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A New Approach to Increasing Heater

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Article · July 2009

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Ashutosh Garg
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Originally appeared in:
International PETROLEUM REFINING
A New Approach to
Improving Heater Efficiency
By Ashutosh Garg,
Furnace Improvements
Fired heaters are important equipment in any Re-
finery or Chemical plant. In the USA , we have
about 155 refineries operating today. The esti-
mated number of heaters in the refining industry
is about 3200. A major refinery may have about
20 to 40 heaters depending upon the size and
complexity. There are about 1400 heaters in the
Chemical Industry. Half of these heaters are in
high temperature pyrolysis service for making eth-
ylene and propylene. About a quarter of these
heaters are in Steam Reforming of hydrocarbon.
All the major industries are highly energy inten-
sive.
A typical refinery of 100,000 BPD size
would be consuming almost 1.84 Billion Btu/hr and
the fuel bill is close to 100 Million Dollars. Even a 1
% efficiency improvement will add about a million
dollars to the bottom line of the heater. It is our
experience that about 1-2% efficiency improve-
ment can be accomplished with just good house
keeping without any major capital investment.
Typically in a fired heater, the feed is pre-
heated in the convection section and is further
heated in the radiant section. Figure 1 shows a
typical 4 pass heater with feed being heated from
450 to 600° F. Fuel gas or oil is burned in the radi-
Flue gas 750 °F Flue gas 1,650 °F
500 °F
Feed In
Convection Section Radiant Section
450 °F
Flue gas 1,650 °F Flue gas 3,200 °F
Figure 1.Typical 4 pass heater with feed being
heated from 450 to 600° F
1
July 2009 issue, pgs 35-39
Reprinted with publisher’s permission.
FIS has developed a new approach to
improve heater efficiency that cuts
down the cost of revamp by ½ to 1/3
and improves the payout significantly.
ant section and produces a temperature of about
3200° F. The flue gas temperature leaving the
radiant section is 1650° F. About 2/3 of the heat
duty is absorbed in the radiant section and the
rest is absorbed in the convection section.
In the convection section, flue gases are
cooled to 750° F . The estimated thermal effi-
ciency of this heater is about 80%.
If we want to improve the efficiency of the
fired heaters in a conventional way, then the
most common way is to reduce the flue gas tem-
perature approach to the inlet fluid temperature.
In Figure 2 we are showing that an additional
convection section is installed in series to the ex-
isting convection section. This is fine for most of
the applications but it does have a drawback. The
pressure drop on the fluid side goes up. In a num-
Flue gas 500 °F Flue gas 750 °F Flue gas 1,650 °F
Feed Out Additional 500 °F Feed Out
Convection Convection Section Radiant Section
600 °F
Section 600 °F
450 °F
Flue gas 750 °F Flue gas 1,650 °F Flue gas 3,200 °F
Figure 2. Conventional scheme for improve the
efficiency
PRODUCTIVITY IMPROVEMENT DESIGN MODIFICATION

