Body steam trap management is one of the key programs in energy management. Considerable amount of steam as energy and water as condensate is lost through failed traps. In a well-maintained steam distribution system distribution loss of 5% is acceptable and losses increase drastically to 10 to 15 % in a poorly maintained system. Trap population is a mix of different types of traps such as thermodynamic or disc type, bimetallic, inverted bucket, float, and thermostatic. Though the professional fraternity as well as management agrees that significant contribution of losses is due to failure of thermodynamics traps where failure rates are as high as 40%, only few companies acted to adopt alternate trap types and reduce the failure rate. Very few have leveraged technology to detect failure as well as diagnose type of failure.
Millions of dollars need to be invested in online trap management systems and fear of uncertainty overwhelmed sound engineering judgement to adopt alternate traps over conventional thermodynamic traps. This prevented addressing the perennial issue of steam loss through traps. 10% loss has become the acceptable norm. This paper discusses current conditions at field based on survey, alternates to disc traps, failure rate reduction after replacing disc traps, strategy to manage traps, and overall net benefits.
Steam trap management program was revisited using extensive field survey data, analyzing types of traps based on application and steam pressure levels. Trap failure rate matrix was developed based on type and pressure levels. Condensate recovery was used to measure or determine the effectiveness of disc type trap replacement. A strategy was developed to maximize condensate recovery with optimized investment. This helped to prioritize areas where disc type traps are to be replaced with suitable alternate types and yield desired results. Actual failure rate comparison was made before and after disc type trap replacement. Condensate recovery improved from 85 to over 92%. It is expected to reach 97%, if all disc type traps are replaced. Failure rate of traps are expected to maintain around 3%.
