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One of the Oldest Installations of ABRESIST®
Basalt Lined Ash Pipe In North America — Still In Service
after Nearly 4 Decades
Author information - This article was prepared
through joint efforts between Abresist Corp., Urbana, IN.
and Conectiv Energy's B.L. England Station, Beesly's Point,
NJ.
Conectiv Energy’s B.L. England Station,
Beesley’s Point, NJ, started operation in 1962 with
a 129-megawatt coal fired unit. In 1964 the station installed
another coal fired unit, this one with a 156–megawatt
net capacity. Both units have cyclone boilers. The station
also has a 155-megawatt oil burning generating unit.
During construction, the company laid 8”
cast iron pipe to handle the sharp, jagged bottom ash produced
by the cyclone boilers. Since they are located on the coast
in a salt environment, they use salt water for cooling and
in the ash handling systems for transport.
The cast iron pipe couldn’t handle the
sharp jagged bottom ash from the boilers and the caustic salt
water used to sluice it. Since the coal used to fire the boilers
is not pulverized, the bottom ash produced by the cyclone
boilers is more abrasive than normal wet bottom ash.
Bill Gibson, B.L. England Station Manager of
Generation, said, “We knew we were in trouble with the
cast iron pipes soon after we built the plant. We couldn’t
keep them in service. They ruptured a lot. They could not
take the constant pounding of the bottom ash.”
Bill Gibson, B.L. England
Station Manager of Generation (left) and Dave Hagel, Manager
of Maintenance. |
Basalt Lined Pipe Key to Problem
Solving
In 1968, the company installed 840 feet of 8”
I.D. ABRESIST® basalt lined pipe. The ABRESIST pre-engineered
linings are produced by melting volcanic rock and then casting
it into shaped tiles or cylinders, and annealing at carefully
controlled temperatures to attain the desired hardness. The
basalt linings are used in temperatures up to 350°C/662°F
and get smoother with use, ensuring good flowability, avoidance
of plugs, reduced pressure losses, and lower energy costs.
The ABRESIST® pipe was installed underground
running from the boilers to the sluice pond. The basalt lined
pipe could handle the sharp bottom ash sluiced with the caustic
salt water and solved the station’s problem. It is one
of the oldest installations of ABRESIST basalt lined pipe
in North America and is still providing excellent service
today.
To fire the units, the station burns approximately
600,000 to 700,000 ton of coal per year. The station uses
both Powder River Basin (PRB) and eastern bituminous coal.
As a byproduct, the plant produces 60,000 to 70,000 ton of
slag annually. The station sells all of the slag it makes
to a company that washes, sizes, and bags it to be sold as
a sandblast medium and for other uses.
Even though the slag gives the station a lot
of headaches conveying it, the company still needs to produce
the sharpest, hardest, highest quality slag possible so that
it can be sold. When PRB was first introduced to the market,
the company did a significant amount of testing to ensure
that the station could still produce a sellable slag using
the coal.
Environmental Regulators wanted to use the PRB
in Unit 1, which doesn’t have a scrubber. Unit 1 is
still in compliance with Federal regulations, but NJ has more
stringent requirements. Using PRB coal that has lower sulfur
content than Eastern coals would help the station meet NJ
regulations. Unit 2 burns 100% eastern bituminous coal and
has a SO2 wet scrubber on it to meet state and local regulations.
To further complicate the issue, the cyclone
boilers have a very unique requirement. The ash from these
boilers needs to melt and turn into liquid and flow into the
slag tank. This characteristic of coal is called ash fusion
temperature. Eastern coals have a low fusion temperature,
but a higher sulfur content and are ideal for use in cyclone
boilers. Low sulfur coals melt at a higher temperature and
cannot be used in the boilers, but lower sulfur coal would
help the station meet NJ requirements.
Gibson said, “We tested the PRB coal before
we began using it. It would help us meet state requirements,
but we were very concerned. It had to burn and melt, and,
yet, we had to be able to continue to sell the slag. We would
be in big trouble if we couldn’t sell it. We have nowhere
to stockpile it. We learned that the quality of the slag from
PBR was the same. It was just as brittle, very sharp, and
just as hard. It had a little difference in color, but it
was marketable and our ash handling facilities were still
able to handle it.”
Today, the station burns a blend of 30% PRB
coal with 70% eastern bituminous coal in Unit 1. That gets
the station’s sulfur content on Unit 1 down to approximately
1.7 to 1.9% of sulfur in coal and helps them meet regulations.
