burning fuel through radiation process and majority of water is converted into steam in
it.

Convection Evaporator
The remaining water is evaporated in the convection evaporator, absorbing the heat from the hot
gases by convection. Thus the saturated high pressure steam at a pressure of 210 kg/sq.cm is
produced.

Convection superheater
The saturated steam is now passed through the convection superheater where the saturated steam
os superheated to 650C. The radiant evaporator, the convection evaporater and the convection
superheater are all arranged in the path of the flue gases.

Steam outlet
The superheated steam is supplied to the steam turbine through the steam outlet.

Capacity
Capacity of benson boiler is about 150 tonnnes/hr at a pressure of 210 kgf/sq.cm. and at a
temperature of 650C. (Efficiency may be improved by running the boiler at a pressure slightly
lower than the critical pressure).

Salient features of Benson Boiler
1. As there are no drums, the total weight of benson bolier is 20% less than other boilers.
This also reduces the cost of the boilers.
2. As no drums are required, the transfer of the benson parts is easy. Majority of the parts
may be carried to the site without pre-assembly.
3. Since no drum is used, this is an once-through boiler and the feed water entering at one
end is discharged as superheated steam at the other end.
4. Circulating pump and downcomers are dispensed with.
5. Loeffler Boiler
This is also a modern high pressure water tube boiler using the forced circulation principle and named
after Prof.Loeffler.

Salient features of Loeffler Boiler
The novel feature of the Loeffler Boiler is to evaporate water solely by means of superheated steam. The
furnace heat is supplied only to economiser and superheater. In other words, steam is used as a heat
absorbing medium.

The major difficulty experienced in La-Mont boiler
is deposition of salt and sediment on the inner surfaces of water tubes. The deposition reduces the heat
transfer, ultimately, the generating capacity. This difficulty was solved in Loeffler boiler by preventing
the flow of water into the boiler tubes. Feed water is evaporated in the drum using part of the
superheated steam coming out from the water-heater. Thus only the dry saturated steam passes
through the tubes. Poor feed water can, therefore, be used without any difficulty in the boiler, which is
great advantage of this boiler.

Working principle of Loeffler Boiler
The image shows the outline diagram of Loeffler Boiler.

Economiser
The feed water from the feed tank is supplied to the economiser by feed pump. In the economiser the
feed water is made to flow through a number of tubes surrounding which the hot gases leaving the
furnace pass over. There is a heat exchange from the hot gases to the feed water, which is preheated in
the economiser.

Evaporated Drum
It is housed away from the furnace. It contains a mixture of steam and water. The feed water from the
economiser tubes enters the evaporator drum into which is also passed two-thirds of the superheated
steam generated by the boiler. The superheated steam gives its superheat to the water in the drum and
evaporates it to saturated steam.

Mixing Nozzles
The nozzles distribute and mix the superheated steam throughout the water in the evaporator drum.

Steam circulating pump
A steam circulating pump forces this saturated steam from the evaporator drum to the radiant
superheater through the tube of the furnace wall.

Radiant superheater
The radiant superheater is placed in the furnace. The hot gases in the furnace are used for superheating
the saturated steam from the drum. The radiant superheater receives heat from the burning fuel
through radiation process.

Convection superheater
Steam from the radiant superheater enters the convection superheater where it is finally heated to the
desired temperature of 500C. The convection superheater receives heat from the flue gases entirely by
convective heat transfer. Both radiant and convection superheater are arranged in series in the path of
the flue gases.

Steam outlet
About one-third of the superheated steam from the convection superheater passes to the steam turbine
while the remaining two-thirds is passed on to evaporator drum to evaporated the feed water to
saturated steam.

Capacity
Capacity of the Loeffler boiler is about 100 Tonnes/Hr of superheated steam generated at a pressure of
140 kgf/sq.cm and at a temperature of 500C.