How Boiler Works?

A boiler can be defined as a closed vessel in which steam is produced from water by combustion of fuel. A boiler is used in many industries such as in steam power generation, in sugar industries, in textile industries for sizing and bleaching etc. and in many other chemical industries. Earlier it was mainly used in generating power in the steam engine.

A boiler is simply an enclosed vessel which boils water and ultimately turns it into steam which is used for heating of rooms and heavy fuel oils on the ships.

The boilers are fitted with different safeties as the steam pressure is up to 8 bars in most cases. There are normally two kinds of boilers on ships, Auxiliary and Exhaust, some ships have composite boilers.

Boiler are of two type

▪️STB (Smoke tube Boiler) or donkey boiler

▪️WTB (Water tube Boiler) or High pressure boiler

On board a vessel, STB or WTB maybe used as per the requirement.

WORKING PRINCIPLE OF BOILER

The basic working principle of boiler is very very simple and easy to understand. The boiler is essentially a closed vessel inside which water is stored. Fuel (generally coal) is bunt in a furnace and hot gasses are produced. These hot gasses come in contact with water vessel where the heat of these hot gases transfer to the water and consequently steam is produced in the boiler. Then this steam is piped to the turbine of thermal power plant. There are many different types of boiler utilized for different purposes like running a production unit, sanitizing some area, sterilizing equipment, to warm up the surroundings etc.