Dealing with Harsh Abrasives
of Slag and Salt Water 
Maintenance costs for any power plant facility
are a considerable portion of their overall budget –
total Operations & Maintenance Budget at the Beesley’s
Point location totals more than $30 million. Nearly half their
labor dollars can be attributed to maintenance.
To handle the constant problems created by transporting
slag, the company schedules downtime periods twice a year.
They are down four weeks in the spring to get ready for summer
which is their peak period and two weeks in the fall. Gibson
says that not many plants plan downtime that frequently, but
that their maintenance issues are compounded by the harsh
salt water.
Commenting on the abrasion caused by transporting
the slag, Dave Hagel, Manager of Maintenance at B.L. England
Station said, “Transporting slag is one of the most
severe strains you can put on pipe and components. Compound
that with the fact that the station is functioning in the
harshest environment you can have and you have problems. We
have salt water mixed with slag and it slams though the components
and pipe at around 160 pounds of pressure. Then it is accelerated
through a venturi tube. Components like the grinder, the venturi
tube, and the steel piping leading up to the start of the
ABRESIST® pipe, wear out regularly. If we didn’t
do an overhaul every 6 months, we would be stuck. The other
components won’t last. ABRESIST pipe does. I don’t
know what you could ever get that works better than the ABRESIST
lined pipe.”
Since 1968, when the station installed the first
ABRESIST® basalt lined pipe, the company has only replaced
84 feet of ABRESIST pipe. At that time only one length of
the line had failed. The other ABRESIST pipe was fine, but
maintenance officials determined it was best to replace the
other three lengths while they were performing maintenance
on other sections.
Hagel said, “We inspected the ABRESIST®
pipe. The inside of the line was fine. On Unit 2 we could
see right through the pipe. There wasn’t much to see.
For the most part, the only wear we saw was on the face of
the flange and that is because they were improperly lined
up. If they are installed right and lined up, they won’t
wear out.”
Only one 18-foot section of the ABRESIST®
pipe installed in the late 60‘s had failed. “The
outside on the failed pipe had broken out, right out of the
inside tank. It was getting hammered with hot salt-water river
flow and was in the worst possible environment in mud and
salt water. Once we exposed it, it was just as easy to slide
it out to the next most accessible joint and replace it. We
did that in the 1990’s,” Hagel said.
 “With
ABRESIST® pipe, I have one less headache to deal with
and less maintenance expense. I don’t worry about it
blowing out. We really don’t even talk about it or think
about it. We don’t worry about the ABRESIST pipe because
we almost never have to deal with it. The only time we deal
with it is when we have something operationally happens prematurely
to cause a failure or just the fact that it’s almost
40 years old.”
“When we uncovered the ABRESIST® pipe,
no one even had a history of it. We weren’t even sure
how to buy it. That’s why I know the product is fine
because no one knew anything about it. We simply had not had
a problem with it,” Hagel said.
“From the maintenance side, using ABRESIST®
pipe is a no-brainer. Once you install it, you don’t
touch it. Once its there, it’s there! It is a non-maintenance
item for us. “
For emergencies, the station keeps two 18 -foot
sections of ABRESIST® pipe around. Hagel says that is
probably one too many.
Other Potential Usage of ABRESIST® Products
B.L. England Station has considered replacing
other areas in the system with Abresist Corporation tiles.
Hagel said,“We have an eductor that cleans out the area
around the slag run and transports slag that accumulates in
the pit into the grinder box. The slag goes up through 2 –
45 degree angles and a 90-degree turn to get back into the
grinder box. These elbows wear out because of the water velocity
and because of the slag that is being sucked out of the pit
“
“Right now, we have gone through stainless
steel materials like crazy. We have probably replaced it 20
times since I came here in 1980. Now we have some type of
a lined fibercast pipe that has failed once already. We upgraded
it and we’re going to see how long it lasts. If it fails
again, I will check with Abresist Corporation. If Abresist
Corp. can fabricate what we need, we will probably never have
to touch it again.”
Commenting on the impact that Abresist Corp.
has had on the maintenance costs of the plant, Gibson said,
“Profitability is “king”. You have to stay
competitive. To be competitive, you have to hold down costs.”
“A big factor that helped us hold
down costs is that years ago we dealt with the cost of maintaining
our bottom ash transport system by replacing cast iron pipes
with ABRESIST® basalt pipe. We are still reaping the dividends
of that decision today. The ABRESIST pipe is still working
for us after almost 40 years of service and still transporting
over 70,000 tons of bottom ash every year.”
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