A
chimney is a system for venting hot
flue gases or
smoke from a
boiler,
stove,
furnace or
fireplace to the outside
atmosphere. They are typically almost vertical to ensure that the hot gases flow smoothly, drawing air into the
combustion through the chimney effect (also known as the
stack effect). The space inside a chimney is called a
flue. Chimneys may be found in buildings, steam locomotives and ships. In the US, the term
smokestack (colloquially,
stack) is also used when referring to locomotive chimneys. The term
funnel is generally used for ship chimneys and sometimes used to refer to locomotive chimneys.. Chimneys are tall to increase their draw of air for combustion and to disperse pollutants in the flue gases over a greater area so as to reduce the pollutant concentrations in compliance with regulatory or other limits.
The term
chimney may also be applied to natural features, particularly in
rock formations.
History
Romans used tubes inside the walls to draw smoke out of bakeries but real chimneys appeared only in northern Europe in the
12th century. Industrial chimneys became common in the late
18th century.
Chimneys have traditionally been built of brick, both in small and large buildings. Early chimneys were of a simple brick construction. Later chimneys were constructed by placing the bricks around tile liners. To control downdrafts venting caps (often called
chimney pots) with a variety of designs are sometimes placed on the top of chimneys.
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the methods used to extract
lead from its ore produced large amounts of toxic fumes. In the north of
England, long near-horizontal chimneys were built, often more than 3 km (2 mi) long, which typically terminated in a short vertical chimney in a remote location where the fumes would cause less harm. Lead and silver deposits formed on the inside of these long chimneys, and periodically workers would be sent along the chimneys to scrape off these valuable deposits.
Construction
Due to brick's limited ability to handle transverse loads, chimneys in houses were often built in a "stack", with a fireplace on each floor of the house sharing a single chimney, often with such a stack at the front and back of the house. Today's
central heating systems have made chimney placement less critical, and the use of non-structural gas vent pipe allows a flue gas conduit to be installed around obstructions and through walls.
In fact, many modern high-efficiency heating appliances don't require a chimney. Such appliances are typically installed near an outside wall, and a noncombustible wall thimble allows
vent pipe to be run directly through the outside wall.
Industrial chimneys are commonly referred to as
flue gas stacks and are typically external structures, as opposed to being built into the wall of a building. They are generally located adjacent to a steam-generating boiler or industrial furnace and the gases are carried to it with ductwork. Today the use of reinforced
concrete has almost entirely replaced brick as a
structural component in the construction of industrial chimneys.
Refractory bricks are often used as a lining, particularly if the type of fuel being burned generates flue gases containing acids. Modern industrial chimneys sometimes consist of a concrete
windshield with a number of flues on the inside. The 300 metre chimney at
Sasol Three consists of a 26 metre diameter windshield with four 4.6 metre diameter concrete flues which are lined with refractory bricks built on rings of
corbels spaced at 10 metre intervals. The reinforced concrete can be cast by conventional formwork or sliding formwork. The height is to ensure the pollutants are dispersed over a wider area to meet legislative or safety requirements.
Chimney Tops
A chimney pot is placed on top of the chimney to inexpensively extend the length of the chimney, and to improve the chimney's draft. A chimney with more than one pot on it indicates that there's more than one fireplace on different floors sharing the chimney.
A chimney cap is placed on top of the chimney to keep birds and squirrels from nesting in the chimney. They often feature a rain guard to keep rain from going down the chimney. A metal wire mesh is often used as a
spark arrestor to minimize burning debris from rising out of the chimney and making it onto the roof.
A
chimney cowl or wind directional cap is helmet shaped chimney cap that rotates to align with the wind and prevent a back draft of smoke and wind back down the chimney.
A chimney damper is a metal spring door placed at the top of the chimney with a long metal chain that allows you to open and close the chimney from the fireplace.
In the late
Middle Ages in
Western Europe the design of
crow-stepped
gables arose to allow maintenance access to the chimney top, especially for tall structures such as
castles and great
manor houses.
