The Dead Weight safety valve consists of a valve V which is made

of gun metal to prevent rusting. It rests on the gun metal seat S and is fixed to the top of a
vertical steam pipeP. The pipe has a flange F at the bottom for fixing at the top of the boiler
shell.

A weight carrier C is suspended from the top of the boiler. It carries cast iron rings (i.e.,
weight W). the total weight must be sufficient to the keep the valve on its seat against the
normal working pressure.

Working of Dead Weight safety valve:

When the steam pressure in the boiler exceeds the normal working pressure, it lifts the
valve with its weight. The excess steam therefore escapes through the pipe to the
atmosphere, until the pressure reaches its normal value.

It is the simplest type of safety valve; it is suitable for stationary boilers only, because it
cannot withstand the jerks and vibration of mobile (marine) boilers. Another disadvantage of
this valve is the heavy weight required to balance the steam pressure. Hence, it is not
suitable for high pressure boilers. The function of the fusible plug is to put-off the fire in the
furnace of the boiler when the water level falls below an unsafe level and thus avoid the
explosion which may take place due to overhearing of the tubes and the shell.

Description of fusible plug:

It consists of a hollow gun metal body screwed into the fire box crown plate. A hollow gun
metal plug is screwed into the gun metal body by tightening the hexagonal flange in it.
There is another copper plug locked with the gun metal plug by pouring a low melting point
metal (lead) into the groove provided for the same.

Working of fusible plug:

During the normal operation, the fusible plug is submerged in water which keeps the
temperature of the fusible metal below its melting point.

But when the water level falls below the top of the fusible plug, it is uncovered by the water.
The fusible plug therefore melts by the heat of the furnace. Thus the copper plug drops
down and is held within the gun metal body by the ribs. The opening so made allows the
steam rush into the furnace and extinguish the fire. The damage to the fire box which could
burn up, is avoided.

A forced circulation boiler was first introduced by La-Mont in the year 1925 which is used in
Europe and America. This is a modern high pressure boiler (water tube type steam boilers)
working on forced circulation system.

Working principle of La Mont Boiler

The image shows the flow circuit of La Mont Boiler.

I will explain working of each and every part in La Mont boiler one by one.

Steam separator drum

The la Mont boiler consists of a steam separator drum which is placed wholly outside the
boiler setting . The drum receives a mixture of steam and water from the evaporator tubes
and feed water from the economizer. The steam is separated from water in the drum.
Circulating pump
The water from the drum is then drawn to the circulating (centrifugal) pump through the
down-comer. The pump circulates water (“forced circulation”) equal to 8 to 10 times the
weight of steam evaporated. This prevents the tubes from being overheated.

Distributing header
The circulating pump delivers the feed water to the distributing header with orifices at a
pressure above the drum pressure.

Evaporator
The header distributes water through orifices into the evaporator tubes acting in parallel.
Orifice in the header controls the flow of water to the evaporator tubes. Here part of the
water is evaporated and a mixture of steam and water from these tubes enters the drum.

Convection superheater
The steam produced in the boiler is nearly saturated. This steam as such should not be
used in the steam turbine. The presence of moisture in it will cause corrosion of turbine
blades, etc. to raise the temperature of steam and thereby to increase the turbine efficiency,
superheater is used.

The principle of convection superheater is similar to steam generating tubes of the boiler.
The hot flue gases at high temperature sweep over convection superheated tubes and raise
the temperature of steam. Convection superheater thus receives heat from the flue gases
flowing from the combustion chamber, entirely by convective heat transfer. Such a
superheater may be more conveniently located since it is not necessary for it to “see” the
furnace.

Saturated steam from the top of the drum enters the convection superheater placed in the
path of the flue gases and is superheated.

Steam outlet
Superheated steam from the superheater passes out to the steam turbine through the
steam outlet.

Economizer
The quantity of superheated steam thus delivered to turbine is continuously made up in the
form of feed water. Feed water supplied by the feed pump is heated in the economizer on
its way to the steam separator drum.

The economizer is a device used to preheat the feed water using the hot gases leaving the
boiler. Before the gases are let off to the atmosphere, they are made to flow in a definite
passage in the economizer so that some of the heat in the hot gases, which otherwise gets
wasted, can be used to preheat the feed water. The preheated water requires only a small
amount of heat to be supplied in the boiler, resulting in some saving of the fuel burnt. This
results in an increase in the boiler efficiency.

Air preheater
Since the heat of the exit gases cannot be fully extracted through the economizer, the air
preheater is employed to recover some of the heat escaping in these gases. These exit
gases preheat the air from the blower in the air preheater. The preheated air is supplied to
the furnace for combustion.

Capacity
The capacity of la-mont boiler is about 50 Tonnes/hr of superheated steam at a pressure of
170 kgf/sq.cm. and at a tempera