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Gas burners
There are two principal types of
gas-fired burners used in the CPI:
raw gas and pre-mix.
Raw-gas burners are used for
most applications. In these burners, the fuel gas passes through
orifices in the gas tip and is injected
directly into the combustion zone,
where it mixes with air. A stabi40
Tip
Tip
Mixer
Oriice
Steam oriices
Mohammed H. Al-Hajji
Saudi Arabian Oil Co.
(Saudi Aramco)
urners are mechanical devices
that are utilized for mixing
proper quantities of fuel and
air, and also for maintaining
a stable flame inside fired equipment. Burners are critical components that must be periodically
maintained to ensure the reliability
of fired equipment in the chemical
process industries (CPI), as well as
many other industries. This article
discusses the internal components
and applications for different types
of burners (gas, oil and combination), as well as the maintenance
procedures that are required to ensure the integrity and reliability of
burners in the CPI.
t
2f
Oil
Steam
Steam
Oil burners
Steam is always added to assist in
the atomization of liquid fuels. In
oil burners, the steam and oil are
mixed in specially designed fuel atomizers, where the kinetic energy
of the steam jets breaks up the fuel
into small droplets. The resulting
mixture of steam and finely dispersed oil is then released into the
airstream through a number of orifices in the burner tip. A typical atomizer is shown in Figure 1.
The steam used for atomization
must be perfectly dry. If there is
moisture in the steam, this moisture will flash when it mixes with
the oil, causing erratic oil flow.
Furthermore, the atomizing steam
should be superheated.
Mechanical atomization can be
used when steam is not available.
In this method, the kinetic energy
in the oil itself is used for atomization by releasing the oil through
the tip under very high pressure.
Mechanical atomization is usually
used only in very large burners or
with extremely clean fuels, since
Combination burners
The principles of gas and oil burners can be combined into a third
category of burner, the combination
burner. A typical combination gasand-oil burner can be used to fire
liquid, gas or a combination of liquid and gas fuels, depending upon
the fuel systems supplied with the
burner. Liquid fuel is fired through
a centrally located oil gun. The
oil and atomizing steam are fed
through separate pipes in the feed
tube to the atomizer and burner tip.
The fuel-steam mixture is injected
through orifices in the burner tip
into the primary airstream, where
combustion begins.
Reducing NOx in burners
Combustion operations frequently
create nitrogen oxides (NOx), specifically NO and NO2, which must
be highly controlled, as they can
be harmful pollutants. Currently,
three burner configuration methods exist for reducing nitrogen oxides in burners: staged air, staged
fuel and internal fluegas recirculation combined with staged air
or staged fuel.
Staged air burners. These types
of burners work by introducing
100% of the fuel into the burner
and only part of the combustion air
(primary air), thus creating a substoichiometric flame. This flame
has a reduced temperature and
therefore inhibits NOx formation.
The flame is completed with the addition of the secondary air to complete the combustion process. This
process allows for greater control at
lower burner loads and also accommodates a wider range of fuels.
Staged fuel burners. This burner
method introduces 100% of the
combustion air into the burner and
splits the fuel supply into primary
and secondary volumes. The primary
fuel mixes with the combustion air
to create a flame. Again, as with
staged air burners, the peak flame
temperature is lower, and NOx for-
Pilot burner
Pilot burners (or, simply pilots) are
small burners used for ignition of
the main burner flame. In some
systems, a pilot can also act as a
stabilizer for the main flame. Pilots
in process-heater burners usually
operate continuously. Individual pilots should be removable for maintenance, even while the process heater
remains in operation. A typical pilot
burner is shown in Figure 2.
More and more process heaters
require the presence of a permanent
pilot with electrical ignition. These
types of pilots use a low-tension ignition rod and usually combine the
function of the low-tension rod with
ionization detection.
When the ignition transformer is
connected directly to the end of the
pilot, standard low-tension cable
can be used. This eliminates the
need for high-tension cable and, as
a result, longer cable runs can be
used from the pilot to the distributed control system (DCS).