Flue gas 500 °F

Split Flow in
Convection
450 °F
Section- II
Flue gas
Flue gas 750 °F
500 °F
Convection
Feed In
450 °F Section - I
Flue gas 1,650 °F
Figure 3. FIS Split Flow* scheme to improve the
efficiency of the heater
ber of plants, it is not possible to increase the
pressure drop across the heater as that will re-
quire upgrading the pump and motor, may also
need to change the piping class.
Our patented scheme called Split Flow
(Figure 3) divides the flow entering the heater into
two streams- the main stream and the split
stream. We send about 10-20% of the flow to the
split stream and heat it to the outlet temperature.
The main stream continues to go the existing con-
vection section and radiant coils. The major ad-
vantage of this scheme is the reduction in pres-
sure drop. As compared to the series flow which
increases the pressure drop across the heater, in
split flow we see a reduction in pressure drop
across the heater coil. This offers a significant ad-
vantage in pressure drop limited heaters or the
heaters that are already running at the maximum
charge rate. In current times, it is fairly common
to have heaters operating at maximum capacity.
One of the major building blocks in refin-
eries is the catalytic reforming unit, which is used
to upgrade the octane number of gasoline. It is
known by different trade names as Rheniforming,
Powerforming, Platforming etc. In this unit, the
750°F
250°F
Waste Heat
Recovery Unit
750°F
Process Feed Out
Process Feed In 1000°F
1,600°F
pressure drop is a very important parameter and
Split Flow out
lower pressure drop helps save power on recycle
600 °F gas compressor as well as improve the yield of the
unit. In these heaters, fluid is heated mostly in the
radiant section. The radiant coil consists of a num-
Flue gas 1,650 °F ber of parallel passes leading to the low pressure
drop. Convection section consists of waste heat
recovery which could be hydrocarbon preheating
Feed Out
Radiant Section
600 °F
or steam generation.
Our patented split flow process is very
suitable for this service as the feed can be easily
Flue gas 3,200 °F
split and sent to the radiant and convection sec-
tion at the same time (Figure 4).
*Patented Case study
A Refinery had a reformer heater in their facility.
In Jan. 2000, the fuel gas prices touched $10 per
MSCF. The client started a project to improve effi-
ciency of the heater. The stack temperature in this
heater was 1100° F. The refinery did not want to
generate steam as they have enough in their facil-
ity. They did not want an air preheating system
due to side fired burners and complications associ-
ated with them. They had tried installing air pre-
heater about 20 years ago during the first energy
crunch but did not install the system as it became
complicated.
The heater duty was 158 MMBtu/hr out of
which 120 MMBtu/hr were used to heat the proc-
ess streams in the radiant section. The convection
section consisted of splitter reboiler service and
stabilizer reboiler service. The firing rate was
around 234 MMBtu/hr and the thermal efficiency
was around 67% (Table 1).
The heater was a bottleneck in the plant
and was limiting the capacity. The client could not
fire it any harder because it would exceed the per-
mitted firing limit.
In the scheme of the Reformer heater be-
fore the revamp, the radiant section consisted of
four radiant cells separated by bridgewalls. The
burners were installed on the end walls. The radi-
ant tubes were U shaped in the first two cells.
Each process stream had a large 26 inch inlet and
outlet manifold. There were 44 parallel coils or
tubes in each coil. Feed was entering the heater
400°F
250°F
Waste Heat
Split
Flow in 1,100°F
Recovery Unit
at 840° F and was heated to 1010° F in the radi-
ant section. The Reboiler process streams recov-
Split Flow Out
Process Feed In Process Feed Out
1,600°F

Table 1
Parameter Units Operating
Value
Total Heater Duty MMBtu/hr 158
Radiant Heat Duty MMBtu/hr 120.09
(Process)
Convection Heat MMBtu/hr 37.91
Duty
Figure 4. Scheme of a reformer heater with
Firing Rate MMBtu/hr 234
(right) and without (left) the Split Flow technology.
Efficiency % 67.5
2
DESIGN MODIFICATION PRODUCTIVITY IMPROVEMENT
STACK

Stack Stack Stack

In Out
In #4 In
#3 In
DAMPER #1 In #2 In Out
#3 Out
#4 Out
#1 Out #2 Out

CONVECTION
SECTION

INLET OUTLET INLET OUTLET INLET OUTLET

INLET Burners

OUTLET
Figure 5. Reformer heater before the revamp.
ered heat from flue gases in the three convection
sections. They were entering the convection sec-
tion at 428° F and 459° F respectively.
The existing heater consists of 3 separate
convection sections and 3 stacks (Figure 5). This
heater design is very old and new heaters have
single convection sections. The convection sec-
tions were of different size, first one was 4 tubes
wide, second was 6 tubes wide and the third one
was only 2 tubes wide. Radiant section was di-
vided by bridge walls. The stack dampers in the
stack were not working well.
The conventional design would be to pre-
heat the process fluid in the convection section
first and then send it to the radiant section. In
this design, the heat is recovered by the feed in
the convection section and then by the reboiler
coils. This would have improved the efficiency to
the desired level of 86%.
The major disadvantage was an increase
in pressure drop across each coil. Due to inherent
construction of the convection section with multi-
ple return bends in the convection coil, the pres-
Figure 7. FIS Split Flow Scheme. Patented tech-
nology.
sure drop across went up by 50%.
The conventional design is shown in Fig-
ure 6. In order to keep the pressure drop low, the
number of parallel passes had to be increased in
the convection section leading to very wide con-
vection sections. Since all the feed had to be
heated in series , it required large pipe sizes. The
pipe design becomes difficult as the temperatures
are high and thermal expansion needs to be taken
care of. The heater foundation could not sustain
the new convection section loads. A grade
mounted stack had to be installed.
The conventional efficiency improvement
scheme suffered from the following disadvantages.
The process side pressure drop went up. The large
piping size was required to keep pressure drop
low. Due to the large convection sections and
grade mounted stack, the cost of the scheme was
estimated at 6 million Dollars.
Split flow technique divides the process
fluid into two streams (Figure 7). The convection
section heats approximately 25 – 30% of the total
flow and the rest is heated by the radiant section
to the same temperature. The exiting fluids from
both sections are then combined into one stream.
In the split flow design for this reformer

