From the Beauty of Ice Sculpture to the Curse of Ask Sculpture!

If you trek to the Lake Michigan in the next couple weeks or so and hike along the frozen shore, you might find yourself standing on top of miles of spectacular ice caves.

Tom Auch, a photography teacher at Northern Michigan College in Traverse City, Mich., did just that this week and he brought back some amazing photographs.

This year the Great Lakes have more ice cover than any time in the last 20 years and are quickly approaching the 1979 record of 95 percent cover. The deep freeze has given visitors an opportunity to see some remarkable sights, for example Lake Superior's frozen surface has meant visitors can reach the Apostle Island ice caves for the first time in several years. Around 4,000 people have been trekking to this remote Wisconsin area to see those fantastic sights each weekend.

 Ice Cave   

These huge frozen peaks remind me of the equally huge ash mountains which can build up in certain boiler sections, especially within the economizer section. However whereas the Lake Michigan ice caves produce an inspiring if temporary sight, severe ash build up within power generation plant can provide a permanent and costly problem resulting in a continued reduction in the boiler’s thermal efficiency.

However Primasonics Sonic Horns powerful but totally safe ‘sonic sound waves’, travelling at 344 m/1130 feet per second and in a 360° radius can actually prevent the ash from settling on the boiler tubes and other surfaces and therefore thermal efficiency is enhanced. The sonic cleaners are also widely used to prevent particulate build up in baghouse filters, ESPs, air heaters and SCRs. They provide 24/7 fully automatic ash debonding thus providing a cost effective and efficient boiler de-slagging regime whilst the boiler remains on-line. For further information take a look at www.primasonics.com & www.quattrosonics.com

                                                                                                        

Sonic Horn in Boiler Plant

No More 'Impossible Situations'

I was reading an article on Charles Rozell ‘Chuck’ Swindoll who is currently senior pastor at Stonbriar Community Church in Frisco, Texas. Not only is he a pastor, he also is an author, educator and radio presenter. One of his most famous quotations is:-

‘We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations’ 

That certainly rings true concerning some of the particulate build up and material flow problems we have solved over the years in a wide range of industries with our Sonic Horns. A large proportion of our customers had never heard either of Primasonics International (although we have installations in over 55 countries worldwide) or indeed sonic horns/acoustic cleaners. All they knew was that they had either a serious particulate build up problem in their plant or material storage and flow problem in their silos and bins.

So by working closely together, evaluating the technical and dimensional information, we were able to recommend the correct acoustic cleaning solution and thus eliminate their ‘impossible situation’. Whether it is material build up and blockage problems in bins, silos, rail cars etc., or particulate build up problems in boiler plants, fans, ESPs and SCRs – Primasonics have a ‘sonic solution’ which will work for you! 

Find out how to seize this ‘great opportunity’ by clicking on this link – www.sonic-horns.com

Explosive Cleaning - The Sonic Alternative

Sonic horns have in recent years become established as the preferred alternative to soot blowers. This mechanical engineering forum page offers an insight into why this is.

However, the soot blower is not the only method of industrial cleaning to find itself rivalled, indeed overtaken, by sonic horn technology. There's a method called 'Explosive Cleaning', favored by power plants and waste to energy plants for boiler cleaning in particular, whereby an explosive gas is ignited within the boiler, producing shock waves which dislodge material build up. Explosive cleaning can also be used to dislodge ash build up in areas of plant such as superheaters, economizers and coal silos. Note: If you are involved with silo storage, you can read more about silo cleaning with audiosonic technology.

Whilst explosive cleaning can be effective, it carries with it some distinct disadvantages when compared to sonic horns.  The main ones are:

• Explosive cleaning of a boiler means the boiler has to be shut down. Downtime costs money.
• Explosive cleaning can be too slow for a plant's needs. 
• Explosive cleaning needs greater advance planning before being introduced. 

Photo: Sonic horn installed for boiler cleaning

Our involvement with many industrial plants around the world has taught us many things over the years and one of the most important is that minimal downtime is crucial. For that one reason alone, explosive cleaning just cannot compete with sonic horn cleaning.

Soot Blowers Go Sonic On Boilers

Soot blowers have been used for many years for industrial boiler tube cleaning but their popularity is increasingly on the decline. Why? Well, client feedback tells us that the actual process of cleaning which steam soot blowers administer is abrasive and can lead to serious boiler tube erosion. That in turn delivers boiler inefficiency, downtime and potentially expensive repair costs.

