Texacos use of infrared on fired process heaters

Albert Amedee Ohliger-Texaco Inc General Engineering Department, RE Group

and
Gabriel E. Alvarado Texaco International Refining and Marketing- Refinera Panam, S.A.
ABSTRACT
Infrared Thermography is a technology that has been used to monitor skin temperatures on fired process heaters at the
various Texaco and Texaco Alliance refineries. It has proven to be an invaluable tool. It is used to determine hot spots on
flow restricted tubes, prevent flame impingement due to firing and burner problems and verify temperatures when
thermocouple problems are suspected.
Periodic Infrared surveys of the fired heaters internals assists in making process operation decisions to maintain good
economics, good mechanical integrity and to plan for needed heater outages for repairs and tube decoking. It also assists in
determining the optimum duration for decoking fired heater tubes
This presentation will discuss the generic use of infrared technology on Texacos Refinery Fired Process Heaters. The
Panama Refinerys IR process will be discussed as an example of what is used in the Texaco system. Panama Refinery
(REFPAN) has set up Infrared surveying as a predictive and preventative maintenance on their fired heaters. This program
includes scans to optimize operation and predict build-up problems. This presentation will discuss how the IR camera is
used in both areas and show some results of some recent surveys.
Keywords: Infrared thermography, fired process heaters, REFPAN, Panama Refinery, predictive maintenance

1. INTRODUCTION:
All of the Texaco refineries and most of the U.S. refineries in which Texaco has joint ownership uses Infrared as a
predictive, preventative and process enhancement tool on their fired vessels. Financial justification indicated payouts of less
than a year in using Infrared in fired process heaters. This made it easy to justify purchasing Infrared equipment and having
a formal IR program at REFPAN.
Star Enterprises Convent Refinery, a joint venture between Saudi Aramco and Texaco, in 1994 pioneered the work in the
Texaco system to develop possible uses and financial justification for monitoring refinery process heaters using
Thermography. Convent Refinery determined that Infrared allowed adjusting the process heater firing for maximum
efficiency without having the dangers of flame impingement on the tubes. This, along with the other uses on fired equipment,
stationary equipment and electrical equipment, calculated out to a 5-month payout. Convent refinery became the first in the
Texaco system to implement an in-house IR program with a dedicated fulltime IR technician. Other refineries, including
Panama Refinery, soon followed this path.
In 1996, Panama Refinery implemented an IR program. Process heater monitoring was one very important element in that
program. It was the primary program element to justify the cost of the IR equipment, the personnel training and the
dedicated manpower. The Panama Refinery, known as REFPAN in the Texaco system, is located in Colon, Republic of
Panama. It is a part of Texaco International Manufacturing and Marketing. REFPAN is the only hydrocarbon producer in
Panama. Because of this, they do not have the local, conveniently located oil industry support structure we are used to
having in the United States. It is therefore very important to have the best predictive tools available to allow scheduling of
work when problems develop. The use of Infrared in their Predictive and Preventative Maintenance toolbox has been
invaluable in allowing them to find potential problems with enough time to schedule the repair work and prevent serious
failures.
The heart of any refinery is their fired process heater. There are a number of opportunities when dealing with fired heaters to
optimize refinery performance, reliability and economics. Fired process heaters are substantial consumers of fuel. The
Panama Refinery uses fuel oil & fuel gas as the fuel sources to fire their heaters. It is very important to use only the amount
of fuel required to properly fire the heater. As process conditions and production requirements change, operation technicians
are required to adjust burner-firing settings. Over firing and under firing can occur, as these required changes are
implemented. Over/under firing has high negative impacts on operating costs and reduced tube service life.

Flame impingement can also results from the fuel setting changes. Flame impingement can reduce the long-term life of the
heater tubes. Severe flame impingement can cause an immediate tube failure. The fired heater burners will get fouled with
time and their efficiency will be reduced. This results in higher emissions and also inefficient fuel utilization, in short higher
operating costs. The process tubes can get fouled both internally and externally. Tube fouling results in reduced heat transfer
through the tubes. Fouling can also occur around the thermocouples resulting in erroneous temperature indications.
The operators cannot see what is going on in the fired heater when they make fuel-setting changes. The operators cannot
easily determine when the normally occurring tube internal and external build-up exceeds economical energy usage. Using
Infrared to monitor and survey fired heater assist the operators in seeing how efficient the heater is operating and what the
effects of the changes they have made are.

