Industrial Uses of Steam – Part 1

Boilers are the most common production equipment
for industrial steam applications

Steam is used throughout industrial process control operations in various ways. The ability of steam to serve as a means to deliver heat and provide motive power to a facility or process keeps it in wide use throughout many industries.

Heating with steam can by of a direct or indirect nature. Direct heating uses steam distributed into or onto a substance to directly affect its temperature. In order to ensure success in direct heating, mixing needs to occur so that the temperature of the substance is uniformly impacted. Indirect heating uses one of the many available forms of heat exchangers to transfer heat from steam to process fluid across a physical barrier that isolates the process fluid from the steam.

Industries employ steam for many valuable uses. Food processing factories, refineries, and chemical plants utilize positive pressure steam. In most instances, steam is delivered to equipment, typically, at pressures above atmospheric and at a temperature exceeding 100°C. Process fluid heat exchangers, reboilers, air preheaters for combustion, and a range of other heat transfer equipment uses steam as the heat source. A shell and tube heat exchanger raises product temperature on its passage through the unit. Ideally, the heat exchanger expels condensate after removing the latent heat from the steam. Condensate can be collected and returned to the steam generation portion of the system, conserving much of the energy used to originally heat the water.

Hot water was the main agent traditionally used for heating at temperatures below 100°C. Using steam to heat at temperatures below the 100°C benchmark is an increasingly popular technique. Vacuum saturated steam can be applied in the same way as positive pressure saturated steam, but the steam temperature is adjustable by altering the pressure. The ability to change the pressure (and the temperature) allows for more precise temperature control when compared to using hot water. Another advantage of using steam over hot water is that the steam heating system is fast and precise. The desired temperature can be reached quickly and uniformly.

Another popular use for steam in industrial settings is as a propulsion or drive force. Steam turbines generate electricity in thermal power plants. A recent trend, developed to minimize wasted energy, is applying steam at increasingly higher temperatures and pressures. Superheated steam, used in steam turbines, acts as a counter to potential damage to the equipment resulting from condensate in the turbine section. Less chance of condensate in the turbine translates into a reduced risk of equipment damage or failure. Nuclear power plants, though, cannot utilize the advantages of superheated steam because of complications arising involving the steam and the turbine material. To combat this problem, high pressure saturated steam is utilized instead, with upstream separators installed to remove condensate from the steam flow. In addition to power generation, steam acts as the force behind turbine driven compressors and pumps, including gas compressors and cooling tower pumps.

Depending on the process being controlled and the specific industry’s demands, the simplicity and various applications of steam make this reliable medium a first choice for industrial operations. Share your steam system and use challenges with combustion and steam experts, combining your own knowledge and experience with their specialized expertise to develop effective solutions.

Wireless Transmitters In Process Measurement and Control

Industrial process instrumentation connectivity can present
substantial challenges.

In process control, various devices produce signals which represent flow, temperature, pressure, and other measurable elements of the process. In delivering the process value from the measurement point to the point of decision, also known as the controller, systems have traditionally relied on wires. More recently, industrial wireless networks have evolved, though point-to-point wireless systems are still available and in use. A common operating protocol today is known as WirelessHART™ , which features the same hallmarks of control and diagnostics featured in wired systems without any accompanying cables.

Wireless devices and wired devices can co-exist on the same network. The installation costs of wireless networks are decidedly lower than wired networks due to the reduction in labor and materials for the wireless arrangement. Wireless networks are also more efficient than their wired peers in regards to auxiliary measurements, involving measurement of substances at several points. Adding robustness to wireless, self-organizing networks is easy, because when new wireless components are introduced to a network, they can link to the existing network without needing to be reconfigured manually. Gateways can accommodate a large number of devices, allowing a very elastic range for expansion.

In a coal fired plant, plant operators walk a tightrope in monitoring multiple elements of the process. They calibrate limestone feed rates in conjunction with desulfurization systems, using target values determined experientially. A difficult process environment results from elevated slurry temperature, and the associated pH sensors can only last for a limited time under such conditions. Thanks to the expandability of wireless transmitters, the incremental cost is reduced thanks to the flexibility of installing new measurement loops. In regards to maintenance, the status of wireless devices is consistently transmitted alongside the process variable. Fewer manual checks are needed, and preventative measures may be reduced compared to wired networks.

Time Synchronized Mesh Protocol (TSMP) ensures correct timing for individual transmissions, which lets every transmitter’s radio and processor ‘rest’ between either sending or receiving a transmission. To compensate for the lack of a physical wire, in terms of security, wireless networks are equipped with a combination of authentication, encryption, verification, and key management. The amalgamation of these security practices delivers wireless network security equal to that of a wired system. The multilayered approach, anchored by gateway key-management, presents a defense sequence. Thanks to the advancements in modern field networking technology, interference due to noise from other networks has been minimized to the point of being a rare concern. Even with the rarity, fail-safes are included in WirelessHART™.

All security functions are handled by the network autonomously, meaning manual configuration is unnecessary. In addition to process control environments, power plants will typically use two simultaneous wireless networks. Transmitters allow both safety showers and eyewash stations to trigger an alarm at the point of control when activated. Thanks to reduced cost, and their ease of applicability in environments challenging to wired systems, along with their developed performance and security, wireless industrial connectivity will continue to expand.

