A consideration of the losses in boiler efficiency, due to the effects of excess air, clearly indicates the necessity of maintaining the brick setting of a boiler tight and free from air leaks. In view of the temperatures to which certain portions of such a setting are subjected, the material to be used in its construction must be of the best procurable.

Boiler settings to-day consist almost universally of brickwork—two kinds being used, namely, red brick and fire brick.

The red brick should only be used in such portions of the setting as are well protected from the heat. In such location, their service is not so severe as that of fire brick and ordinarily, if such red brick are sound, hard, well burned and uniform, they will serve their purpose.

The fire brick should be selected with the greatest care, as it is this portion of the setting that has to endure the high temperatures now developed in boiler practice. To a great extent, the life of a boiler setting is dependent upon the quality of the fire brick used and the care exercised in its laying.

The best fire brick are manufactured from the fire clays of Pennsylvania. South and west from this locality the quality of fire clay becomes poorer as the distance increases, some of the southern fire clays containing a considerable percentage of iron oxide.

Until very recently, the important characteristic on which to base a judgment of the suitability of fire brick for use in connection with boiler settings has been considered the melting point, or the temperature at which the brick will liquify and run. Experience has shown, however, that this point is only important within certain limits and that the real basis on which to judge material of this description is, from the boiler man’s standpoint, the quality of plasticity under a given load. This tendency of a brick to become plastic occurs at a temperature much below the melting point and to a degree that may cause the brick to become deformed under the stress to which it is subjected. The allowable plastic or softening temperature will naturally be relative and dependent upon the stress to be endured.

With the plasticity the determining factor, the perfect fire brick is one whose critical point of plasticity lies well above the working temperature of the fire. It is probable that there are but few brick on the market which would not show, if tested, this critical temperature at the stress met with in arch construction at a point less than 2400 degrees. The fact that an arch will stand for a long period under furnace temperatures considerably above this point is due entirely to the fact that its temperature as a whole is far below the furnace temperature and only about 10 per cent of its cross section nearest the fire approaches the furnace temperature. This is borne out by the fact that arches which are heated on both sides to the full temperature of an ordinary furnace will first bow down in the middle and eventually fall.

A method of testing brick for this characteristic is given in the Technologic Paper No. 7 of the Bureau of Standards dealing with “The testing of clay refractories with special reference to their load carrying capacity at furnace temperatures.” Referring to the test for this specific characteristic, this publication recommends the following: “When subjected to the load test in a manner substantially as described in this bulletin, at 1350 degrees centigrade (2462 degrees Fahrenheit), and under a load of [Pg 303] 50 pounds per square inch, a standard fire brick tested on end should show no serious deformation and should not be compressed more than one inch, referred to the standard length of nine inches.”

In the Bureau of Standards test for softening temperature, or critical temperature of plasticity under the specified load, the brick are tested on end. In testing fire brick for boiler purposes such a method might be criticised, because such a test is a compression test and subject to errors from unequal bearing surfaces causing shear. Furthermore, a series of samples, presumably duplicates, will not fail in the same way, due to the mechanical variation in the manufacture of the brick. Arches that fail through plasticity show that the tensile strength of the brick is important, this being evidenced by the fact that the bottom of a wedge brick in an arch that has failed is usually found to be wider than the top and the adjacent bricks are firmly cemented together.

A better method of testing is that of testing the brick as a beam subjected to its own weight and not on end. This method has been used for years in Germany and is recommended by the highest authorities in ceramics. It takes into account the failure by tension in the brick as well as by compression and thus covers the tension element which is important in arch construction.

The plastic point under a unit stress of 100 pounds per square inch, which may be taken as the average maximum arch stress, should be above 2800 degrees to give perfect results and should be above 2400 degrees to enable the brick to be used with any degree of satisfaction.

The other characteristics by which the quality of a fire brick is to be judged are:

Fusion point. In view of the fact that the critical temperature of plasticity is below the fusion point, this is only important as an indication from high fusion point of a high temperature of plasticity.

Hardness. This is a relative quality based on an arbitrary scale of 10 and is an indication of probable cracking and spalling.

