Re: Oil in Condensers
Posted by:
Jim Crank (IP Logged)
Date: August 19, 2003 02:03PM
<HTML>George,
Certainly TSP works very well in cleaning a boiler. What I wish I had paid more attention to, is what Besler did for his commercial steam generators, in terms of water treatment. His literature doesn't mention this.
The degree of water treatment that I have seen in big powerplants was very educational. They really take great pains to see that the Ph, dissolved solids, carbonates, etc., is just where they want them, and on a continual basis. Unless the water one uses is really acidic or basic, I can't see testing it while on the road, although I do have a little Ph tester.
Allen Brasel keeps his Stanley boiler full of kerosene when he stores it and the crud that comes out when he washes it out before running the car is eye opening. It seems to work and that boiler is probably 25 years old and steams perfectly, nary a leak. I pump kerosene into the Doble's coil stack when I am going to leave the car standing for a few months.
Becker never worried about it with E-14 and he would get maybe 20 years out of a coil stack and even then we would only replace the superheater and maybe one or two coils down from there. I added blowdowns on both ends of the coil stack on E-23 and blast it down from each end after each run. That trick I learned from Roland Giroux and his vast experience with Whites. His theory, gleaned from the factory mechanics in L. A., was that it was still rather soft, and blowing down each time would scour it out. When I got the car that coil stack was 80 years old, so I figured there must be something good in doing that, and also adopted the idea.
The problem with Doble and White monotubes is that miserable carbon.
I think this winter I am just going to have to design and install a really good separator for the exhaust steam going into the condenser and after the fan turbine, the oil lubricates it's bearings.
Now that I recall, those bulged boilers were indeed copper tubed, and I think your theory is right. The copper stretches and the sheets follow along.
Jim</HTML>