2. THE WORK PROCESS

Panama Refinery started their IR program by purchasing the proper equipment for the work that was to be performed. For
general-purpose work, the recommended infrared camera is a long-wave camera. But for looking through the flames of a
fired heater, a short-wave camera is required. This creates some disadvantages in developing the IR program. Most of the
IR work performed on general-purpose is scheduled during normal daylight work times. Short-wave infrared cameras are
more sensitive to solar reflection while doing outdoor IR surveys in open areas exposed to direct sunlight. An example of
this solar reflection is electrical highline survey work that is done on a sunny clear day. Is the hot spot that is detected on a
switch or connector real or a solar reflection? Panama made the decision that the financial justification for purchasing a
short-wave camera for heater surveys totally outweighed the disadvantages of using a short-wave camera on general-purpose
survey work.
In 1996, the refinery purchased an Agema 470 with the IR WIN2.0 software. The 20F lens is used for normal heater
inspections with the FLM flame filter. If an abnormal condition is detected, the 7 lens is used to get better detailing in the
saved image. The standard support equipment was acquired including enough batteries to allow a full day of survey work.
Plans are being made to upgrade the refinerys infrared equipment with one of the newer un-cooled long-wave cameras for
the general-purpose work and use the existing short only for the heater work.
To ensure a quality IR program that was a living work process, the plant developed written procedures for the infrared
program. A procedure was written for the general-purpose infrared work. Another procedure was written specifically for
the infrared work done on their process heaters. They adapted the generic heater monitoring procedure develop by Texacos
General Engineering Department (GED) for their specific application and requirements. This is a common practice within
Texaco, so as not to keep re-inventing the wheel. GED personnel also provided onsite training to REFPANs IR technician
and assisted with developing and implementing their work process. There are plans for the IR technician to get formal
Level I and Level II training provided by either the Texaco ASNT PDM/IR Level III or from a qualified contractor approved
by Texacos Level III.
The primary uses of Infrared on the various refinery process heaters are:

Verify there is no flame impingement when maximizing firing rates efficiencies

Verify heat transfer reliability.
Detect/predict tube fouling problems, both internal and external
Detect/predict burner fouling
Monitor decoking to determine economical cleaning frequency
Verify decoking of burner tubes was successful
Verify the reliability of permanently mounted tube thermocouples
Determine firing/mixing problems
Ensure safe operating temperatures are maintained if a thermocouples accuracy becomes questionable.
Heater insulation and refractory integrity
Heater tube hanger and support integrity

There are some significant limitations to using infrared cameras on fired heaters. These limitations need to be recognized by
the thermographer when performing the survey and predicting internal operating conditions and integrity. The most
significant factor is the inability to determine the true emissivity (L) of the targeted surface. The type of fouling that can
occur on the exterior of the tubes can change depending on the type fuel and the cause of the fouling. There is no true means
to predict what the L is and if it will change with time. It is also very difficult to determine the accurate L of the bare metal
heater tube surface even when relatively clean. The high temperature and severe conditions result in a protective oxidation.

The L of the wall surface can be approximated enough to determine relative accuracy of the highest temperature indications.
L values of 0.85 0.87 have found to give the most creditable readings.
Other problems with using infrared cameras on fired heaters are the reflection of the flame and other flame happenings in the
firebox. It is impossible to know exactly what is going on in the firebox that can cause reflectivity indications. There is also
a dampening of the temperature indications by the IR camera through the flame medium. There is some work and theories
on how to calculate this for various fuels. There is not enough known and verified by the authors to comment on in this
paper. The high temperature environment does affect the ambient conditions that the camera is operating in. These
temperature differences are significant enough to cause improper ambient temperature (Tamb) compensation setting
problems. A Tamb is usually set at 120F or the ambient temperature at the inspection door if it is significantly different.

3. A FIRED HEATER EXAMPLE

REFPANs Infrared Procedure recommends periodic and on-request infrared scans. There is a specific timetable for the
periodic scans, but it will be scanned periodically as process conditions and changes dictate. The IR procedure and the
operating procedure also allows for the process operating technicians to request an infrared scan. This should be done
whenever they make significant process setting changes or if there is some indication, visual or instrument control, which
appears unusual to them. This has resulted in a work culture where the operators routinely expect and request infrared scans
of the fired heaters. Infrared work has become a significant, routine part of the IR technicians weekly work.
Earlier this year, the operations technicians were having problems believing some firebox thermocouple of the fired process
heaters indications. The reliability of the some readings of the permanently mounted thermocouple readings mounted in the
firebox had been suspect for some time. Since these thermocouples are the primary method to monitor heater tube
temperatures, having reliable indications are very important. During one of the periodic IR surveys, temperature profiles
were noted to be very different from the thermocouple readings. A Defect Elimination (DE) analysis was initiated to
determine the defect that had been found and determine the solution. DE is the 2nd level of failure analysis used within
Texacos reliability process to improve business unit performance by eliminating defects that have or will result in a failure.
A failure is defined within the reliability work process as any event that results in process equipment loss availability or
unpredicted costs.
It was determined that some of the thermocouples were reading incorrectly. Various methods were used to verify the
problem with the thermocouples. IR was primarily used to locate the suspect thermocouples. Once the inaccurate
thermocouples were verified, periodic infrared surveys were used to ensure heater mechanical tube integrity until these
thermocouples were replaced at a planned shutdown. The limitations of emissivity, reflectivity and the severe operating
conditions were taken into account for all decisions made on the firing and process control settings. Before any decision was
made on any increases in process conditions, allot of work, technical discussions and analysis was performed including
consultation with the members of Texacos IR user group. The thermograms of figure 1 show sample images with heater
tubes, refractory and scaling identified.
972.6C