An electrical current is conducted between the flame and the
flame-retention head. The flame is
ionized, and the ionization part of
the flame rod detects this change
in the current. This electrical current change is then relayed by a
lamp to indicate the presence of the
flame (Figure 3). It is crucial to ensure that the pilot flame has a very
strong core to enable consistent detection of the flames presence in
the pilot burner.
Burner components
Burners are very complex devices
not only are there many varieties
of burners utilized in the CPI, each
burner is equipped with a number
of integral components that are
critical to operations.
Burner air registers. Air enters
the burner through the air register.
Airflow can be controlled by adjusting the size of the openings in the
register. For natural-draft burners,
the most common type of air register consists of fixed and moveable
concentric cylinders, each with
slots. For forced-draft burners, air
registers are controlled either manually or automatically. Burner registers may also be a single-bladed or
twin-bladed opposed butterfly type.
This variety is used for greater control of the combustion air pressure.
Plenum chamber. Sometimes
called a windbox, the plenum
chamber is where all the air for the
burners enters the device. The plenum chamber may contain control
vanes, as well as the air registers
for the burners. The plenum chamber can serve several purposes,
including noise and emissions reduction, single-source combustion
air supply and total airflow to the
furnace controls.
Burner fuel-gas piping. Burner
fuel-gas piping consists of the manifolds and piping that deliver fuel
to the burner tips. The fuel passes
through one or more openings in
the tips, which act as restriction orifices. Here, the fuel is injected into,
and mixes with, the airstream. Various types of burner tips are used,
depending upon the type of fuel
and the flame pattern desired.
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Cover Story
Burner throat tiles. Located at
the burner edge are the throat tiles
of the burner. Throat tiles help stabilize combustion and shape the
flame. The burner tile is usually
shaped so that one section has a
minimum cross-sectional flow area.
This area, called the throat, acts
as a Venturi component in the airstream. The opening in most burner
tiles is circular. In some cases, the
tile and other components are designed to produce a non-circular
flame shape. A rectangular-shaped
tile opening can be used to produce
a flat flame, which is needed in
some furnace arrangements.
Swirlers. The function of swirl in
burners is to increase flow turbulence. Turbulence facilitates the
mixing of fuel and air, and various
elements within the burner can
induce a swirl phenomenon. Some
burners contain tangentially disposed doors in the air registers,
which increase turbulence. Other
burners contain axially disposed
spin vanes to impart swirl in the
combustion air. Other burners may
use adjustable swirl vanes to increase turbulence.
Fired equipment
Burners are utilized in fired equipment in the CPI to combust fuel.
The energy created from combustion is mainly used to convert water
into steam for various processes,
or to heat up a process to a desired temperature. The main fired
equipment that utilize burners are
boilers, heaters and heat-recovery
steam generators (HRSGs).
Fired boilers use forced-draft
burners to combust either oil or
gas to heat water and convert it
to steam. Boiler tubes can contain water (water-tube boilers),
or there may be flames in the
tubes (fire-tube boilers)
Heaters use natural-draft burners that rely on the draft (negative pressure) in the furnaces
radiant box to induce the air required for combustion
HRSGs use duct burners for the
supplementary firing to produce more steam to satisfy the
operation requirements
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Burner inspection
Burners are expected to be continuously reliable and efficient enough
to meet the rigorous requirements
of the CPI. Periodic inspection and
maintenance should be conducted
according to the burner manufacturers guidelines. Malfunctioning
burners can result in inefficient
combustion or poor flame patterns.
This can lead to localized overheating and damage to furnaces or
equipment components, resulting
in increased maintenance costs.
This damage can also cause premature shutdowns due to failure
Burner maintenance
A burners performance deteriorates
with operating time due to fouling, plugging and wear on burner
components. Fouling, plugging and
wear reduce the effectiveness of
fuel-air mixing and can affect the
flame and heat flux patterns, resulting in lower heater efficiency and
heating capability. Burner parts
requiring frequent maintenance
to avoid serious performance loss
or safety issues include the orifice,
tip, atomizer, tile, flame stabilizer,
register, damper, pilot burner and
detection systems.
