What is Importance of Steam Accumulator in Boilers?

Steam Accumulator

Steam Accumulator, a shell type pressure vessel that's used to store steam generated by a boiler and use it for varying load demands.
Steam Boilers are usually designed for a certain capacity at that they could supply steam continuously that's also it's most continuous rating. So, the boiler designed for higher steam needs may be made to run on lower loads or lower steam demands however a boiler designed for lower loads cannot run on higher loads or higher steam demands.

Generally, it's determined that the steam demand in a process isn't fixed and keeps changing with time. for a few periods of time, there might be lower load requirements than the boiler capacity while for a few amounts of your time there may be high load requirements. 
Low load requirements may be easily met by the boiler but high steam requirements cannot be met by this boiler as it isn't designed for such capacity. this is where a steam accumulator plays an important role as they store steam generated by the boiler and use it as and when required.
Steam Accumulators are designed in much the way that when there's an excess of steam, that when lower hundreds are needed than the boiler maximum load, the excess steam gets to keep in an accumulator and when the process steam load demand will increase, the steam from both the boiler and the accumulator can be released to fulfill up the process demand.
Installing steam accumulator would bring about a large reduction in boiler size, thereby reducing the cost of a boiler, installation cost, operating cost and increased boiler efficiencies.
Steam Accumulator would be a sensible and cost-effective solution if,

•     The plant already has a boiler of a certain capacity but for some reasons, the process load demand will increase for certain time period in a day while for other time, process load demand falls even below the maximum capacity.

•     Plant planning to install a boiler for their process should consider the average heat load demand of their process for deciding the maximum boiler capacity, and for the overload conditions, the steam accumulator may be installed.

Deciding the capacity of the steam accumulator isn't an easy task as it requires full time monitoring the steam flow rates during a process and making an organized chart showing the excess steam generation and overload steam demand. This information is collected for at least two to three days and any other load variations are recorded. Then this information helps in calculating the maximum capacity of a Steam Accumulator.
We, at Thermodyne, have manufactured, supplied and commissioned Steam Accumulators to many of our purchasers. And their continuous operation with time has ensured the reliability that we consistently work upon.