Stable operation of reciprocating grates in a large heating project
A large centralized heating project in a provincial capital in northern China supplies winter heating to 100,000 households, placing extremely high demands on the stability, reliability, and efficiency of its boiler combustion equipment. The project ultimately chose our partner factory’s reciprocating grates. After five heating seasons of operation, they have delivered excellent overall performance and have become a benchmark case for the industry.
The project faced two core challenges. First, the heating season is long (up to six months), so the equipment must run continuously and reliably, with an extremely low failure rate. Second, the fuel is locally produced, low-grade bituminous coal with high moisture and ash content, so combustion efficiency and heating performance had to be guaranteed. Our partner factory customized an HZL-40 reciprocating grate for the project, ensuring stable operation through three major technical innovations.
First, it uses reinforced heat-resistant grate bars. A special heat-treatment process raises the high-temperature strength, solving the problem of traditional bars being easily damaged by high temperature. Over five heating seasons, only 3% of the grate bars were replaced — far below the industry average. Second, the drive system for the moving grate was optimized with a variable-frequency motor and precision reducer, making the grate motion smoother and cutting the failure rate by 80%. Third, an intelligent control system automatically adjusts the reciprocating frequency and air supply of the grate according to outdoor temperature and heating load, keeping combustion efficiency steady above 95%, saving 10% of fuel compared with the equipment previously used in the project, and saving more than 2,000 tons of coal per heating season. In addition, with our partner factory’s “one item, one code” service, maintenance personnel can scan a code to instantly access equipment parameters and maintenance guides, greatly improving maintenance efficiency.
