Firelock76 Chemically pure water is that which has no impurities...and were a quantitiy evaporated from a perfectly clean vessel, there would be no solid matter remaining." "But strangely, investigation has proved that water of this purity rapidly corrodes iron...more readily than 'hard' water does."
Chemically pure water is that which has no impurities...and were a quantitiy evaporated from a perfectly clean vessel, there would be no solid matter remaining."
"But strangely, investigation has proved that water of this purity rapidly corrodes iron...more readily than 'hard' water does."
Maybe you just hit on what went wrong, and it has nothing to do with "pool chemicals."
Do you suppose someone thought, "We'll solve the boiler scale problem, just use RO (reverse osmosis) to purify the water from its mineral content." They didn't go the next step and pay attention to the dissolved gas content (O2) as they do with a high-pressure watertube steam system in a power plant, and they ended up corroding the steel? Do you suppose the "conventional" approach of using hard water and doing the boiler maintenance to periodically remove scale protects the metal from corrosion?
These various witches brews you speak of were formalized by the French TIA water treatment followed by Porta's recommendations. Livio Dante (L.D.) Porta's recommendation was to use doses of water softening chemicals but not "blow down" the boiler very often so as to allow a high concentration of "dissolved solids" to accumulate. This primordeal soup in the boiler instead of distilled (or RO purified) water apparently did a good job of keeping the boiler free of both scale and corrosion.
Part of the brew, as you mention, is tannin. I don't have my copy of Wardale in front of me to figure out if the tannin prevents foam formation or if the anti-foam is yet another chemical. The problem is that with this mineral soup in the boiler, scale will not form, but you will "blow bubbles" when the stuff boils, and those bubbles will wreck your superheater and maybe even your pistons if they entrain a slug of water.
If the wrecked this boiler by using purified water, an experiment the "old timers" never ran because distilled water was costly and RO was not in wide use, this is a useful piece of information for steam locomotive lore, but it is too bad this knowledge was gained in this costly fashion.
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
All this talk about scale, corrosion and other nastys jogged my memory a bit more.
So I went DEEPER into the archives of the "Fortress Firelock", so deep I had to bring Ginger the Attack Basset with me for protection, 'cause you don't know what's down there. And lo and behold I found...
"Maxims And Instructions For The Boiler Room", published by Theo. Audel & Co. of 63 Fifth Ave, (corner of 13th St.) New York City in 1903. Blew the dust off (gasp! wheeze!) and looked up "corrosion."
Found some GOOD stuff in there, too much to go into unfortunately, but for a good insight for what those who lived with steam on a daily basis had to say it can't be beat. Such as...
"Chemically pure water is that which has no impurities...and were a quantitiy evaporated from a perfectly clean vessel, there would be no solid matter remaining."
This gem...
"The lines of a certain great R.R. traverse a country where the water is very hard and they are compelled to resort to some method of precipitating the lime that is held in solution, They have made a compound and use it as follows: in a barrel of water of a capacity of fifty gallons they put 21 pounds of carbonate of soda and 35 pounds of white caustic soda. A certain amount according to the necessities of the case is poured into the tender water tank at each filling. When the water is pumped into the boiler the heat completed the precipitation and aggregation (of scale causing solids) and this does away with all the trouble of the tenders or injector tubes clogging up."
Another surprise:
"It is recorded that the engineer of the French ocean steamer St. Laurent omitted to remove a bar of zinc when repairing and cleaning out his boilers. On opening the boilers at the end of the voyage to his great surprise he found that the zinc had disappeared, but the boilers were entirely free from scale and the boiler plates not injured in the least."
Another scale preventer, and this will surprise you...
"Bark, such as is used by tanners, has an excellent effect on boiler incrustations. It is used as follows: Throw into the tank a quantity of bark in sufficient quantity to turn the water to a light brown color. Repeat this operation every month, using only half the quantity after the first month. Add one pound of muriate of ammonia for every 2000 gallons of water used. This will have the effect of softening and disintegrating the carbonate of lime and other impurities deposited by the action of evaporation." They do suggest putting the bark in a sack so it doesn't clog feed lines, so they're ahead of what you might be thinking.
There's other things in the book, way too much to go into, but to me the lesson is haunt those used bookshops, antique shows, and flea markets for these old books. There's pure gold in 'em!
I found the "New Catechism of the Steam Engine" in the archives too, this one from 1903 as well. It's a lot more interesting than the "Baltimore Catechism" I had to study in Catholic school, let me tell 'ya!
You gotta love those old-timers, they were a lot more sophisticated than many of us give them credit for, and they'll surprise you every time.
