A boiler is a container, or a set of tubes, used to heat water or other fluid. To heat the liquid can be used various fuels such as diesel, coal, biomass, etc. The most common are fossil fuels.
Operation and applications of a boiler
The boiler is a machine or apparatus is designed to heat water or other fluid, usually by combustion of a fuel such as gas, diesel, coal, biomass, etc. The hot or vaporized fluid leaves the boiler for use in different heating processes or applications, generation of motive power from steam, cooking or cleaning. The two most common boiler types are:
- Steam boilers.
- Heating boilers.
Steam boilers
Steam boilers generate saturated steam, generated by a process of heat transfer at constant pressure, in which the fluid, originally in a liquid state, warms up and changes its state. They are thus a particular case of heat exchanger in which the temperature rises until reaching the phase change. They are also pressure vessels, so they are built in laminated steel as well as the containers gas containers. Due to the wide applications of steam, mainly water, boilers are widely used in industry to generate it for applications such as:
- sterilization
- Heating of other fluids
- Generate electricity through a Rankine cycle. Boilers are fundamental parts of thermoelectric power plants. Normally the boiler and steam generator concept is confused, but the second generates superheated steam
Heating boilers
The other type of boilers are the caleacción boilers.
Heating boilers, a type of water heater, generate hot water for use in industrial or domestic heating systems, or obtain hot water.
Fuels used in boilers
The heat source for a boiler can be any of various fuels, such as wood, coal, oil or natural gas. The most common are fossil fuels.
Electric steam boilers use heating elements with overload or immersion type. Nuclear fission is also used as a heat source to generate steam, either directly in the boiling water nuclear reactor (BWR) or, in most cases, in specialized heat exchangers called steam generators or nuclear reactors of pressurized water (PWR). Heat recovery steam generators (Hrsg) use heat rejected from other processes such as the gas turbine.
