Chemical Engineering May 2020 - 42

Feature Report
Steam Quality
Considerations
Steam often provides the majority of heat, but its quality is not always carefully
managed. Here are some tips on how to improve and maintain steam quality
James R. Risko
TLV Corp.
P
IN BRIEF
LOOK AT YOUR HEAT
ASSET
HOW IS STEAM USED?
WHY IS PLANT STEAM
WET?
SATURATED STEAM
FROM BOILERS?
DISTRIBUTED STEAM IS
KEY TO PRODUCTION
RELIABILITY
IS LETDOWN STEAM
SATURATED?
HOW TO IMPROVE
STEAM QUALITY
MECHANICAL
SEPARATION
THE IMPORTANCE OF
SEPARATORS
lant operations
focus
on
production
DISTRIBUTE
activity, maintaining
tight control on process
algorithms,
feedstocks and
equipment. Steam
often provides the
majority of heat,
but its quality is not
carefully managed.
Do engineers consider
all distributed
steam to be equal
in quality?
There are several questions I like to ask
when meeting with steam engineers or operGenerator
turbine
Boiler
GENERATE
RETURN
ators
for the first time, such as the following:
* If you were the plant manager, would you
want to optimize production value?
* Would you willingly accept off-specification
feedstock or equipment?
* Where does the plant get the majority of
heat used in production?
* If the answer is, " steam, " is it superheated,
saturated or wet?
The typical answer to the last question is,
" We have all three types of steam. " That's
when I tell them that their answer is impossible,
there is no such thing as sustainable
saturated steam in a production plant. " Your
steam is wet. "
Because steam is wet, one further question
arises, " How can a plant optimize production
if their steam heat asset is in a suboptimal
condition? "
Steam quality should be optimized for re42
Compressor
turbine
DRY
STEAM
USE
Reboiler
Steam
tracing
Flare
RECOVER
DRAIN FAST
FIGURE 1. A steam system has four stages: generate, distribute, use and return of recoverable
energy. Equipment performs best with dry steam and when condensate is drained quickly. Recovered
energy reduces boiler load
liability and efficiency purposes, otherwise
critical systems and equipment can deteriorate.
Some examples of areas that can suffer
from the negative effects of wet steam
include the following:
* Turbine plating, silica deposits, erosion,
trips
* Vacuum jet erosion, high energy use, low
vacuum
* Stripping steam poor quality
* Flare tip erosion, meter trips,
poor control
flare-outs,
* Atomization steam wetness
* Soot blowing issues on boiler tubes
* Gland seal steam damage
* Control valve erosion
* Pipe erosion, particularly elbows and tees
* Orifice erosion
To mitigate against such issues, steam
quality should and can be improved, but it
does require an understanding of the importance
of two key requirements in a steam
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Chemical Engineering May 2020

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