Juniatha 838 parts taken ( cut ?) from boiler ?? Well , dunno - can't read their minds nor am I into trying to tell the future and I won't ask Sara . Only , as far as my technical mind is concerned I wouldn’t spend a dime on replacing parts of 70 years old steel shell with parts of 70 years old steel shell - each cut to suit and then welded into position? .. within a riveted boiler ?
838 parts taken ( cut ?) from boiler ?? Well , dunno - can't read their minds nor am I into trying to tell the future and I won't ask Sara .
Only , as far as my technical mind is concerned I wouldn’t spend a dime on replacing parts of 70 years old steel shell with parts of 70 years old steel shell - each cut to suit and then welded into position? .. within a riveted boiler ?
If there is corrosion damage to the shell of 844's boiler, it will likely be in so many places as to make patching uneconomical even if there were a good way to accomplish and then test the welding. I also expect corrosion at and under the lower seams, where I don't think the wastage can be made good without physical disassembly of the riveted joints -- not a likely thing for them to undertake.
When I said 'components' I was thinking in terms of smokebox - convection section - radiant section. I doubt there is any cost-effective solution better than replacing a pitted 844 convection section, and perhaps chamber, with the equivalent from 838. I do not know and have not seen anything about the condition of the water spaces in the radiant section, but I'd have to wonder how much scaling and corrosion exists there, too.
I suspect there are at least two orders of magnitude cost difference between swapping boilers and building a new welded boiler -- probably more. Even UP is going to have limits to its out-of-pocket spending, especially with 4014 'in the pipeline' - I'm not going to speculate on the current "steam team's" economic priorities, but I'd be prepared to bet that swapping, not new build, is the route they will take if the shell problems prove serious.
Note that this approach is not my personal preference, either: I thoroughly agree with Juniatha that a new boiler ought to be built, and its convection section should be all-welded, and that the whole of the boiler should be optimized for modern welded construction. My one question would be with the 840-degree nominal superheat, which in my opinion might necessitate redesign, perhaps substantial redesign, of the valves, their cooling, and their lubrication -- but I would consider that work a great potential improvement, both mechanically and thermodynamically, to the FEF-3 design.
It all boils down to (sorry, couldn't resist) money on the one hand, and vision on the other. I do have to wonder about the priorities of a team that could allow a power boiler to get into the observed state, though...
Welcome back Juniatha! You were missed young lady! The forum's not the same without the "Steam Queen"!
No , guys : if you want this 4-8-4 to run again under her own steam take that chance for what it is and build a new boiler at last - adapt design for 300 psi / 840 °F and before anything else forget about riveting !
It will be even more challenging , yet allow old Chally 3985 to have a new one , too !
My best wishes for good recovery of these engines , so one fine day we shall see them again back up on their trains and will exclaim :
“ Welcome back my friends
to the show that never ends !”
Juniatha
S. Connor Is it all buildup or actual corrosion?
There are areas of nucleate corrosion under the scale, as often occurs with deposits this severe. We obviously won't know the extent of the pitting until UP shows us cross-sections of the tubes.
What I'm hoping is that the severe corrosion is limited to the highly-heated zones of the tubes and sheets, and is not (as) severe in the other waterspaces, particularly the areas where shell plates adjoin in the convection section. It is hard to type with both sets of fingers crossed!
Terrible! I can't believe how something like it could happen! This could keep 844 out for a LONG time. Looking at the tubes, it hard to imagine what the inside of the boiler looks like. I don't think this going to help UP Steam program at all.
Is it all buildup or actual corrosion?
Reverse osmosis (RO) is a way of removing salt and other substances from water. Regular osmosis is if you separated a tank of salt water with a tank of fresh water with a plastic membrane -- the osmotic pressure is the tendency of the fresh water to diffuse across the membrane to dilute the salt water. It works on the "nature abhors" a vacuum principle of the random motions of molecules. In reverse osmosis, you have to overcome the "osmotic pressure" that makes this happen and add some pressure to get a useful flow rate across the membrane and you extract fresh water from the salt water to cross over the to fresh water side.
An ordinary particle filter will remove sediments -- the RO membrane is sometimes called a "filter" because it removes ions -- the constituents of salt dissolved in water. As mentioned earlier, it doesn't remove dissolve oxygen, but that is mainly a problem with ultra-pressure boilers in stationary power plants.
If they supplied the locomotive with pure water from RO, there should not be a problem with salt corrosion, but there may be corrosion problems from dissolved gasses that RO does not remove.
