MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

Large ethylene furnaces:

changing the paradigm
The past decade has seen ethylene plants increase capacities to more than
1 million tonnes a year. The largest ethylene plant in the world, at 1.3
million tonnes, is being built, yet only six furnaces are required to meet this
capacity, making these the largest-ever ethylene pyrolysis furnaces
John R Brewer
Stone & Webster Engineering Corporation

A
s ethylene demand continues to a mature technology
grow, the economics of scale are but the past decade has
causing owners to invest in larger witnessed some dra-
ethylene plants. For example, Stone and matic changes in ethy-
Webster, is building the largest single lene furnace size.
train ethylene plant in the world for the In the past 30 years
Nova/Union Carbide joint venture in there has been a steady
Alberta, Canada. It has a nameplate increase in furnace
capacity of 1.3 million tonnes/year. capacity from all
Plants of this size raised the question of designers, and the aver-
the furnace design philosophy, which age size of a USC fur-
has spurred the development of new nace has increased
design concepts, some of which have from the typical 40 000
entered service. tonnes/year in the
This article reviews the developments early 1970s to current
leading to the commercialisation of large designs of 175 000–
furnaces and cites recent developments 200 0000 tonnes/year,
of Stone and Webster’s Ultra Selective making these furnaces
Conversion (USC) technologies. essentially the largest
Pyrolysis furnace design is considered in the world. The trend
of this increase is
Capacity increase of shown in Table 1.
Larger designs and
USC furnaces
therefore minimum
furnace count reduces
Year Ethylene both the total installed
(000t/yr)
cost and subsequent
1970 30–40
maintenance costs.
1980 50–60 Some clients with Two large liquid crackers with independent cell operation
1990 80–90 expanded ethylene
1995 110–150 plants of less than 1 million tonnes liquid feed ethylene plants being built
1999 150–200 have furnace counts in the range of 12 on the Gulf Coast (approximately
Future 250–300+ to 15 ethylene crackers. 900 000 tonnes/year), Stone and Web-
These clients have commented that ster already has the largest liquid feed-
at any particular time the maintenance stock pyrolysis furnace in operation,
Table 1 crew will be working on a furnace for capable of producing 175 000+
one reason or another, thereby increas- tonnes/year. By application of these
ing the plant maintenance costs. proven design concepts, the largest gas
Furnace intensification Until recently, ethylene furnaces feedstock furnaces were designed to pro-
with a capacity of 100 000 tonnes/year duce 200 000+ tonnes/year of ethylene.
Year Volumetric heat release were generally regarded as a practical
(Btu/ft3/hr) size to meet operational requirements. Selectivity and conversion.
1996 9400 However, this would have required 13 Concurrent with furnace capacity
1997 9800 to 14 furnaces to be designed to meet increases there has been the increase in
the plant capacity of 1.3 million severity of cracking for all feedstocks.
1998 10 000
tonnes/year. By installing only six fur- Virgin naphthas that used to be cracked
2000 16 700
naces to meet this demand the total at methane to propylene weight ratio of
Future 25 000 installed cost and subsequent mainte- 1.1 to 1.3 can now operate at severities
nance costs – a factor often ignored – is of 1.3 to 1.5 M:P. Stone and Webster
Table 2 reduced. Although there are other large ethane crackers are designed to operate

