In the past ten years, there have been a few oil storage tank annular plate failures due to soil side corrosion and fatigue loading (filling and emptying) which has led to large spills. The corrosion tends to be localized in a groove fashion and the size of the flaw could vary from 3 feet to […]
Overview Fluid Catalytic Cracking (FCC) units were first developed in the 1930s. Over the years this technology has evolved and it is one of the most important processes used in refineries. The FCC units are used to convert high boiling point, high molecular weight hydrocarbon fractions of crude oils to gasoline, olefinic gases, and other products. […]
My previous blog on Equipment Health Monitoring (EHM) explains why EHM can be used to improve fatigue life of a coke drums. As explained in this blog, one of the critical locations to be monitored are the circumferential weld seams – where high thermal stresses occur during the operation of the drum. These high stresses over […]
Background Refinery coke drums experience fatigue induced issues which can be attributed to the coke drum operating cycle; rapidly heating the drum with hot coking feed, and, following the completion of coking process, rapidly quenching of the drum contents with water prior to cutting. Rapid temperature changes as the drum transitions between steady state temperatures […]
Coke drum lives can be extended by using an equipment health monitoring system, often without increasing the cycle time. Delayed coking is a form of thermal cracking used for processing “bottom of barrel” residuum. Thermal cracking produces a wide range of hydrocarbons along with coke, a solid structure of ~90 wt% carbon. In the delayed […]
