Forced Draught, Induced Draught, Balanced Draught and Artificial Draught

a) Forced Draught b) Induced Draught c) Balanced Draught Artificial Draught

It has been seen that the draught produced by chimney is affected by the atmospheric conditions. It has no flexibility, poor efficiency and tall chimney is required. In most of the modern power plants, the draught used must be independence of atmospheric condition, and it must have greater flexibility (control) to take the fluctuating loads on the plant.

Today’srgelasteam power plants requiring 20 thousand tons of steam per hour would be impossible to run without the aid of draft fans. A chimney of an reasonable height would be incapable of developing enough draft to remove the tremendous volume of air and gases (400 × 10³ m³ to 800 × 10³ m³ per minutes). The further advantage of fans is to reduce the height of the chimney needed.

The draught required in actual power plant is sufficiently high (300 mm of water) and to meet high draught requirements, some other system must be used, known as artificial draught. The artificial draught is produced by a fan and it is known as fan (mechanical) draught. Mechanical draught is preferred for central power stations.

Forced Draught

In a forced draught system, a blower is installed near the base of the boiler and air is forced to pass through the furnace, flues, economizer, air-preheater and to the stack. This draught system is known as positive draught system or forced draught system because the pressure and air is forced to flow through the system. The arrangement of the system is shown in figure. A stack or chimney is also in this system as shown in figure but its function is to discharge gases high in the atmosphere to prevent the contamination. It is not much significant for producing draught therefore height of the chimney may not be very much.

Figure: Forced draught

Induced Draught:

In this system, the blower is located near the base of the chimney instead of near the grate. The air is sucked in the system by reducing the pressure through the system below atmosphere. The induced draught fan sucks the burned gases from the furnace and the pressure inside the furnace is reduced below atmosphere and induces the atmospheric air to flow through the furnace. The action of the induced draught is similar to the action of the chimney. The draught produced is independent of the temperature of the hot gases therefore the gases may be  much heat as possible in air-preheater and an izer and air-preheater are incorporated in the hat the temperature of the gas handled by the em and its function is similar as mentioned in forced draught but total draught produced in induced draught system is the sum of the draughts produced by the fan and chimney. The arrangement of the system is shown in figure.

Figure: Induced draught

Balanced Draught:

It is always preferable to use a combination of forced draught and induced draught instead of forced or induced draught alone.

If the forced draught is used alone, then the furnace cannot be opened either for firing or inspection because the high pressure air inside the furnace will try to blow out suddenly and there is every chance of blowing out the fire completely and furnace stops.

If the induced draught is used alone, then also furnace cannot be opened either for firing or inspection because the cold air will try to rush into the furnace as the pressure inside the furnace is below atmospheric pressure. This reduces the effective draught and dilutes the combustion.

To overcome both the difficulties mentioned above either using forced draught or induced draught alone, a balanced draught is always preferred. The balanced draught is a combination of forced and induced draught. The forced draught overcomes the resistance of the fuel bed there fore sufficient air is supplied to the fuel bed for proper and complete combustion. The induced draught fan removes the gases from the furnace maintaining the pressure in the furnace just below atmosphere. This helps to prevent the blow –off of flames when the doors are opened as the leakage of air is inwards.

The arrangement of the balanced draught is shown in figure. Also the pressure inside the furnace is near atmospheric therefore there is no danger of blowout or there is no danger of inrushing the air into the furnace when the doors are opened for inspection.