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with conversions above 72 per cent
ethane conversion compared to 60 to
65 per cent ethane conversion a few
years ago.
Such high conversions require oper-
ating temperatures that not only test
the radiant metallurgy but the associat-
ed convection and quench exchanger
systems. These must be now capable of
continuous operation at these higher
temperatures and higher coking rates.
Furnace intensification
This is a concept to achieve more capac-
ity for a given firebox volume without
sacrificing furnace reliability. While
most of the furnace designers have
tended towards higher capacity fur-
naces this has often been at the expense
of shortened coil life or increased trans-
fer line exchanger fouling.
With the latest USC technology, it is
possible to install more radiant coil sur-
face without compromising the furnace
reliability. The technology’s furnace
intensification trend is shown in Table
2. An example of this is the second-gen-
eration U-coil design. This arranges the
radiant inlet and outlet tubes adjacent
to each other in a symmetrical arrange-
ment.
Using this new mechanical arrange-
ment, the radiant tubes can be located
closer together than conventional
MECHANICAL ENGINEERING
designs allowing more radiant surface
in the same firebox without the sacrifice
of radiant efficiency or runlength. This
design was incorporated into an addi-
tional furnace for a European client
which enabled a capacity increase of 35
per cent over the existing furnace
design for the same runlength using the
existing foundations and available plot
space as the original design.
Reliability and operational life of the
furnaces seems to be one of those items
that has a low priority during the selec-
tion of the furnace technology. Owners
who have selected alternative technolo-
gies are sometimes disappointed by the
furnace operational results; yet most
owners concede that the hot end sec-
tion is one of the highest operational
cost areas on an ethylene plant.
To this end, the focus has been on
maintaining a high on-stream factor.
With a smaller number of larger fur-
naces, reliability is an even more impor-
tant consideration and these areas of
operational or maintenance concerns
have been addressed.
One focus area was to design furnaces
that are 100 per cent floor firing. Prior
to the late 1980s the company’s fur-
naces were partially floor and wall fired
and, indeed, Stone and Webster still
designs furnaces at the request of
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clients, usually varying the firing ratio
between 50/50 to 80/20 on the floor to
wall burners. However, demonstrated
wall burner technology is still only in
the 1.5 to 2 million Btu/hr range where-
as the early floor fired furnace designs
had floor burners that were limited to 6
million Btu/hr.
With the furnace intensification pro-
gramme, burner size has increased to
heat releases as high as 15 million
Btu/hr per floor burner. With large fur-
nace designs the advantages of floor fir-
ing are obvious. Using the large
operating liquid (175 000+ tonnes/year)
furnace as an example, the fired duty is
approximately 500 million Btu/hr fur-
nace. Assuming a maximum heat
release of 8 million Btu/hr per floor and
an 80/20 floor to wall split, the floor
burner count would be on the order of
50 and the wall burner count would be
60 to 80, depending on the selected
heat release.
This compares to the actual design
where 64 floor burners were selected.
With furnace intensification, the burner
count could be as reduced to 32 burn-
ers. Clearly the operability and mainte-
nance of the floor burners is much
easier since all burners are located at
grade. This capacity increase has been
paralleled by the reduction of NOx

