A vision for reducing boiler tube failures

Abstract

This paper reports that the boiler tube failure (BTF) problem still ranks as the number one equipment problem in fossil power plants. According to the North American Electric Reliability Council, BTF has been in this position in North America for the 28 years that reliability statistics have been kept. Currently BTF represents about 3-4% of lost availability. Previous analysis has indicated that a disturbing feature of these failures is that most of them are repeats. They occur on the same tube, same material, or in the same boiler section over and over again. Assessing the multifunctional nature of BTF, it became apparent in 1985 that the only way to prevent forced outages due to repeat tube failure problems was to implement a formalized, company-wide BTF prevention program. Thus, in a parallel effort to the root cause determinations, 16 utilities demonstrated such an approach over a four-year period and achieved remarkable availability improvements.