steam boiler size

doug_14

I AM THINKING ABOUT GETTING BIODIESEL IN BY RAIL FROM THE MID WEST BUT YOU MUST HEAT THE CAR TO 75F TO 85F TO OFF LOAD .DOES ANYONE KNOW THE MINIMUN BOILER SIZE TO HEAT 1 25000 GALLON RAILCAR AT 20 DEGREE OUTSIDE TEMP AND HOW LONG IT TAKES

Al Letellier_9

boiler size

Hate to use this oft quoted answer, but it depends.......
The size of the rail car, the temp of the fluid, the outdoor temp (should be about the same) if the car is not insulated, the temp rise, the weight of the fuel, how do you heat the car ( does it have an internal coil?)...so many things to consider. I used to do this a lot at the local paper mill years ago, and it didn't take very long to heat up a car,but we had a HUGE biomass boiler on hand. I think this would be a problem for an engineer to work on. It might be cheaper to roll the tanker into a heated shelter.
Doing the math, assuming a gallon of biodiesel weighs about 7 lbs. and you want to raise it 65 degrees in temp, that's 175,000 BTUS to raise one pound one degree farenheit, or a total of 10,500,000. BTU"s to raise the entire load 65 degrees. A boiler that big would do it in one hour, if you could circulate it fast enough.