Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
IMECE2010
November 12-18, 2010, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
IMECE2010-399
Wesley R. Bussman
John Zink Company, LLC
Tulsa, OK U.S.A.
wes.bussman@johnzink.com
Keywords:
ABSTRACT
Process heaters are among the largest energy consumers in
industry. Many of them were built years ago and often are not
well sealed which leads to excessive air infiltration. Air leaks
may be caused by cracks in the wall, by sight ports that are not
properly sealed or may even be left open, failure to close air
registers for burners that are out of service, improper sealing of
penetrations through the heater walls, and by excessive draft
levels in the heater. These leaks reduce energy efficiency and
indirectly increase pollution emissions as more fuel must be
consumed for a given production rate. Leaks may also directly
cause NOx emissions to increase due to increased excess
oxygen. Excessive air leakage can indirectly cause process
burners to operate improperly. The excess oxygen level in a
heater is normally controlled to a certain target value, typically
about 2-3% by volume for gaseous fuels. Process burners are
designed assuming that all of the air for combustion goes
through the burner. However, if a significant amount of air is
leaking into a heater, the measured excess oxygen level may be
on target but not enough of the air is coming through the burner
which can adversely affect performance. The flame length may
be dramatically increased as the flame searches for air to
complete combustion which often causes flame impingement
on process tubes. The heat flux distribution may be shifted as
the flame length increases. The flames may even become
unstable if they are sufficiently starved for air. The draft level
in a heater varies with elevation which means that air
infiltration depends not only on the size of the leak opening, but
also on its location. This paper will include an analysis of how
excess air infiltration affects thermal efficiency and how the
location of the leak and the heater draft level affect the amount
of air infiltration. The impact of air infiltration on burner
performance will be discussed.
Techniques will be
recommended for detecting air leaks and how to correct them.
INTRODUCTION
Fig. 1 shows a schematic of a cabin-style process heater
used to heat hydrocarbon fluids in refineries and chemical
plants [1]. Approximately 65-90% of a processing plants total
energy demand goes into process heating in the form of fired
heaters [2]. Petroleum refining is the second most energyintensive manufacturing industry in the U.S. and accounted for
approximately 7% of the total U.S. consumption in 2002 [3].
The thermal efficiency of natural draft heaters used in refineries
typically ranges from 75 to 85% [4].
Fig. 2: Sankey diagram for the energy flows into and out of a
furnace
Increasing the amount of excess air in a combustion
process decreases heater efficiency because some of the energy
released during combustion is wasted heating the excess air
from ambient to the stack gas exit temperature [11,12]. Fig. 3
shows the calculated available heat lost as the amount of excess
air (determined by measuring the excess O2 in the flue gas)
increases [13]. The graph also shows that more available heat
is lost as the flue gas temperature increases. In general, most
plants try to keep the flue gas temperature at about 400F if
possible to maximize thermal efficiency. They do not want to
go below the dew point of the exhaust gases for fear of causing
condensation that could corrode the equipment. Fig. 4 is a
similar plot but for a fixed flue gas temperature (400F) and
multiple fuels. Again it can be seen that increasing excess air
reduces thermal efficiency. Therefore, excessive air infiltration
can significantly reduce thermal efficiency.
(a)
(b)
LEAK SOURCES
There are many potential sources of leaks in process
heaters. They have been grouped into several categories which
are described next.
Leaky Heaters
Many process heaters have been in service for decades.
They are located outside and are therefore subject to the
weather. They are also very large with many welds and bolted
connections. The heater temperature in the radiant section can
be as high as 2300F or more, depending on the process
requirements. These heaters are subject to thermal cycling due
to repeated shutdowns and start-ups, for example after routine
maintenance, and also from the changes in ambient
temperatures due to normal weather fluctuations.
The
expansion and contraction of the heaters leads to cracks in the
refractory lining and in the metal shell. These cracks are
normally small enough that they are not easily seen and
therefore go unnoticed and unrepaired.