Share your process measurement requirements and challenges with application specialists, combining your own process knowledge and experience with their product application expertise to develop effective solutions.

Common Industrial and Commercial Process Heating Methods

Gas fired boilers used the combustion of fuel to produce
steam which is utilized by other process equipment

Many industrial processes involve the use of heat as a means of increasing the energy content of a process or material. The means used for producing and delivering process heat can be grouped into four general categories.

• Steam
• Fuel
• Electric
• Hybrid

The technologies rely upon conduction, convection, or radiative heat transfer mechanisms, soley or in combination, to deliver heat to a substance. In practice, lower temperature processes tend to use conduction or convection. Operations employing very high temperature rely primarily on radiative heat transfer. Let's look at each of the four heating methods.

STEAM

Steam based heating systems introduce steam to the process either directly by injection, or indirectly through a heat transfer device. Large quantities of latent heat from steam can be transferred efficiently at a constant temperature, useful for many process heating applications. Steam based systems are predominantly for applications requiring a heat source at or below about 400°F and when low-cost fuel or byproducts for use in generating the steam are accessible. Cogeneration systems  (the generation of electric power and useful waste heat in a single process) often use steam as the means to produce electric power and provide heat for additional uses. While steam serves as the medium by which heat energy is moved and delivered to a process or other usage, the actual energy source for the boiler that produces the steam can be one of several fuels, or even electricity.

FUEL

Fuel based process heating systems, through combustion of solid, liquid, or gaseous fuels, produce heat that can be transferred directly or indirectly to a process. Hot combustion gases are either placed in direct contact with the material (direct heating via convection) or routed through tubes or panels that deliver radiant heat and keep combustion gases separate from the material (indirect heating). Examples of fuel-based process heating equipment include furnaces, ovens, red heaters, kilns, melters, and high-temperature generators. The boilers producing steam that was described in the previous section are also an example of a fuel based process heating application.

ELECTRICITY

Electric process heating systems also transform materials through direct and indirect means. Electric current can be applied directly to suitable materials, with the electrical resistance of the target material causing it to heat as current flows. Alternatively, high-frequency energy can be inductively coupled to some materials, resulting in indirect heating. Electric based process heating systems are used for heating, drying, curing, melting, and forming. Examples of electrically based process heating technologies include electric arc furnace technology, infrared radiation, induction heating, radio frequency drying, laser heating, and microwave processing.

HYBRID

Hybrid process heating systems utilize a combination of process heating technologies based on different energy sources or heating principles, with a design goal of optimizing energy performance and overall thermal efficiency. For example, a hybrid steam boiler may combine a fuel based boiler with an electric boiler to take advantage of access to low off-peak electricity cost. In an example of a hybrid drying system, electromagnetic energy (e.g., microwave or radio frequency) may be combined with convective hot air to accelerate drying processes; selectively targeting moisture with the penetrating electromagnetic energy can improve the speed, efficiency, and product quality as compared to a drying process based solely on convection, which can be rate limited by the thermal conductivity of the material. Optimizing the heat transfer mechanisms in hybrid systems offers a significant opportunity to reduce energy consumption, increase speed and throughput, and improve product quality.

Many heating applications, depending on scale, available energy source, and other factors may be served using one or more of the means described here. Determining the best heating method and implementation is a key element to a successful project. CTI Controltech specializes in combustion applications and the industrial production and use of steam. Share your process and project challenges with them and combine your facilities and process knowledge and experience with their engineering expertise to develop effective solutions.

Dual Input Industrial Temperature Transmitter - What You Can Do

Dual input advanced industrial transmitter
has many built in functions
Courtesy Azbil

You will likely find temperature measurement to be a part of almost every industrial process. It is a mainstay of commercial and industrial processes and operations globally. Accurate measure of process, equipment, or product temperature provides operators with useful information that is utilized in countless ways. The range of available instruments and equipment for measuring temperature in industrial process settings is extensive, with devices or varied types, performance, and form factor to accommodate every application.

There are a variety of instruments and methodologies for measuring temperature, the most common of which is probably direct contact between the target substance and an appropriate temperature sensor. Industrial process applications are commonly served by thermocouples or resistance temperature detectors (RTD), chosen for their cost, accuracy, and flexibility of installation.

Every operating process is "critical" to some group of stakeholders. The process may be of great importance for a number of reasons:

• The process output may serve as an input to another process with great value.
• The process output may be of great direct value to the stakeholders.
• The process may have significant levels of hazard associated with improper or out of control operation.
• Out of control operation may result in substantial financial loss to the stakeholders.

When temperature is an important indicator of process function, whether for financial or safety reasons, the operator cannot tolerate a loss of the temperature signal. One manufacturer has an advanced solution in the form of a dual input temperature transmitter with built in functions that:

• Switch to the backup sensor if the primary has a failure indication.
• Alert the operator if the deviation between the two sensor readings indicates sensor drift. 
• In wide range temperature applications, switch between sensors with differing measurement ranges for better accuracy.

Along with HART communications and other useful features, these advanced temperature transmitters can help reduce risk and increase performance and safety. Assess how these advanced devices can enhance your process performance. A product data sheet is included below. Product specialists can help with product configuration and selection, along with any application concerns you may have.

Advanced Industrial Temperature Transmitter from CTi Controltech