900

900

800

800

700

SP01

976.9C

600

500

SP01

700

600

500

400
389.5C

404.8C

Heater Tube
Refractory
Scaling
Figure 1. Sample survey thermograms with heater tubes, refractory and scaling identified

The IR camera was also used to predict if there was excessive tube fouling on the heater tube, external or internal, that would
effect the safe operation of the heater. Daily IR surveys were scheduled to allow the fired heater to continue to safely operate
until the outage could be planned. Since this heater used fuel oil and fuel gas as its heat source, there is always some scaling
on the tubes. Depending on the properties of the fuel being used and whether it is fuel gas or fuel oil, the properties and
appearance of the scale changes. What is not known is what the actual L of this scale is. There were observed differences
in the scaling. The scaling appearance varied in different areas on the heater tubes. After an analysis of some of the scaling,
it was discovered that we have some scale had burned onto the tube surface. These differences in properties gave high
confidence that the L and reflectivity properties would also be different. In fact, during the infrared inspection, you could
see variations in the tube temperature as the flame moved up and dawn. Much care was taken to visibly identify where the
scale was and what its physical appearance was. The white scaling generally showed up as a hotter area. It was known not
to be hotter than the bare metal areas. Care was taken not to mistake a hotter bare metal area for a scaled area. Another
consideration that had to be watched for was possible internal coking. An area of a tube that is coked-up has poor heat
transfer and will indicate a hotter area. These coke-up areas are also more susceptible to external fouling. So a hotter scaled
area could also be a coked area. The maximum acceptable tube temperature readings were kept very conservative during this
mode of operation.
An impingement problem was also detected during this period. It was confirmed by comparing the various refractory
temperatures around the heater. The IR readings detected that there was poor bad heat distribution on the tubes. This
situation was confirmed by reviewing the physical and operating conditions of the fuel burners.

4. CONCLUSION
The result of REFPANs successful infrared predictive and preventive maintenance program was evident during the
described thermocouple incident. Effective use of the Thermography allowed for continued operation of the process unit
while plans were finalized for the thermocouple repairs. The infrared tool detected the thermocouple inaccuracies, predicted
the flame impingement and prevented a heater tube failure. Infrared gave operations the ability to maintain heater
mechanical integrity during operation of the plant while repairs were planned and replacement materials acquired. It also
allowed other needed work in that unit to be planned and scheduled during this same outage.
It has been proven at several Texaco refineries that unscheduled maintenance work cost at least ten times more than
scheduled maintenance work and takes at least 25% longer than scheduled work. Infrared allowed REFPAN and Texaco to
get save the time and dollars difference between reactionary maintenance work and planned work. Added to this are the
prevention of a heater tube failure and the high cost of the downtime to replace it.
The weaknesses of Thermography in fired heater application became very apparent. This increased the awareness of
management and operation technicians that good communication was an absolute necessity in making good, concise, and
safe decisions. The important of training in the infrared technology also became very apparent to plant management.
The final lesson learned was how important it was to have good work-process procedures and a work culture that knew what
tools to use, when to use them and when to get assistance from others. In Texaco, our business units pride themselves on
being very competent in what they do and how they do it. They are always moving to be more self-sufficient in their
abilities. But there is always a point where the expertise of others may be needed to make the best decisions. REFPAN has
shown this maturity in their infrared work process.
Thermography is an excellent tool to optimize the operation of a fired process heater. It will increase operability,
availability, and fuel usage economics. There are limitations in using the camera on a fired heater. The inability to know the
actual emissivity of the tube surfaces is the primary limitation. The IR analyst must be conservative and understand the
limitations of the infrared technology.

5.
Texaco Panama Refinery support staff

Texaco IR Users group

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

6. REFERENCES:
Infraspection Institute Level I Training Materials
ITC Level II Training Materials
Snell Inc Level III Training Materials
Fundamentals of Heat Transfer, 4th Edition, Incropera and DeWitt
Convent Refinery (Star Enterprise) Infrared Survey Procedure
Texaco Infrared Guideline Procedure