Gas tip and orifice. In a burner,
the fuel-gas tips and fuel-gas orifice
have drilled ports that direct the
stream of fuel into the airstream
and combustion zone. These ports
must be kept free of foreign mate-
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Cover Story
rial that could decrease the effective port size. If the ports become
partially or completely plugged,
the quantity and distribution of
fuel entering the burning zone may
vary from the design objective, and
combustion problems may occur.
The type of material plugging the
ports determines how it should be
cleaned. Foreign material must be
carefully removed from the fuel
orifices so as not to affect the orifice dimensions. Fuel tips should
be replaced if any orifices exceed
the specified diameter by more
than one to two twist-drill sizes.
If the material is not easily removed, some cleaning guidelines
should be followed:
Soak the burner part in a solvent
to loosen the deposit
Use a twist drill to remove the
deposit. Never use a power tool
with the twist drill because it is
likely to enlarge the ports
Use a welders file to gently remove the scale from the orifices.
If the scale cannot be removed,
the fuel tip or orifice must
be replaced
Use wet steam or hot water if the
source of the foreign material is
an amine compound, because
amines are water-soluble
Shut down the fuel gas valve
and inject steam into the burner
if the amine plugging occurs frequently without removing the
burner. Note that injection cleaning may not clear all tip ports
equally
Soak the tips in a hydrocarbon
solvent, followed by cleaning
with a twist drill if the tips are
plugged with polymers
Remove the coking, polymer or
solid deposit by oxidation in a
small, high-temperature furnace.
Many tips can be cleaned at the
same time with this technique
Oil tip and atomizer. Fuel-oil
tips are harder to maintain than
gas tips and require more frequent
cleaning. Tips in light fuel-oil service may have only a slight carbonlike deposit on the surface. To clean
fuel-oil tips, do the following:
Use a wire brush to remove
slight carbon-like deposits. Tips
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Cover Story
maintenance for valves (cleaning),
gages (recalibration) and the spark
generator (adjusting the spark gap).
These ignition systems should be
regularly tested to ensure correct
operation for unplanned startup.
High-energy ignition systems
should be cleaned, inspected and
replaced, if damaged. Ignition systems are a critical safety control
system, so periodic functional tests
of these components is highly recommended, as well as training
for the operators.
Pilot burners with flame detection. In addition to checking the
gas jet above the burner, check that
the ionization rod is set at the correct spark-gap distance for ionization and ignition. Also ensure the
integrity of the ionization rods insulation by checking for earth leaks
between the rod and pilot body
casing by connecting a multimeter
at the rod and to the pilot flame
retention head.
The inspection and maintenance
best practices outlined in this article should provide engineers
with the know-how required to
ensure optimal longterm operation from all types of burners and
all of their components, in many
different applications in the CPI.
Edited by Mary Page Bailey
FROM FEEDSTOCK
TO END PRODUCT
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References
1. API Standard 535, Burners for Fired Heaters in General Refinery Services
2. API Standard 537, Flare Details for General
Refinery and Petrochemical Service
3. NFPA 85, Boiler and Combustion Systems
Hazards Code
RANDOM PACKING
STRUCTURED PACKING
LIQUID DISTRIBUTORS
INLET DIFFUSERS
TRAYS
Author
Mohammed H. Al-Hajji is a
fired-equipment engineering
specialist at Saudi Aramco
(WC-1038C Al-Midra Building, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia;
Phone: +966-3-880-9591; Email:
hajjmh0a@aramco.com.sa)
with more than 25 years of
oil-and-gas processing experience. His areas of expertise
are boilers, heaters, heat-recovery
steam
generators
(HRSGs), sulfur plants, refractory and insulation materials and water treatment. He is a
member of the Saudi Arabia Section of American
Institute of Chemical Engineers (SAS-AIChE),
Saudi Council of Engineers and Toastmasters
International. He earned a B.S.Ch.E. from the
University of Tulsa in 1989.
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