Furnaces in Refinery and Petrochemicals

- an Introduction

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 Process furnaces

• Process furnaces are widely used in petroleum

refineries and petrochemicals. These are also called
fired heaters.
• They generate heat by combustion of fuels and
transfer to process fluid which is in side coil.
• The heat duty can be few Thousand MW to few
Million MW.
• Process fluid in side coil may either liquid or gas .

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A typical application of Furnace
(Crude distillation unit)

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 CDU (Crude distillation Unit) Heater
1. CDU heater is direct fired heater. It converts most of
the hydrocarbon fractions in to vapour phase which
are separated in distillation column.
2. No cracking or reaction takes place in this heater.
3. Flame radiation & hot flue gases of combustion
transfers heat & raise temperature of process fluid.
4. Every heater is tailored / designed for its specific
application.

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 Reaction Heaters
1. In reaction heaters , these are filled with catalyst and
perform reaction inside tubes, besides heating.
2. These are called reaction heaters.
e.g. : Hydrogen reformer
Methanol heater
Catalytic reformers

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Reformer Heater

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 Heater Performance objectives

• Maximize heat delivery to feed

• Minimal fuel consumption

• Flexibility of operation with varying fuel type/ quality and

also process flow variation in heater tubes.

• Easy to operate with safe start-up, operation and shut down.

• Minimize stack emissions (HC, Nox, Sox also hot flue gases)

• Achieve maximum thermal efficiency.

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 Reasons to save Energy

• Energy costs 60 to 65% of a Refinery / process plant.

Highest energy requirement is in Furnaces .

• Cost of energy going up every day compels plant

operators to make use of waste Off –Gas or oil.

• In today ‘s scenario waste ( Off gases) usage is

maximized saving clean fuels like Natural gas or LPG.

• Due to waste gases of combustion, we have to be more

careful of environment pollution.

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 Heater Types
(based on their shape & geometry)

1. Vertical cylindrical furnaces.

2. Box type with vertical tubes
3. Cabin furnaces with horizontal tubes.
4. Radiant wall furnaces.
5. Double fired furnaces
6. Multi cell
7. All convection

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Few Heaters geometry

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 Heater Sections
• Bottom Radiant Section : where Tubes directly see the burners /
radiant wall.
• Coils : Carry process feed to be heated
• Convection Section : Packed bundle of bare/ finned tubes
absorbing balance heat of flue gas before it is goes to stack.
• Cross Over Section : Section in-between the radiant & convection
• Stack: Finally discharges fue gas to atmosphere
• Air Pre-heaters: Used to preheat the fresh air feed to burners by
exchanging with flue gases being discharged
All above sections are confined in a Caron Steel body structure
designed to take care of all operation, wind and seismic loads

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 Heater Sections
(TOP)
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 Heater Sections
(Bottom )
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 Radiant section
1. The radiant section is where the tubes receive
almost all its heat by radiation from the flame
2. The tubes are a distance away from the Refractory
so radiation can be reflected back to tubes to
maintain a uniform tube wall temperature.
3. Tubes are held at one end & guided at another
end to allow them to expand. These can not have
fixed ends.
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 Convection section
1. Located above radiant section where Heat transfer takes

place by convection .

2. Tubes are studded or finned to increase heat transfer

surface area.

3. The first two tube rows in the bottom of the convection

section are bare tubes called shield or shock tubes. They

protect the finned tubes from direct radiation.

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 Crossover section

1. A crossover is the tube that connects from the convection

section outlet to the radiant section inlet.

2. The crossover piping is normally located outside so that the

temperature can be monitored and the efficiency of the

convection section can be calculated.

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Radiant section- photo from in side

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 Vertical Cylindrical heaters
1. Large cylindrical radiant
section.
2. Tubes are oriented vertically
and in a large circle
3. Burners fire from the floor.
4. Coil may be vertical or
helical coil (radiant and
convection)

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Example of vertical cylindrical heater
Vertical Cylindrical with convection Vertical cylindrical with helical coil.

