Case Study: North American Pulp Mill achieves longer feed tube life and lower maintenance with Babcock & Wilcox Diamonized® Feed Tubes

North American Pulp Mill extends feed tube life 10 years with Babcock & Wilcox

The customer, a North American pulp mill, faced a challenge with premature wear on its Kraft recovery boiler's sootblower feed tubes, which caused steam leaks and frequent maintenance. The mill considered coated and thermal-sprayed tubes but required a more durable solution. They selected Diamonized feed tubes from Babcock & Wilcox.

Babcock & Wilcox's Diamonized feed tubes provided a much harder surface through a patented process that hardened the metal itself, eliminating coating failures. The tubes performed for nearly 10 years and approximately 70,400 cycles. This resulted in over $825,000 in total savings from reduced maintenance and materials, plus an estimated $126,000 in steam savings per tube, across the mill's 60 sootblowers.