STACK

DAMPER

REBOILER CONVECTION
COIL SECTION

PROCES
S COIL

INLET INLET OUTLET INLET OUTLET

OUTLET

RADIANT
SECTION

INLET

OUTLET

Figure 8. Revamp of the reformer heater with

Figure 6. Conventional design for efficiency im-
the Split Flow technology.
provement.

3
 PRODUCTIVITY IMPROVEMENT DESIGN MODIFICATION

Table 2 Table 3
Original Split flow Before After
Parameter Item
Design Design Revamp Revamp
Pressure Drop, psi 3.1 2.1 Capacity, BPD 18,500 24,000
Firebox temperature, °F 1,615 1,551 Heat Duty, MMBtu/hr 158 194.5
Radiant flux, Btu/hr ft² 19,823 15,047 Heat Release, MMBtu/hr 234 225
Radiant tube metal temp, °F 1,151 1,120 Efficiency, % 67.5 86.6
Firing rate, MMBtu/hr 116.35 82.65 Stack Temp., °F 1,092 478
heater (Figure 8), the convection sections are nar- Fuel Savings, $/annum 5.8 Million*
rower and lighter and as a result could be sup- *Based on $6.0 / MM Btu
ported on the existing heater structure with minor to 15000 Btu/hr ft2. The tube metal temperature
reinforcements. The split flow piping is smaller. went down by 30° F. The firing rate went down by
We used only 16-18 inch pipe size as compared to 33%.
26 inch pipe in the conventional scheme. The Table 3 compares some of the most im-
stacks could be reused after the new dampers portant parameters in the heaters operation be-
were installed on the stacks. The flow to the split fore and after the revamp. As you can see, with
coil was controlled using restriction orifices in each the split flow technology, the heater was able to
split flow line. This way the pressure drop was process 24,000 BPD of feed, up from 18,500 BPD.
balanced. The heat duty was up by 20% and yet the firing
Table 2 compares the performance of the stayed the same. Efficiency of the heater was in-
heater before and after the revamp. This data creased by almost 20%. The stack temperature
shows that the pressure drop across the cell 1 was reduced by 600° F. The project payout in less
went down from 3.1 to 2.1 psi. It would have than 6 months.
gone up by 50% in the conventional scheme. The Figure 9 shows the reformer before re-
reduction in pressure drop was a significant bene- vamp and after revamp. The Split flow technique
fit to the client for yield improvement. The firebox provides efficient solutions to pressure drop and
temperature was reduced from 1615 to 1551° F. capacity problems. It provides an inexpensive effi-
The radiant flux decreased from 20000 Btu/hr ft 2 cient alternative with a short payback time.

Figure 9.
The Reformer
Heater before
(left) and
after (right)
the FIS Split
Flow revamp
for efficiency
improve-
ments.

The Author

Ashutosh Garg is currently working as a Thermal Engineer at Furnaces Improvements in Sugar Land, TX. He has more than
35 years of experience in design, engineering and troubleshooting of furnaces and combustion systems for the refining and
petrochemical industries. He graduated from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India, in chemical engineering in 1974.
He started as a graduate engineer in an ammonia plant. This was followed by six years in KTI India and eight years at EIL,
New Delhi, in the heater group. He joined KTI Corp., San Dimas, California, in 1990, and moved to Houston in 1992. He has
published several articles on fired heaters and burners in trade magazines. He is a registered professional engineer and a
member of AIChE, API & ASME.
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