Greater Power To Sonic Soot Blowing

Having written about soot blowers for boilers and subsequently learned about the need for effective boiler cleaning of SCRs, economisers and superheaters, I was delighted to have the opportunity recently of an exclusive interview with Donald Cameron, CEO of Quattrosonics.

Mr. Cameron explained that earlier this year, his company successfully introduced a 4 model range of Quattro sonic soot blowers (75 Hz, 120 Hz, 230 Hz, 350 Hz) especially for application within the power generation industry in boilers, superheaters, economisers and SCRs.

"As a result of the interest in our sonic soot blowers, we have been asked to design an even more powerful model to effectively clean and prevent particulate build-up within very large items of plant. These include large ESPs, silos and steam generation plant. Hence our new Q5 model soon to be added to our existing Quattro range."

Mr. Cameron went on to explain that this new sonic soot blower is an extremely powerful 60 Hz unit.

My response to this was "So why is such a powerful 60 Hz model needed?"

Mr Cameron explained further:
"Well it is all to do with the very long and powerful wavelength it produces. For example when a car with its music centre turned up loud passes you in the street, the first sound you hear before it passes you is the deep base sound. Then, as it approaches and actually passes by, you can also hear the higher sounds. This relates to the wavelength of each particular sound."

Given that I am not particularly scientifically-minded, I asked for a little more detail in 'layman's terms" and Mr Cameron kindly obliged with the following:

"Let's take musical instruments as an example ... a high pitched sound such as a flute makes has a short wavelength; this would equate to our Q1 model of sonic soot blower. By contrast, a base drum has a very long frequency and equates to our new Q5 model.

"Each model in our sonic soot blower range has its own very important application within industry but it is the demand to provide long distance, low frequency material debonding that is the reason for the design and introduction of our new, powerful Quattro Q5 sonic soot blower."

So there you have it ... hot off the press, something exciting and new in audosonics. It is just this type of advancement in sonic cleaning technology that could herald the end of the traditional soot blower. Only time will tell but for now it adds yet more fuel to the sonic soot blower vs steam soot blower debate.

Footnote: You can now follow sonic soot blowers on Facebook!