COMPARISON OF STEAM BLOWING & SONIC CLEANING
| Sr. No. |
Observation |
Steam Blowing |
Sonic Cleaning |
| 1. |
Input requirement |
Steam operated |
Comp. Air (Pneumatically operated) |
| 2. |
Operation |
Blowing of steam on tubes. |
Travelling of sound waves on tubes. |
| 3. |
Cleaning |
Cleans only assessable surface where jets of steam reach. |
Cleans all surface even inaccessible surface can cleaned by sound waves. |
| 4. |
Tube life |
Impingement of steam on tubes decreases tube life, increases corrosion and requires frequent changes of tubes. |
Only sound waves passes on tube & fluidizes dust. No impingement of jet hence no corrosion and increases tube life. |
| 5. |
Method of Cleaning |
Intermittent cleaning once or twice a shift i.e. cleaning after every small duration and is done after formation of heavy layer, hence variable & poor heat transfer ratio. |
Continuous cleaning operates keeps heat transfer surfaces continuously clean. Hence Constant high heat transfer ratio. |
| 6. |
Operating cost. |
Requires fully dry steam. |
Plant air can be used. (Please refer cost comparison of steam V.s. Sonic Cleaning.) |
| 7. |
Labour |
Manually operated |
Fully automatic operation controlled by programmer. |
| 8. |
Maintenance |
Requires special attention for maintenance of chain pully gear box arrangement. |
Only one moving point hence negligible maintenance. |
| 9. |
Piping |
Requires IBR approved piping due to H.P. Steam |
General pipeline can be used for air. |
| 10. |
Applications |
Can be used only on water tube boiler & not on smoke tube boilers. |
Can be used for any app- lication like smoke tube Boiler, bag house ,dust collectors etc. |
|