Expansion. The lineal expansion per brick in inches. This characteristic in conjunction with hardness is a measure of the physical movement of the brick as affecting a mass of brickwork, such movement resulting in cracked walls, etc. The expansion will vary between wide limits in different brick and provided such expansion is not in excess of, say, .05 inch in a 9-inch brick, when measured at 2600 degrees, it is not particularly important in a properly designed furnace, though in general the smaller the expansion the better.

Compression. The strength necessary to cause crushing of the brick at the center of the 4½ inch face by a steel block one inch square. The compression should ordinarily be low, a suggested standard being that a brick show signs of crushing at 7500 pounds.

Size of Nodules. The average size of flint grains when the brick is carefully crushed. The scale of these sizes may be considered: Small, size of anthracite rice; large, size of anthracite pea.

Ratio of Nodules. The percentage of a given volume occupied by the flint grains. This scale may be considered: High, 90 to 100 per cent; medium, 50 to 90 per cent; low, 10 to 50 per cent.

The statement of characteristics suggested as desirable, are for arch purposes where the hardest service is met. For side wall purposes the compression and hardness limit may be raised considerably and the plastic point lowered.

[Pg 304]

Aside from the physical properties by which a fire brick is judged, it is sometimes customary to require a chemical analysis of the brick. Such an analysis is only necessary as determining the amount of total basic fluxes (K₂O, Na₂O, CaO, MgO and FeO). These fluxes are ordinarily combined into one expression, indicated by the symbol RO. This total becomes important only above 0.2 molecular equivalent as expressed in ceramic empirical formulae, and this limit should not be exceeded.[75]

From the nature of fire brick, their value can only be considered from a relative standpoint. Generally speaking, what are known as first-grade fire brick may be divided into three classes, suitable for various conditions of operation, as follows:

Class A. For stoker-fired furnaces where high overloads are to be expected or where other extreme conditions of service are apt to occur.

Class B. For ordinary stoker settings where there will be no excessive overloads required from the boiler or any hand-fired furnaces where the rates of driving will be high for such practice.

Class C. For ordinary hand-fired settings where the presumption is that the boilers will not be overloaded except at rare intervals and for short periods only.

Table 61 gives the characteristics of these three classes according to the features determining the quality. This table indicates that the hardness of the brick in general increases with the poorer qualities. Provided the hardness is sufficient to enable the brick to withstand its load, additional hardness is a detriment rather than an advantage.

An approximate determination of the quality of a fire brick may be made from the appearance of a fracture. Where such a fracture is open, clean, white and flinty, the brick in all probability is of a good quality. If this fracture has the fine uniform texture of bread, the brick is probably poor.

In considering the heavy duty of brick in boiler furnaces, experience shows that arches are the only part that ordinarily give trouble. These fail from the following causes:

Bad workmanship in laying up of brick. This feature is treated below.

The tendency of a brick to become plastic at a temperature below the fusing point. The limits of allowable plastic temperature have already been pointed out.

Spalling. This action occurs on the inner ends of combustion arches where they are swept by gases at a high velocity at the full furnace temperature. The most troublesome spalling arises through cold air striking the heated brickwork. Failure [Pg 305] from this cause is becoming rare, due to the large increase in number of stoker installations in which rapid temperature changes are to a great degree eliminated. Furthermore, there are a number of brick on the market practically free from such defects and where a new brick is considered, it can be tried out and if the defect exists, can be readily detected and the brick discarded.

Failures of arches from the expansive power of brick are also rare, due to the fact that there are a number of brick in which the expansion is well within the allowable limits and the ease with which such defects may be determined before a brick is used.

Failures through chemical disintegration. Failure through this cause is found only occasionally in brick containing a high percentage of iron oxide.

With the grade of brick selected best suited to the service of the boiler to be set, the other factor affecting the life of the setting is the laying. It is probable that more setting difficulties arise from the improper workmanship in the laying up of brick than from poor material, and to insure a setting which will remain tight it is necessary that the masonry work be done most carefully. This is particularly true where the boiler is of such a type as to require combustion arches in the furnace.

Red brick should be laid in a thoroughly mixed mortar composed of one volume of Portland cement, 3 volumes of unslacked lime and 16 volumes of clear sharp sand. Not less than 2½ bushels of lime should be used in the laying up of 1000 brick. Each brick should be thoroughly embedded and all joints filled. Where red brick and fire brick are both used in the same wall, they should be carried up at the same time and thoroughly bonded to each other.