A grassroots plant with four furnaces working with independent cell operation. Seven of the eight radiant cells meet the plant capacity
where design guarantees of 70mg/Nm3
can be achieved with floor burner
designs.
Floor burners are inherently more sta-
ble when the furnace is operated beyond
its design throughput and turndowns as
high as 10:1 means that no burner needs
to be turned off for decoking or other
turndown conditions. The addition of
automatic damper control means that
the all burner air registers can be operat-
ed from the control room without using
an outside operator.
Another focus point has been the
quench system. After the double pipe
USX technology patent expired, other
designers have incorporated this proven
concept into their own furnace designs.
In conjunction with Borsig, Stone and
Webster has developed furnace design
using multiple USX type tubes called
Selective Linear Exchanger (SLE) where
modules in excess of 40 tubes can be
installed without using special site weld-
ing techniques.
Unlike previous SLE designs, where
double pipe exchangers were welded to
a common oval header, the SLE design
follows the USX design principles of
individual replaceable exchangers. For
large SLE modules, flow distribution of
the boiler feedwater is critical to prevent
dead areas or local water deposits. Use of
the patented turbo flow chamber by
Borsig virtually eliminates this concern.
With a specially designed three-layered
refractory system in conjunction with a
mechanical ring seal, the heat loss of the
SLE inlet nozzle is controlled to prevent
localised mechanical failure.
The mechanical ring seal prevents
hydrocarbon from entering the refracto-
ry lined inlet head. While operators still
find ways to damage equipment, for
example loss of the steam drum level or
an inadequate control of the boiler feed-
MECHANICAL ENGINEERING
water quality, the SLE modules are
designed to be either removed and a
new SLE tube installed or repaired in
place.
The individual double pipe elements
can be removed without having to cut
any of the primary inlet headers. Using
the close coupled roof mounted SLE
exchangers has proven to be superior in
achieving long exchanger runlengths
between mechanical cleaning with all
feedstocks compared with other transfer
line exchanger types.
For gas cracking furnaces, especially
where the plot space is limited, the USX-
Omega-P exchanger has been used. This
is a larger diameter, usually roof mount-
ed, double pipe exchanger that allows
the cracked gas effluent to be reduced to
close to the saturated boiler feedwater
temperature in a single unit. This com-
plements the traditional USX/TLX.
With large furnaces, the available
space on the furnace is increased and for
gas cracking furnaces this has led to larg-
er shell and tube exchangers for sec-
ondary heat recovery to be considered.
Thus it is possible to combine both the
BFW preheating with the steam raising
section into a single shell. The advan-
tage of this design is the elimination of
an additional piece of equipment and a
reduction in the total quench system
pressure drop.
Single cell, open cell or twin cell fur-
naces
Most owners are familiar with the most
common pyrolysis furnace configura-
tion in which individual single radiant
cell furnaces are arranged in a back to
back mirror image in pairs with typical-
ly one metre or more between each fur-
nace convection section. The
convection section is offset from the
radiant section to protect and shield the
lower row of convection tubes from
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P T Q SPRING 2000
direct radiation. This concept is well
tried and was the design of choice for
many furnace designers. Some even use
a double row of tubes to increase the fur-
nace capacity, although this can be at
the sacrifice of efficiency.
An alternative configuration is the
open radiant cell concept derived from
refinery heaters, which has been adapt-
ed to ethylene furnaces. Generally, two
or more rows of vertical tubes are placed
in a single firebox and heated with a
combination of floor only or floor and
wall burners.
This concept has merit for specific
applications but the convection section
design requires special consideration to
ensure that the direct radiation view fac-
tor to the shock tubes in the lowest por-
tion of the convection section is
correctly calculated.
This concept has been used for a
European client where the foundations
were already installed. Using this and
other design concepts the plot capacity
compared to the existing wall fired twin
cell furnaces was increased by over 35
per cent. Variations to this design
include a double row of tubes in the fire-
box with the burners either side of the
radiant coils coupled to an offset con-
vection section.
An additional advantage of minimis-
ing the furnace count is that the overall
plot space can be dramatically reduced.
With the use of three-dimensional com-
puter modelling tools, these large fur-
naces have been placed as close as 2m
while maintaining good access around
the furnace. Some argue that this is too
close but they tend forget that the tradi-
tional pair of furnaces orientated in a
back-to-back configuration were only
approximately 1m apart. As plants have
increased in size, it has been determined
that large single radiant cell furnaces are

