Stainless steel tubes

A special section just for steam engines and boilers, as without these you may as well fit a sail.
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fredrosse
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Re: Stainless steel tubes

Post by fredrosse » Tue Oct 19, 2021 6:26 am

Producing "full penetration" welds for tube attachment is certainly an excellent option, and is allowed within the ASME Boiler Code. Generally this is a very expensive option compared to "rolled and seal welded" tube to tubesheet attachment, but if you do this, with proper quality control, then you are OK here.

As to the question of tube wall thickness effect on boiler heat transfer, the answer is the same as the answer for tube metal materials: It does not matter in any significant way, tube thick or thin, tube copper or steel, boiler thermal performance will not be impacted much.

Of course, if you are talking about using high powered rifle barrels for fire-tubes, with 1 inch outside diameter and 7mm inside diameter, then the small inside diameter would be a problem in getting enough gas flow area to pass the flue gas, but hopefully nobody is considering something like this.
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