Combating Erosive Wear of Induced Draft Fans in Coal Fired Power Plant

Solid particle erosion due to the repeated impact of fly ash and unburnt carbon particles is a serious and persistent problem faced by boiler components such as boiler tubes, boiler walls and induced draft (I.D.) fans, etc. especially in coal-fired power plants. Pressure and Process Boilers, Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh (India) is a leading manufacturer of boilers and the major problem being faced by them is the erosion of I.D. fans. In order to minimize the incurred economic losses, this company allowed us to carry out the research work on the project of combating erosion of the blades of I.D. fans with some surface modification techniques. After through literature review three different types of Fe-C-Cr based hardfacing electrodes (designated as HF1, HF2 and HF3) were deposited by MMAW process and four different types of D-Gun sprayed surface coatings, i.e. WC-12%Co, Cr3C2-25NiCr, Ni-20%Cr and Al2O3-13%TiO2 were applied on ASTM A36 steel.