All fire brick should be dry when used and protected from moisture until used. Each brick should be dipped in a thin fire clay wash, “rubbed and shoved” into place, and tapped with a wooden mallet until it touches the brick next below it. It must be recognized that fire clay is not a cement and that it has little or no holding power. Its action is that of a filler rather than a binder and no fire-clay wash should be used which has a consistency sufficient to permit the use of a trowel.

All fire-brick linings should be laid up four courses of headers and one stretcher. Furnace center walls should be entirely of fire brick. If the center of such walls are built of red brick, they will melt down and cause the failure of the wall as a whole.

Fire-brick arches should be constructed of selected brick which are smooth, straight and uniform. The frames on which such arches are built, called arch centers, should be constructed of batten strips not over 2 inches wide. The brick should be laid on these centers in courses, not in rings, each joint being broken with a bond equal to the length of half a brick. Each course should be first tried in place dry, and checked with a straight edge to insure a uniform thickness of joint between courses. Each brick should be dipped on one side and two edges only and tapped into place with a mallet. Wedge brick courses should be used only where necessary to keep the bottom faces of the straight brick course in even contact with the centers. When such contact cannot be exactly secured by the use of wedge brick, the straight brick should lean away from the center of the arch rather than toward it. When the arch is approximately two-thirds completed, a trial ring should be laid to determine whether the key course will fit. When some cutting is necessary to secure such a fit, it should be done on the two adjacent courses on the side of the brick away from the key. It is necessary that the keying course be a true fit from top to bottom, and after it has been dipped and driven it should not extend below the surface of the arch, [Pg 306][Pl 306]
[Pg 307] but preferably should have its lower ledge one-quarter inch above this surface. After fitting, the keys should be dipped, replaced loosely, and the whole course driven uniformly into place by means of a heavy hammer and a piece of wood extending the full length of the keying course. Such a driving in of this course should raise the arch as a whole from the center. The center should be so constructed that it may be dropped free of the arch when the key course is in place and removed from the furnace without being burned out.

Care of Brickwork—Before a boiler is placed in service, it is essential that the brickwork setting be thoroughly and properly dried, or otherwise the setting will invariably crack. The best method of starting such a process is to block open the boiler damper and the ashpit doors as soon as the brickwork is completed and in this way maintain a free circulation of air through the setting. If possible, such preliminary drying should be continued for several days before any fire is placed in the furnace. When ready for the drying out fire, wood should be used at the start in a light fire which may be gradually built up as the walls become warm. After the walls have become thoroughly heated, coal may be fired and the boiler placed in service.

As already stated, the life of a boiler setting is dependent to a large extent upon the material entering into its construction and the care with which such material is laid. A third and equally important factor in the determining of such life is the care given to the maintaining of the setting in good condition after the boiler is placed in operation. This feature is discussed more fully in the chapter dealing with general boiler room management.

Steel Casings—In the chapter dealing with the losses operating against high efficiencies as indicated by the heat balance, it has been shown that a considerable portion of such losses is due to radiation and to air infiltration into the boiler setting. These losses have been variously estimated from 2 to 10 per cent, depending upon the condition of the setting and the amount of radiation surface, the latter in turn being dependent upon the size of the boiler used. In the modern efforts after the highest obtainable plant efficiencies much has been done to reduce such losses by the use of an insulated steel casing covering the brickwork. In an average size boiler unit the use of such casing, when properly installed, will reduce radiation losses from one to two per cent., over what can be accomplished with the best brick setting without such casing and, in addition, prevent the loss due to the infiltration of air, which may amount to an additional five per cent., as compared with brick settings that are not maintained in good order. Steel plate, or steel plate backed by asbestos mill-board, while acting as a preventative against the infiltration of air through the boiler setting, is not as effective from the standpoint of decreasing radiation losses as a casing properly insulated from the brick portion of the setting by magnesia block and asbestos mill-board. A casing which has been found to give excellent results in eliminating air leakage and in the reduction of radiation losses is clearly illustrated on page 306.

Many attempts have been made to use some material other than brick for boiler settings but up to the present nothing has been found that may be considered successful or which will give as satisfactory service under severe conditions as properly laid brickwork.

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FOOTNOTES

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