Thermalpas field deployment (Taiwan) · Power & Electrical
FPCC Mailiao: no soot-blower tube ruptures recorded since monitoring began
Automated thermal monitoring of 276 soot-blower valves across the Mailiao power-station boilers.
- NT$128.5MTen-year loss baseline
- NT$12.85MAnnual average of that baseline
- 276Soot-blower valves monitored
Figures as reported by FPCC.
The problem
FPCC's Mailiao power station on Taiwan's west coast runs four boilers around the clock to power the petrochemical complex. Each boiler has 100+ soot blowers — high-pressure steam jets that clear coal residue off the boiler tubes. When one of those blowers sticks open and vents steam continuously, it erodes the tube wall until a tube ruptures and the boiler comes down for emergency repair. In the ten years before monitoring, four such incidents set FPCC's loss baseline at NT$128.5 million.
- Ten-year loss baseline before monitoring: FP2, 2000-05-09: NT$31.3M / 3 days; FP3, 2004-04-28: NT$75.5M / 12 days; UPB, 2005-06-07: NT$21.4M / 2 days; UPB, 2005-06-17: NT$0.36M / 2 days.
- Root cause: all four incidents shared three factors — valve anomaly, continuous blowing, and delayed human detection. The requirement was continuous automated monitoring with real-time alerts, not more frequent manual patrol.
- Why a contact RTD rather than infrared: infrared fails when occluded by ash; thermocouples drift at high temperature and need compensation.
What was installed
276 Thermalpas RTD sensors were installed across the Mailiao boilers — 100 on the MHI boiler and 176 on the CE boiler. Each sits on a soot-blower angle-valve outlet, watching for the temperature rise of a stuck-open valve. The plant had previously tried a Japanese infrared system, but those sensors were blinded by ash within weeks. Thermalpas RTDs are contact-type, so they keep reading when coated in soot.
- Coverage spans long-range (superheater), medium (economizer), short (waterwall), AS (air preheater) and DUCT ECO blowers.
- Mailiao customization: high surface contact, IP67 protection, reusable mounting, custom sizing per blower type.
- Soot test: installed at a short-range angle-valve outlet; after 3 weeks the sensor surface was coated with fly ash and temperature accuracy was preserved — direct heat conduction, not an optical path.
The outcome
Since monitoring began, FPCC Mailiao has not recorded a soot-blower-related tube rupture. The ten years before monitoring set the loss baseline: four ruptures, NT$128.5M and 19 days of forced shutdown — an average of NT$12.85M a year. Every root cause was a gap in manual patrol. The earlier Japanese long-range infrared solution was retired after its probes were blocked by fly ash.
- Deployed units at Mailiao: UPA, UPB, UPC, FP1, FP2 and Public Plant 1 MP6.
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