Johnny
844 seems to be having a run of bad luck with flues. If I remember right there was a failure with some fairly new ones about a decade ago in California. I don't remember hearing what the cause was. Faulty manufacture?
_____________
"A stranger's just a friend you ain't met yet." --- Dave Gardner
NorthWest What parts does the 838 have left? I would think the boiler would have been one of the first things to be exchanged.
What parts does the 838 have left? I would think the boiler would have been one of the first things to be exchanged.
She still has her boiler. The steam crew has said more than once that it's in much better shape than the 844's thanks to decades of further use.
Overmod Almost certainly on the ground. RO generally requires reasonably high pressure and some reasonable time to accomplish its work -- both these characteristics make a ground-based water purification plant more sensible. RO-purified water will still require additives to get it to the correct pH, correct zero oxygen, etc. suitable for locomotive boiler use; the additive package now supplies only desired chemistry and doesn't require a chemical tradeoff like 'softening' with zeolites to get the least objectionable TDS.
Almost certainly on the ground. RO generally requires reasonably high pressure and some reasonable time to accomplish its work -- both these characteristics make a ground-based water purification plant more sensible. RO-purified water will still require additives to get it to the correct pH, correct zero oxygen, etc. suitable for locomotive boiler use; the additive package now supplies only desired chemistry and doesn't require a chemical tradeoff like 'softening' with zeolites to get the least objectionable TDS.
Agree with RO being on the ground.
Pressures for RO aren't all that high for city water, home RO units work just fine from normal household water pressure. Pressure for desalinating sea water is about 800 PSI, which is less than half what is needed to pump water over the Tehachapis.
I asked the guy selling us a water softener about using a whole house RO, his comment was that the water would be too pure and lead to more corrosion of the pipes. A little hardness can be a good thing.
- Erik
Overmod Juniatha Now , next questions will be : * fund raising for new construction * decide on either historical rivetted or ( technically much preferable ) welded construction within given historic boiler outer shape * find a construction company to realize the one-off job I'd like to see your #2 happen, but I think the far most likely scenario, if the shell is as badly pitted as we fear, is going to be to swap boiler components from 838.
Juniatha Now , next questions will be : * fund raising for new construction * decide on either historical rivetted or ( technically much preferable ) welded construction within given historic boiler outer shape * find a construction company to realize the one-off job
Now , next questions will be :
* fund raising for new construction
* decide on either historical rivetted or ( technically much preferable ) welded construction within given historic boiler outer shape
* find a construction company to realize the one-off job
I'd like to see your #2 happen, but I think the far most likely scenario, if the shell is as badly pitted as we fear, is going to be to swap boiler components from 838.
(Juniatha, good to see you here.)
That's very interesting. There's not a lot of metallurgical control over scrap made steel. But there are not a lot of mills that use and mix ore's for good quality.
Randy
All this talk about corrosion reminded me of something, so I went deep into the archives here at the "Fortress Firelock" and pulled out a special issue of "Trains" from 2008 called "Steam Today."
In an article titled "Rebuild or Reboiler" Lynn Moedinger of the Strasburg Railroad said something I found very interesting, if not downright disquieting.
I quote:
"One of the biggest killers of boilers is corrosion. New steel is so bad we gave up on carbon steel for boiler jackets. We use stainless steel cylinder jackets too, and (2-10-0) 90's tender is 100 percent welded stainless steel."
"We find that flues don't last nearly as long. Our engines have heat lamps in them 100 percent of the time when they're not being used, and that's to prevent condensation. And even then, we still get blisters on the flues, and it's strictly a function of the steel. We're using stainless steel for anything that could corrode, wherever we're allowed too."
Since it's prone to cracking during repeated heating and cooling it's illegal to use stainless steel in boilers. Moedinger blames the problems with newer steel as being due to the amount of recycled content in it.
So, it behooves steam operators to watch what they put in the boiler, for more reasons than one.
Randy Stahl blue streak 1 BaltACD One of the significant costs of steam in it's day was water treatment, this situation is evidence of why. So what do today's steam boiler experts use as water treatment if any ?. The electric power steam generating plants might give us an answer ? I'm betting they don't use cheap pool chemicals.
blue streak 1 BaltACD One of the significant costs of steam in it's day was water treatment, this situation is evidence of why. So what do today's steam boiler experts use as water treatment if any ?. The electric power steam generating plants might give us an answer ?
BaltACD One of the significant costs of steam in it's day was water treatment, this situation is evidence of why.
One of the significant costs of steam in it's day was water treatment, this situation is evidence of why.
So what do today's steam boiler experts use as water treatment if any ?. The electric power steam generating plants might give us an answer ?
