A boiler is a boiler, and that’s that. This is likely what a lot of people think when it comes to the boiler that powers their homes or businesses. In fact, many people might not know anything about their boiler until something happens to go wrong and they need to learn a little bit about the system that is powering parts of their building. Boiler design plays a key role in how your boiler operates and the jobs that it is able to do. Certain types of designs are more common than others, but the designs continue to evolve as technology becomes available and new types of power or tasks are needed for industrial applications.
Boiler design can actually give you a lot of freedom of choice when it comes to how you fuel it and what it is actually used for. For example, boilers need fuel in order to operate. A boiler is called such because it heats up water, turns the water to steam, and uses that for its designed tasks. Different designs may call for different types of fuel to be used to heat the water in the system. Common fuel types include oil, coal, and gas. However, some types of boilers can take on more solid fuels—such as wood, bark, and tires. If these solid fuels would be more cost-efficient for your business to use, you might want a solid fuel boiler.
The design of a boiler can also be directly related to the amount of power that the boiler can put out. It’s possible that your company needs more than one boiler to completely function. A firetube boiler, for example, tends to be good up to about 750 horsepower. In fact, this is a very common type of boiler for businesses to have. For times when more than 750 horsepower is necessary, however, you might need to invest in something like a watertube boiler.
Whether or not your steam is recycled or simply exhausted is also dependent on your boiler’s design. For systems where the steam remains contaminant-free, it may be recycled back to the boiler (closed system). If the steam is likely to be contaminated, it will probably not be recycled back to the boiler (open system).
Boiler design helps to determine what your system can and cannot do. There are a lot of different types of boilers available,
Some businesses are constantly working on engineering a new boiler design. If your boiler is not living up to your expectations, you might see if another boiler design would serve you and your business better.
