The book provides a brief description of the important functional sections of the power boiler and highlights salient features of their design. It characterizes coal and outlines features of heat transfer from the point of view of their impact on boilers design.; It interweaves the discussion with metallurgical factors covering structural degradation, deformation, corrosion and welding. Metallurgical issues which have direct bearing on plant life and reliable boiler performance are specially discussed.
Another unique feature of the book is that its presentation of the subject matter emphasizes that operation and maintenance engineers have to make common cause with metallurgy in order to humble the forces causing unscheduled outages resulting in lower plant load factors and lower plant life.
Dr. Rajendra Kumar was honoured with the degree of Doctor of Metallurgy in recognition of his published contributions to metallurgical sciences and technology. Starting his career as teaching faculty at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur and the Banaras Hindu University, Dr. Kumar joineds the National Metallurgical Laboratory where he rose to became the Scientist Director and later moved to Regional Research Laboratory, Bhopal as its Director. He was honoured with the Commonwealth Visiting Professorship for the year 1979-80 at the University of Aston in Birmingham, Uk.