Reformer Tubes Residual Life Assessment

[franklin55]

The Primary Reformer tubes of our Ammonia plant are in service for the last 20 years. We now want to assess the remaining service life of these tubes. I want to know which tests are necessary for this purpose? The material of these tubes is 25Cr32Ni-Nb.

 

[unclesyd]

Here is one approach to resolve your problem. If all this fails you may have to go back to the old physical measurement system.

http://www.api.org/meetings/proceedings/upload/Reformer_Tubes_Tim_Hill.pdf

http://www.questintegrity.com/services/advanced-inspection

 

[metengr]

I would resort to physical dimensions and tube sampling for comprehensive metallurgical examination.

 

[blacksmith37]

As pointed out in the other posts; It is not very elegant, but tape measure the tube diameters is sure easy,fast and cheap. I have crawled around a few of these furnaces with fancy UT attenuation units and a ferromagetic doodad ; about all they did was verify the tape measure results. Then if you really want to know; cut out some samples for stress/rupture testing.
Also , look in the the furnace while in operation for any burners with bad flame patterns ( making hot spots).