Chimney draught or draft
» :(See the
Flue gas stacks article for more details)
When coal, oil, natural gas, wood or any other fuel is combusted in a stove, oven, fireplace, hot water boiler or industrial furnace, the hot combustion product gases that are formed are called flue gases. Those gases are generally exhausted to the ambient outside air through chimneys or industrial flue gas stacks (sometimes referred to as smokestacks).
The combustion flue gases inside the chimneys or stacks are much hotter than the ambient outside air and therefore less
dense than the ambient air. That causes the bottom of the vertical column of hot flue gas to have a lower
pressure than the pressure at the bottom of a corresponding column of outside air. That higher pressure outside the chimney is the driving force that moves the required combustion air into the combustion zone and also moves the flue gas up and out of the chimney. That movement or flow of combustion air and flue gas is called "natural draught/draft",
"natural ventilation", "chimney effect", or
"stack effect". The taller the stack, the more draught or draft is created.
Designing chimneys and stacks to provide the correct amount of natural draught or draft involves a number design factors, many of which require trial-and-error reiterative methods.
As a "first guess" approximation, the following equation can be used to estimate the natural draught/draft flow rate by assuming that the
molecular mass (for example, molecular weight) of the flue gas and the external air are equal and that the frictional pressure and heat losses are negligible:
»
where:
|
|
| Q | = chimney draught/draft flow rate, m³/s
|
| A | = cross-sectional area of chimney, m² (assuming it has a constant cross-section)
|
| C | = discharge coefficient (usually taken to be from 0.65 to 0.70)
|
| g | = gravitational acceleration, 9.807 m/s²
|
| H | = height of chimney, m
|
| Ti | = average temperature inside the chimney, K
|
| Te | = external air temperature, K
|
Drawbacks
A characteristic problem of chimneys is they develop deposits of
creosote on the walls of the structure when used with wood as a
fuel. Some types of wood, such as pine, generate more creosote than others. Deposits of this substance can interfere with the airflow and more importantly, they're
flammable and can cause dangerous
chimney fires if the deposits ignite in the chimney. Thus, it's recommended — and in some countries even mandatory — that chimneys be inspected annually and cleaned on a regular basis to prevent these problems. The workers who perform this task professionally are called
chimney sweeps. In the
middle ages in some parts of Europe, a
crow-stepped gable design was developed, partially to provide access to chimneys without use of ladders.
Masonry (brick) chimneys have also proved particularly susceptible to crumbling during
earthquakes. Government housing authorities in quake-prone cities like
San Francisco and
Los Angeles now recommend building new homes with stud-framed chimneys around a metal flue. Bracing or strapping old masonry chimneys hasn't proved to be very effective in preventing damage or injury from earthquakes. Perhaps predictably, a new industry provides "faux-brick" facades to cover these modern chimney structures.
Other problems include "
spalling" brick, in which moisture seeps into the brick and then freezes, cracking and flaking the brick and loosening mortar seals.
Dual-use chimneys
Some very high chimneys are used for carrying antennas of
mobile phone services and low power
FM/
TV-transmitters. Special attention must be paid to possible
corrosion problems if these antennas are near the exhaust of the chimney.
In some cases the chimneys of power stations are used also as
pylons. However this type of construction isn't very common, because of corrosion problems of conductor cables.
The
Dům Dětí a Mládeže v Modřanech in
Prague,
Czech Republic is equipped with an observation deck.
Cooling tower used as an industrial chimney
At some power stations, which are equipped with plants for the removal of
sulfur dioxide and
nitrogen oxides, it's possible to use the
cooling tower as a chimney. Such cooling towers can be seen in Germany at the
Power Station Staudinger Grosskrotzenburg and at the
Power Station Rostock. At power stations that are not equipped for removing sulfur dioxide, such usage of cooling towers could result in serious corrosion problems.
Notable chimneys
External results
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