×
INTELLIGENT WORK FORUMS
FOR ENGINEERING PROFESSIONALS

Log In

Come Join Us!

Are you an
Engineering professional?
Join Eng-Tips Forums!
  • Talk With Other Members
  • Be Notified Of Responses
    To Your Posts
  • Keyword Search
  • One-Click Access To Your
    Favorite Forums
  • Automated Signatures
    On Your Posts
  • Best Of All, It's Free!
  • Students Click Here

*Eng-Tips's functionality depends on members receiving e-mail. By joining you are opting in to receive e-mail.

Posting Guidelines

Promoting, selling, recruiting, coursework and thesis posting is forbidden.

Students Click Here

Jobs

Strange case of hot tubes in the Primary Reformer....

Strange case of hot tubes in the Primary Reformer....

Strange case of hot tubes in the Primary Reformer....

(OP)
Hi guys,
We had a situation of extremely hot tubes in the primary reformer. Our process is desulphurised natural gas and steam. Here's the problem...

After shutdown of the unit for mechanical repairs, the delta P on the reformer increased by 15 psi and the dropped by 5 psi. Subsequent surveys on the catalyst tubes revealed they were getting progressively hot. However not all the tubes were hot. Actually only 20% were hot, however the distribution was primarily on the extremes of the reformer near the ends.....

It was so bad we had to shutdown to vacuum the tubes and reload catalyst...

What on earth could have caused this? Preliminary inspection revealed the catalyst was not significantly damaged. Help solve this mystery!!!!!

P.S: A couple of weeks before we had a minor sulphur break thru which we took care of and got reaction back in the reformer....Could this impact in any way?

RE: Strange case of hot tubes in the Primary Reformer....

What kind of oxygen levels were you running in your flue gas?  Is your reformer Balanced draft or Induced draft?

rmw

RE: Strange case of hot tubes in the Primary Reformer....

What type furnace do you have?
Did vacuuming the catalyst completely eliminate the problem?
Did the mechanical problem have anything that would affect the furnace operation?
Any work on the process steam supply?
Did you have any problems during the startup?

A little more information would help immensely.

RE: Strange case of hot tubes in the Primary Reformer....

(OP)
rmw: Our reformer is induced draft and we usually run around 2% to 3% excess O2.

unclesyd: No problems during startup; yes vacuuming the affected tubes worked out fine. and there were no mechanical problems with the furnace.

During shutdown we ran the reformer for a long while; excess of 8 hrs with steam in the reformer before we began startup.

Red Flag This Post

Please let us know here why this post is inappropriate. Reasons such as off-topic, duplicates, flames, illegal, vulgar, or students posting their homework.

Red Flag Submitted

Thank you for helping keep Eng-Tips Forums free from inappropriate posts.
The Eng-Tips staff will check this out and take appropriate action.

Reply To This Thread

Posting in the Eng-Tips forums is a member-only feature.

Click Here to join Eng-Tips and talk with other members!


Resources