Reformer Thermal Imaging

Reformer Thermal Imaging

Reformer and Cracker furnaces are critical equipments in petrochemical & refining processes. Maximizing production efficiencies, while minimizing system downtime and eliminating safety issues, are primary concerns for any plant operator.

Furnaces are operated to the highest efficiency by optimizing the burners firing and maintaining furnace tubes at ideal temperatures to prolong the life of the heater tubes. The objective is to minimize variations in Tube Wall Temperatures (TWT) and operate at a higher Outlet Temperature (ROT) without violating maximum allowable TWT.

Conventional methods of monitoring the tubeskin temperatures include portable pyrometers, portable thermal imagers, and shielded thermocouples. However, these methods have been proven to be unreliable, expensive to implement, prone to operator variations, and do not provide comprehensive ability to detect hot spots.

Wonder® Engineering has introduced FurnaceSpection to tremendously improve the ability to monitor the tubeskin temperatures. It helps operators monitor process temperatures uniformity through streaming images and employing powerful software to enable data analysis and historical trending, bringing outputs to DCS, and even able to broadcast live images on the plant's local network with a real-time web server.

Our Solution:

1. Direct measurements
2. Continuous monitoring tubeskin temperatures in the furnaces
3. Precise measurements of the temperature distribution on every components
4. High camera resolution of 640 by 480 pixels
5. Real-time analysis and display of temperature data (e.g. HotSpots, Isotherms).
6. Graphic thermal data used to calculate real-time TWT on DCS
7. Automated alarm modes for user-defined limits.