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 Example of Box type heater
Horizontal tubes Horizontal tubes single row Double fired

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 Vertical Cylindrical
( Radiant with convection)

1. Vertical hairpin coil in firebox, Horizontal

tubes in convection section
2. Symmetrical & uniform heat absorption
3. Burners in a circle on floor
4. Vertically up firing
5. General use for low heat duty.
– Low cost
– Size small
– Low foot print
– Easy construction

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 Cabin Type Heaters
1. Large Heat duty 60 to 80 MW or more

2. Cabin heaters have sloped arch, usually rectangular

cross section
3. Horizontal Cabin - Large rectangular radiant section
oriented horizontally.
4. Burners : Generally fired from the floor or side
walls.
5. Tubes : May be vertical or horizontal in radiant
section.
6. Convection section : contain multiple horizontal
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 Cabin Furnace with Horizontal Tubes

1. The generally radiation section has

parallel tubes with the greatest

length being horizontal.

2. Tubes placed horizontally on the

longer side walls.

3. The burners are located on the

floor on the lower part of the

longer side walls or at end walls

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Burners

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 Burners
Burners are most important players in heater
performance. Placed in lower radiant section.
Flue gases travel vertically through :
1. Radiant section
2. Convection section
3. Air pre-heater if required
4. Finally through stack.

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 Burners and its accessories
The combustion components include:
• Burner
• Fuel supply Piping
• Flame Safety Supervision & Control System.
• Burner management system
• Low Nox and staged burning is a preferred choice

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 Burners placement & types

Burners positioning
1. Single or double side
2. Floor mounted up-fired
3. Roof mounted or down fired
4. End of side wall fired
5. Multi-level fired

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Positioning of burners

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A Combination Burner
• A combination burner is
selected if we need to
use both type of fuels
(Gas as well as liquid)

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 Burner Control Panel
Consists of :
– Burner management systems
– Single loop controllers
– Limit controllers
– NFPA & local regulation requirements.
– The control system provides a pre-purge and post-purge of the
heater, automatic ignition, low flame start (high turn down
burner), continuous main flame detected by UV sensor.
– Control options !!!!!! virtually limitless !!!!!

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Role of air pre-heaters in furnace

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 Air Pre-heaters
• The purpose of the air pre-
heater is to recover the heat
from the furnace flue gas.
• This increases the thermal
efficiency of the furnace by
reducing the useful heat lost
in the flue gas.
• This also reduces high
temperature discharge to
atmosphere
• Shown here is glass tube type
APH.

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Air flow scheme with APH system

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 Furnace types based on DRAFTs
Once we have APH in the system, we need to have a
draft control on Flue gas flow.
1.Natural ( no APH possible in this case)
2.Forced
3.Induced
4.Balanced

A word of caution :
Flue gas discharge temperature to atmosphere
should be above DEW POINT, to avoid acid attack
by gas condensation. Which corrodes the stack.

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Industrial process furnaces- Forced draft

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 Fuel used in heaters

• Refinery waste gas

• Natural gas

• Fuel Oil / waste oil

• Process combustible gases ( like H2 )

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 Refractory & Insulation
• Since all heater parts are associated with heat , suitable
Refractory is required to protect all CABIN structure as
well as prevent heat loss to atmosphere.

• Refractory radiates back the heat to tubes

• Materials : Fire bricks, insulating & heat resistant cast able,

ceramic fibre etc .

• Ceramic fibre is light and easy to apply, used for roof & wall,
not used for oil fired burners in radiant zone.

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 Applicable Codes for Fired heater design
• API 535 : guidelines for the selection and/or evaluation of burners
installed in fired heaters in general refinery services.

• API 538 : recommendations for design, operation, and maintenance

considerations for industrial fired boilers.

• API 560 : Fired Heaters for General Refinery Service,

recommendations for the design, materials, fabrication, inspection,
testing, preparation for shipment, and erection of fired heaters, air pre-
heaters (APHs), fans etc.
• API 573 : inspection practices for fired boilers and process heaters.

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Thank you

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