CONSTRUCTION OPTIMIZATION OF HOT WATER FIRE-TUBE BOILER USING THERMOMECHANICAL FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS.

Exploitation experience of hot water boiler plants indicates relatively frequent and permanent breakdowns resulting from the accident state of various elements of the boiler. In addition to the damages caused by the corrosion processes and inadequate management of the plant, the phenomena of fatigue of boiler elements exposed to high pressures and temperatures can occur. Due to high pressure and temperature certain boiler elements are exposed to, high strain and stress of these elements can eventually lead to breakdowns. In this paper, a hot water fire tube boiler, produced by "Minel-Kotlogradnja" Belgrade, type TE110V, installed within the plant "Technical Faculties" at Faculty of Mechanical Engineering in Nis, Serbia, is analyzed. Thermomechanical stress-strain analysis is performed with loads typically occurring during operation. Finite element analysis is performed using ANSYS Workbench 17 Software package, while the CAD model is formed using SOLID WORKS 2015. The results were used to investigate and to give recommendations for the thickness of tube plate of the first reversing chamber based on determined functional dependence of equivalent stress in the tube plate from the thickness of the plate. The noted functional dependence was determined by Kriging response surface based on results of virtual numerical experiment with different thicknesses of the tube plate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]