June 15, 2007

Retrospective

POWER editors

June 1886

POWER reported on the art and science of water treatment and its effect on boiler performance in the cover story this month. "Dr. J.G. Rogers, an authority on steam generation, is quoted as stating that one-sixteenth of an inch of scale in a boiler will require the extra consumption of 15% more fuel; one-quarter of an inch, 60%; and one-half an inch, 150%. If on these percentages we could calculate the wastage in a single year by reason of scale, the aggregate would exceed belief; and what would it be if we could add the mere commercial results from loss of life and limb by boiler explosions attributable to the same cause?

 

"The wastage attending the generation of steam, and the danger menacing those who work at or near boilers, are very materially affected by the quality of water used. To quote from POWER: 'By the use of impure water a very dangerous process may be going on inside the boiler,' without giving any indications of danger.

"This fact has caused the prolific production of scale preventing compounds, the manufacture of tube scrapers and boiler cleaners, the construction of mud drums, and the building of feedwater heaters and purifiers without number; all seeking to keep boilers free from scale [Figure 1]. Impurities, where evaporation takes place, are left to corrode the tubes, weaken the boiler, decrease the effective energy of the heat and endanger those who are unconscious of impending peril. It will command itself to every engineer as good judgment to perfectly remove from the heater, before it goes into a boiler, all impurities that form scale, incrustation or deposit of any kind."

 

 

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