Rules of thumb for steam accumulators

[daylami]

I'm looking to install a steam accumulator but I am left with the difficult task of estimating potential energy savings associated with moving from a two boiler operation to a one boiler operation. The boilers are in question are water tube boilers at are currently operating at 40% capacity.

The main savings will be from reduced boiler drives electricity consumtpion and improved boiler efficiency when a single boiler operates at full load.

Has anyone any experience in evaulating the energy savings when retrofitting an accumulator?

Thanks in advance.

 

[TD2K]

No I haven't but I would think they would only work on relatively short steam demand spikes. I remember looking at Hick's Standard Calaculations for Mechanical Engineering and you didn't get much steam out of one which makes sense if you think of where you are moving within the thermodynamic region of saturated steam and water.

I would approach it as today's steam demand over two boilers at their current efficiency needs so much fuel and electricity at so many $ per day. Run all your demand through one boiler (with the accumulator sized to handle the peak loads) and redo the fuel calcs at the higher single boiler efficiency. Then you need to include the cost of the steam accumulator and see what the payout is.