Soot Blowers vs. AcoustiClean® Sonic Horns
If you can’t take the heat, get out of the factory
Oriented Strand Board (OSB) is one of the most popular materials for flooring, walls and roof decks. The waste material—wood dust, wood flakes and wet/green bark—are sent to a boiler furnace.
Problem
Soot blowers warped in high heat and damaged the equipment
Soot can affect a boiler’s heat transfer efficiency, and eventually clog and break down the equipment. However, soot blowers create another problem—as a leading US engineered wood manufacturer discovered.
All the soot blowers in their OSB factory had warped, unable to withstand the boiler furnace’s intense temperatures. Aside from getting damaged, they were causing damage: the pressurized air had already spoiled several tubes. It was already affecting their line speeds and maintenance costs, and they were ready to switch to a better cleaning technology.
Solution
Sonic horns blast 100% of the soot, without warping or equipment damage
They installed the AcoustiClean® Model ACL 34230, a sonic horn that cleared the tubes with sound vibrations. The vibrations didn’t damage the tubes, and minimized particle accumulation in “blind spots” that mechanical soot blowers and rapping systems often missed.
The cast iron horns could also withstand temperatures up to 2000ºF—which was 300ºF higher than the point where soot blowers began to warp.
The AcoustiClean® Model ACL 34230 was installed at the top of the thermal heat exchanger. Holes were drilled into the refractory, then mounted with rings on top of the incoming duct.
Results
As temperatures stay steady, productivity (and profits) rise
Visual inspections made every 3 days showed no “peaking” of the ash on top of the tubes. The heat transfer coefficient program also showed that temperatures remained steady at 25 million BTU, while soot blowers would drop to 24 million BTU and a low of 18 million BTU within a month.
After such impressive results, the company decided to cut out all soot blowers from its factories and replace them with AcoustiClean® Model ACLs.
