What are the functions of superheater in a thermal power plant?
Answers
A superheater is a device used to convert saturated steam or wet steam into superheated steam or dry steam. Superheated steam is used in steam turbines for electricity generation, steam engines, and in processes such as steam reforming. There are three types of superheaters: radiant, convection, and separately fired. A superheater can vary in size from a few tens of feet to several hundred feetThe main advantages of using a superheater are reduced fuel and water consumption but there is a price to pay in increased maintenance costs. In most cases the benefits outweighed the costs and superheaters were widely used. An exception was shunting locomotives (switchers). British shunting locomotives were rarely fitted with superheaters. In locomotives used for mineral traffic the advantages seem to have been marginal. For example, the North Eastern Railway fitted superheaters to some of its NER Class P mineral locomotives but later began to remove them.
Without careful maintenance superheaters are prone to a particular type of hazardous failure in the tube bursting at the U-shaped turns in the superheater tube. This is difficult to both manufacture, and test when installed, and a rupture will cause the superheated high-pressure steam to escape immediately into the large flues, then back to the fire and into the cab, to the extreme danger of the locomotive crew.
Functions of superheater in a thermal power plant are mentioned below :
• The superheater repeats the heat processing system in the steam engine due to the steam generated by the boiler.
• Hereby further it increases the thermal energy.
•These are used to convert wet steam into dry steam.
• In most of the cases it increases the thermal efficiency of the steam engine.