Consulting for Air Pollution Control Equipment

Performance Analysis

Diagnostic of the current operating conditions of your electrostatic precipitator, a performance analysis gives you the certainty your plant is compliant with regulations and allows you to anticipate the impact of any process changes.

Evaluation of Fuel Switching

The performance of Electrostatic Precipitators (ESPs) is directly impacted by the chemistry of the coal being fired. Very often coal changes move in the direction of reducing coal sulfur content to lower exit gas SOx emissions. This reduction in coal sulfur content generally has an adverse impact on fly ash resistivity and, in turn, ESP performance. Hamon Research-Cottrell can provide an evaluation of the impact of various coals on ESP performance. This evaluation allows utilities to select coals appropriate to the design of the existing ESP.

Structural Analysis

Hamon Research-Cottrell will evaluate the impact that changing operating conditions will have on existing electrostatic precipitators and fluework. This effort can be as straight forward as relating the new conditions to the original design conditions. It can often involve inspecting and testing the structural condition of older units and evaluating its actual structural state in relation to current or planned operating conditions. Hamon Research-Cottrell's archives contain the original designs of most Research-Cottrell and Buell/GEESI equipment.

Unfortunately there are occasional explosions or other catastrophic events affecting electrostatic precipitators. Hamon Research-Cottrell's structural engineers can provide recommendations on safely dealing with the failure and can provide forensic analysis as to why some failures occurred.