Cumulatively,
numerous small leaks can lead to a large amount of air
infiltration. Those cracks provide a path for tramp ambient air
to leak into the heaters.
Burners-Out-of-Service
There may be certain conditions that require some of the
burners to be taken out of service. One example is when some
burner components need to be serviced, such as when the fuel
injectors are plugged and need to be cleaned. Another example
is when very little heat is needed, such as when a heater is
being warmed up slowly after a refractory repair. It may not be
possible to turn all of the burners down to a low enough firing
rate, which means that some of the burners may need to be
turned off to reduce the firing duty to a low enough level.
Simply turning off the fuel to a burner, without also closing off
the combustion air inlets, means there will be large openings in
the heater for air infiltration.
100
0
0.00
0.05
0.10
0.15
0.20
0.25
0.30
FINDING LEAKS
There are a variety of ways to find locations where tramp
air enters into a process heater. Some of the more common
methods are discussed next.
A relatively simple method of finding air leaks is to look
inside an operating heater and find any dark regions, other than
the process tubes, which normally indicate cooler regions
where air may be leaking in. Fig. 12 shows a photo of an end
wall in an operating process heater. The process tubes are on
the left side of the photo. Three burners are firing on the end
wall. Several dark spots, not including the process tubes or
centers of the burners, include the outline of an access door at
the center near the floor, a sight port to the left of the bottom
burner, and two snuffing steam inlets to the right of the access
door. The dark regions around these openings indicate that
some air is leaking through them, where the cold ambient air is
cooling the opening.
smoke
bomb
Fig. 13: Smoke bomb test to find leaks in a heater
Another method that can be used to find air leaks in a
heater is using an infrared (IR) camera. Fig. 14 shows a
thermal image of the side of a process heater. The colors
indicate temperature where blue is colder and red is hotter. The
side of the heater is essentially blue, except in the vicinity of an
explosion door, which is designed to relieve significant overpressures in the heater. In this case, the door is not well sealed
and appears to be partially open which is allowing a significant
amount of heat to escape from the heater. Since the pressure
inside the heater at that location in the radiant section should be
negative, tramp air is likely entering the heater around that
explosion door. An IR camera can be used to photograph the
outside of a heater to look for hot spots where significant
amounts of heat are leaking out, and where significant amounts
of tramp air may be entering in.
Fig. 17: Sight port designed to reduce air leaks and protect
operators against hot furnace flue gases, high radiant
heat, and positive pressure surges in the heater.
air possibly leaking in, and checking the paint on the heater
skin to see if there are places where the paint has been
discolored or burned off.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Because of their significant impact on heater performance,
air leaks need to be mitigated, particularly those that are large
and in locations where the draft is higher. One important
recommendation is to operate the heater at the design draft
level, because high drafts increase tramp air infiltration. Heater
cracks need to be fixed on a regular basis. Penetrations need to
be sealed. Tube seals and specially designed sight ports are
examples of devices specifically made to minimize air leaks.
REFERENCES
[1] Baukal, C., 2001, The John Zink Combustion Handbook,
CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL.
[2] Faagau G., 2008, Resolve to trim that excess air,
Chemical Processing, 71(1), p. 16.
[3] Energy Information Administration. 2002 Manufacturing
Energy Consumption Survey (MECS). Washington, DC: U.S.
Department of Energy, 2002.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/mecs/mecs2006/2006tables.html.
[Accessed 22.07.09].
CONCLUSIONS
Air infiltration into process heaters can reduce thermal
efficiency, increase pollution emissions such as NOx, degrade
burner performance, and cause after-burning in the convection
section. There are many possible sources for air leaks
including leaky heaters, improperly sealed openings, and
burners-out-of-service. Both the size and the location of the
leaks are important because both directly impact how much
tramp air is drawn into the heater. There are many ways to find
the leaks including visual inspection inside the heater looking
for dark regions, using smoke outside an operating heater to see
where it is drawn in, using smoke inside a heater which is not
operating to see where it comes out, thermal images of the
outside of the heater to see where heat may be leaking out and