I'm betting they don't use cheap pool chemicals.
Hi All
This is what I would characterise as a case of neglect or ignorance.
I'm not sure how anyone familiar with HP steam generation could or would use pool chemicals to treat boiler feedwater. It certainly isn't something I can imagine.
I'm retired from a number of things, among them steam generation and powerhouse operation.
I have to say those pictures on Trainorders re 844 are really, really bad and even more than that, sad.
I've never seen such pitting and corrosion on the water side of the tubes and especially at the tubesheet joints. I'm left wondering what is left of the rest of the boiler waterside joints, staybolts. welds etc, never mind the condition of the rest of the boiler sheets and and boiler auxiliaries like pumps, injectors, valves etc....
I hope its not as bad as those pictures, but if it is, and it may well be, 844 is in big trouble......
The whole point of boiler feedwater treatment, expensive as it is, is to prevent this kind of damage to any boiler. the repairs are infinitely more expensive than the treatment regime will ever be.
Pool chemicals are not intended to work with HTHP water to the best of my knowledge. Pool water temperatures are nowhere near those found in an operating HP boiler, locomotive or otherwise. Neither is the operating chemistry the same in my experience.
Standard feedwater treatment is applied after chemical analysis of the feedwater has been conducted. A treatment regime is specified and applied and regularly tested under operating conditions, hence part of the expense involved. There's lot of treatment programmes available I'm sure. There were in my day.
in addition to this water treatment, regular washouts, especially with 'once through' operation are part of regular operation practice. So too if the boilers are out of service of any length of time they are 'laid up' wet or dry which involve a bunch of other procedures.
Its all about preventing scaling and corrosion.
Large thermal power plants have their own labs to do this feedwater/condensate analysis and adjust treatment accordingly. In the plants in which I worked, weekly analysis of feedwater and condensate was standard on LP Heating Boilers and it was daily on HP process boilers. The UP steam programme must have treatment standards including regular testing and analysis. If they don't I'm to say the least amazed. considering the value of the assets (read locomotives) these water treatments are intended to protect.
Dissolved solids, free oxygen and water additives all have an effect on feed water and its use and effect in steam generation. Florine and chlorine are among the most corrosive of chemicals. When they are subjected to high temperature and pressure conditions their corrosive effects become that much stronger as with free oxygen and TDS.
If pool chemicals were used...that was worse than amateur practice in these conditions on 844.
I'm more than amazed.......
Charlie
Chilliwack, BC
It remains to be seen just how badly damaged, if at all, 844's boiler is. Remember that's one thick tube of steel, it would take some doing to seriously mess it up.
Flues and flue sheets, OK that's another matter, but those can be easily (all things considered) replaced.
Paul of CovingtonI assume it's to remove salts from the water.
Yes; that's the primary difference between RO and fine filtration: the RO can remove dissolved ions.
Is it something that would be used to treat the water before it is put in the tender, or is it on-board the tender or engine?
I wonder what else was damaged? Blowdown valves, cylinders, valves, and other "wet" parts on the engine. I'll bet the tender tank and feedwater heaters, air compressor, injectors, turbo generator, feedwater pump. have a voided warranty too.
I gotta wonder if they used the same crap in the challenger?
I would never expect this from the UP with their vast steam experience.
Sorry , to me that looks like this will mean building a new boiler for 844 !
- if the engine is to run again , that is ..
... and , sure , it would have been easily and absolutely avoidable with continuous and proper application of TIA or PT water treatment .
I was told by people at the National Railway Museum in York, England that they use RO filtered water on their locomotives that run on a standard route, say in and out of the museum. Don't know what they do on a a longer excursion but the ones I've been on, a fire brigade water truck is usually used.
"Precious bodily fluids? " Yeeee Haaa!
Thanks, Overmod. I assume it's to remove salts from the water. Is it something that would be used to treat the water before it is put in the tender, or is it on-board the tender or engine? I'm a little familiar with reverse osmosis, but I've never heard of it being used for locomotives.
Paul of Covington54light15, I'm curious: what is this RO that needs to be filtered?
RO is reverse osmosis; it's a kind of filter rather than something needing to be filtered.
54light15 "... and a RO filter if one is available."
"... and a RO filter if one is available."
54light15, I'm curious: what is this RO that needs to be filtered?
54light15 Flouride, did you say? I don't think the UP is run by Communists. So, prolly not.
Flouride, did you say? I don't think the UP is run by Communists. So, prolly not.
Well that's good, we don't want 844's precious bodily fluids being poisoned, now do we?
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