Sonic horns, or sonic soot blowers as some people now call them, deliver an entirely different cleaning method which is non-abrasive, eradicating the worry of boiler tube erosion. Moreover, sonic horns offer the extra advantage of preventing material build-up in the first place.

It is not surprising, therefore, that as a sonic horn supplier, we find ourselves approached more and more often with the request to replace standard soot blowers with our sonic horn technology.

This video was filmed in a waste to energy plant in the UK where exactly this scenario took place. If you look closely (slightly left of centre and 'north west' of the engineer's orange safety helmet) you will see the sonic horn fitted to the side of the boiler economizer section.

Read more about why sonic horns are now the preferred soot blower alternative.

Improving Thermal Efficiency With Sonic Horns: Boiler Economizer Cleaning

Economizing on energy consumption is vital for all types of industry but surprisingly this is no new concept.

It was more than 150 years ago in fact that the very first successful design of economizer was used - in steam engines. Patented by Edward Green in 1845, it increased the steam-raising efficiency of the boilers.

Today the need to reduce energy consumption is an even greater priority and applies to most industries around the world. For them, improving thermal efficiency and generating as much heat as possible from burnt fuel is key. This is where maintenance and correct functioning of economizers comes in. Keeping economizers clean is crucial. That may sound simple but it is not!

Many economizers have a complex tube configuration (plain tubes and finned tubes) which means that although traditional soot blowers might be installed to do basic cleaning, there can be problems leading to the shutdown of the boiler for manual cleaning. This is where sonic horns (aka sonic soot blowers) come into their own.

The following testimonial from one of our clients who operates a large waste-to-energy plant speaks for itself:

"We have had an internal problem with our Economizer mid bank steam soot blowers for some time. The tube configuration in that bank is such that it has plain tubes at the top and finned tubes at the bottom of the same bank. Historically, we would have had to shut the boiler down to go into the economizer pretty soon after the development of such a fault in order to repair the steam stoot blower and manually clean the tube bank because of the rate of fouling being so high. However, currently draught loss has remained insignificant thanks to the operation of the sonic horns. I would happily endorse your product to any interested party in the future".

This photograph shows 3 of our sonic horns fitted to the economizer of the waste to energy plant referred to in the above testimonial. Read more about our sonic horns for boiler economizer cleaning.

Choo Choo Sonic Horns

I am sure that steam trains hold a fascination for most of us – whether it is their sleek design, quality of build or simply just their sheer power!

Coming from Ireland, my boyhood experience of steam trains was via The Belfast & County Down Railway formed in 1848. It had several key lines, however as I lived in a country town of Dromore, the main line from Belfast to Newcastle was ‘my’ railway line, especially as my love of Newcastle, County Down has never waned.

This particular line opened in 1869 and as was the case through the Victorian railway heyday period, the railway companies built grand hotels at the end of key rail terminals. Having recently attended another Big Band Concert and listened to one of my favourite Glen Miller songs – The Chattanooga Choo Choo (first recorded by him in 1941), I was interested to learn a little about the history on which this marvellous song was founded.

The first Chattanooga Choo Choo Train was Cincinnati Southern Railroad's small wood burning steam locomotive that started its journey through history from Cincinnati, Ohio on March 5, 1880. Nearly all trains travelling to the South passed through Chattanooga. The wood-burning "Choo Choo" was the first to provide non-stop service. In the Miller era, Mack Gordon’s song traces the progress of the train from New York’s Pennsylvania Station south to Chattanooga’s sprawling Terminal Station, making ‘Track 29’ famous. The original old fashioned wood burning trains were replaced by modern trains which were superb in their design, construction and performance and certainly stood the test of time. Likewise our Primasonics Sonic Horns lead the way in exactly those three essential attributes – design, construction and performance.

Back in Ireland of course as excited young boys, my brother and I were forever poking our heads out of the carriage window which usually resulted in us getting particles of soot being ‘deposited’ in our eyes. The main means of removal was for our mother to lick the end of her hanky and poke out the offending ‘soot build up’ – such simple but happy excursions!

It perhaps is somewhat ironic that today our range of Sonic Horns have replaced the old fashioned steam soot blowers because they offer a modern, proven, non destructive means to prevent and remove soot/ash build up from occurring within industrial boilers, superheaters, economisers and air heaters etc within the power generation industry thus significantly improving the boiler’s thermal efficiency and reducing fuel usage. The photograph shows one of our new range of horns (1 of 17 installed) located on a boiler with the now redundant steam sootblower to the left.