If back pressure in steam condensate return header is more than the steam pressure in the heat exchanger or process equipment, a phenomenon, known as a ‘stall’ condition occurs. It causes steam condensate to build up and sub-cool in the heat exchanger, reducing heat transfer rate. Due to stalling, steam Read more…
You are a fired heater designer and you are supposed to design a direct fired heater for a refinery process. You are clearly required by client specifications to design with an average heat flux density of 12,000 Btu/h.ft2. Now the question is this: How much margin is a good margin Read more…
Different Erosion Categories Faced in Industry Erosion in industrial systems refers to the gradual wear and tear of materials due to mechanical action or chemical reactions with fluid particles. It can be broadly categorized into: Liquid Droplet Erosion Liquid droplet erosion is a type of erosion which needs to be Read more…
Thanks to all of you who have participated and supported me, we, together, successfully held the webinar “Process Direct Fired Heaters; An introductory lecture” alongside a very useful and engaging Q&A session at the end and spent one hell of an evening together! You can see the videos of the Read more…
In thermal oxidizers and incinerators, one big issue is where to introduce the waste in the combustion chamber. Let’s take a look at the concerns on this: Waste gases and waste liquids that are not capable of burning as a stable fuel are usually introduced downstream of the burner. However, Read more…
To properly control the combustion air, O2 and CO must be measured at the top of the radiant section where combustion is completed, regardless of the burner loading. Note that O2 and CO will coexist within the flames, where the temperature may be as high as 1200˚C. Low NOx burners Read more…
At first thermal oxidizers look like direct fired heaters, but as you look closer there is way more to that. As I explained in my previous posts, the goal is to reach a degree of destruction of the waste material. So, we need to quantify a parameter for this VOC Read more…
The steam methane reforming (SMR) process can be described by two main reactions. The first reaction is reforming itself, while the second is the water-gas shift reaction. Since the overall reaction is endothermic, some heat input is required. This is accomplished by combustion of natural gas or other fuel in Read more…
One of the attractions of combustion equipment is that you can’t just let the flux go in the atmosphere! The subject of zero-emission has many aspects. Depending on what you burned and the temperature that what you burned reached, and those friends in combustion, what products they produced, the flux Read more…
Process direct fired heaters are super important in a lot of industrial processes, but sometimes, things can go wrong. Here’s what can cause them to fail: Now, let’s look at some signs that the heater isn’t working as efficiently as it should be: