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BY-NC-ND 3.0 license Open Access Published by De Gruyter October 17, 2013

Damage Analysis of Service Exposed Reformer Tubes in Petrochemical Industries

  • A. Raj , B. Goswami , S.B. Kumar , G. Krishna , N. Roy and A.K. Ray EMAIL logo

Abstract

Accelerated creep or stress rupture data is used for remaining life assessment for life management studies of elevated temperature components, e.g. for reformer tubes where packed nickel catalysts are used for synthesis of hydrogen, ammonia etc. This research has become a regular task because of large range of time for failure (3 to 15 years) compared to designed life (11.4 years or 100,000 hours) and huge loss associated to damage, production and safety hazards. Utilization of appropriate inspection during plant shut down has been strategic short term life assessment. Tests have been typically done by high temperature mechanical properties, microstructure analysis and accelerated creep. Inspection of micro-cracks, hot spot formation, carburization/metal dusting for inner wall and oxidation, tube diameter increment for outer wall inspection have been traditional symptoms of expiry of tubes after service exposure. Aim of this review has been to study damage analysis of reformer tube in response to so wide time frame for failures and accidents involved, even after stipulation of designed time schedules.

Received: 2013-4-25
Accepted: 2013-8-21
Published Online: 2013-10-17
Published in Print: 2014-6-1

©2014 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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