Non-Destructive Diagnostic Methods for Fire-Side Corrosion Risk Assessment of Industrial Scale Boilers, Burning Low Quality Solid Biofuels—A Mini Review

Abstract

The use of low-emission combustion technologies in power boilers has contributed to a significant increase in the rate of high-temperature corrosion in boilers and increased risk of failure. The use of low quality biomass and waste, caused by the current policies pressing on the decarbonization of the energy generation sector, might exacerbate this problem. Additionally, all of the effects of the valorization techniques on the inorganic fraction of the solid fuel have become an additional uncertainty. As a result, fast and reliable corrosion diagnostic techniques are slowly becoming a necessity to maintain the security of the energy supply for the power grid. Non-destructive testing methods (NDT) are helpful in detecting these threats. The most important NDT methods, which can be used to assess the degree of corrosion of boiler tubes, detection of the tubes’ surface roughness and the internal structural defects, have been presented in the paper. The idea of the use of optical techniques in the initial diagnosis of boiler evaporators’ surface conditions has also been presented.

A Diagnostic Method Based on Active Thermography for the Degradation Assessment of Power Plant Boiler Tubes

“…A review of non-destructive diagnostic methods for fireside corrosion risk assessment of industrial boilers is presented in article [ 3 ]. Many potential methods are listed and described, but only a few have potential for practical use.…”

Modelling and Calculation of Raw Material Industry

“…Thus, fast and reliable corrosion diagnostic techniques are becoming a necessity to maintain the security of the energy supply for the power grid. Hardy et al [2] summarized the state of the art regarding nondestructive diagnostic methods for the corrosion risk assessment of industrial-scale boilers. The authors described their developed systems of online monitoring of the boundary layer gas composition which may help indicate the areas most susceptible to corrosion.…”

“…In the papers that deal with fuels or wastes, laboratory tests were most commonly used-either with the use of standard procedures [4], with the application of typical equipment innovatively used for specific tests [1,2,7] or with the use of dedicated testing facilities, developed or tuned for the investigations that were performed [3,5,6,8]. The analysis of the test results was confirmed using already-known theoretical equations [1,3,4], experimentally identified dependencies (linear and non-linear regression) [1,3], advanced methods of picture analysis [2] and spectral analyses [6,8]. The comparison of developed models of investigated processes was supported with statistical analyses [3,7].…”

Challenges and Opportunities for Achieving Operational Sustainability of Boilers in the Context of Industry 4.0

“…While there have been numerous studies on boiler operations, none have specifically addressed the challenges and opportunities for achieving operational sustainability in the era of advanced technologies and automation. For instance, several recent studies have illustrated different aspects of boiler operation and maintenance strategies in an Industry 4.0 environment with a depiction of various industries like the manufacturing industry (Hardy et al, 2021;Harjamulya et al, 2019;Jha et al, 2022;Lim et al, 2021;Olkiewicz et al, 2021;Tsai, 2018;Urgese et al, 2021), power generation industry (Arakelyan et al, 2021;Kluczek et al, 2021;Muhammad Ashraf et al, 2020;Munsamy and Telukdarie, 2022;Toit & Laubscher, 2018), urban heating system (Warsokusumo et al, 2020;Woon et al, 2022), petrochemical industry (Wang, 2017), and so on. However, none of these studies have explored the topic of this current research, which seeks to provide further insights into the area of industrial management.…”