generally not economical, and the com-
pany has adapted its USC design con-
cepts into a floor fired twin radiant cell
arrangement. With this design two radi-
ant cells are centred either side a com-
mon convection section.
The advantages of this design are
twofold. The convection is married to
the two radiant cells more efficiently
and the individual radiant sections can
allow for different hydrocarbon feeds to
be cracked in each radiant cell.
An example is the largest liquid
cracking furnace that has been in oper-
ation for over a year on the Gulf Coast.
In this design, two radiant sections each
approximately 30m in length are
matched to a convection section
approximately 22m long. An equivalent
single cell furnace would require that
the radiant section length be approxi-
mately 60m long to install all the same
radiant coils in a single firebox of the
same design.
This combination results in poor flue
gas and heat distribution due to the
large disparity between the radiant box
length and convection section length.
The number of individual convection
passes cannot be reduced as this incurs
an excessive process side pressure drop.
Further, to overcome the poor ratio
between the radiant and convection
MECHANICAL ENGINEERING
sections, the convection section length
would need to be increased. This low-
ers the overall transfer coefficient
which increases the convection section
tube length and thus capital cost of the
furnace.
By contrast, dividing the radiant sec-
tion into two 30m radiant cells
improves the flue gas distribution (it is
even superior to the traditional offset
convection section with the single radi-
ant cell design) and minimises capital
cost. Adaptation of the twin cell
arrangement has added flexibility over
both the single cell and open cell con-
cepts and is especially useful when used
with Stone and Webster’s independent
cell operation.
Concerns over shipping weights and
module handling for construction has
proven to be unfounded. Erecting these
furnaces in North America, the drive to
modularise the design to minimise the
construction fieldwork has proved to be
very cost effective. Essentially, the
quantity of pieces handled by the con-
struction contractor is not much greater
for the large furnace compared to a fur-
nace a third or half the size.
If the large furnace is modularised
into a single shippable unit or even a
small number of large modules, this has
a direct effect on all construction trades,
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P T Q SPRING 2000
“To respond to the pressure
to reduce capital cost and
maintain plant integrity, the
independent cell cracking/
cell decoking concept was
developed. Unlike previous
designs that had tried to
crack a full range of
feedstocks in a single cell . . .
this design concept
segregated the different
feedstocks in two
independent radiant cells”
especially scaffolding, which is often a
major expense.
For the large gas crackers, although it
was not considered economical to ship
complete single furnace modules due to
local restrictions, the furnaces were par-
tially modularised into large pieces.
This drives down contraction man-
hours and reduces the overall furnace
project schedule, which has led to con-
sider schedules for single furnaces in the
9 to 11 month ranges in areas where
these techniques can be used.
Independent cell operation and spar-
ing philosophy
The owner and furnace designer often
have different views on sparing philoso-
phy. The traditional ethylene plant has
a large number of smaller furnaces usu-
ally with a dedicated spare furnace and
sometimes a dedicated furnace to crack
the recycle streams.
To respond to the pressure to reduce
capital cost and maintain plant integri-
ty, the independent cell cracking/cell
decoking concept was developed.
Unlike previous designs that had tried
to crack a full range of feedstocks in a
single cell, generally reducing the
throughput of the ethylene furnace,
this design concept segregated the dif-
ferent feedstocks in two independent
radiant cells.
This design has resulted in a grass-
roots ethylene plant being built with
only four installed furnaces. Each fur-
nace is designed with two radiant cells,
a common convection section, com-
mon induced draft fan and common
steam system. The furnaces crack any
combination of naphtha, LPG or recycle
ethane/propane in any radiant cell.
Nameplate capacity is achieved by
any seven of the eight radiant cells,
with the eighth cell designated as the

spare, which is assumed to be in hot
steam standby or decoke mode.
In previous designs, eight smaller fur-
naces would have been selected, which
would have included one spare furnace. A
quick comparison shows that in this sce-
nario, eight steam drums, eight induced
draft fans, plus the time to erect eight fur-
naces is required.
While these items are smaller in size,
this does not compensate for the
economies of scale achieved by four larg-
er furnaces. In both cases the same num-
ber of radiant coils and quench
exchangers are installed. The advantage
of this design is that the spare capacity
was incorporated into a larger furnace
design without sacrificing feed flexibility.
To meet the environmental require-
ments, the decoke effluent was routed
back to the firebox. This created an addi-
tional challenge, namely how to decoke
one radiant cell (50 per cent of a single
furnace), while the other cell was crack-
ing a liquid or gas feedstock at its respec-
tive design rate. This was achieved by
upgrading portions of the convection sec-
tion to account for the heat imbalance of
the furnaces, which had the effect of
making the furnaces more mechanically
robust than a comparable single cell
design for only a small overall incremen-
tal increase in capital cost. In reality, the
MECHANICAL ENGINEERING
owner tends to operate all the cells con-
currently, using a rolling decoke method
to individually decoke the coils in each
furnace cell. These furnaces have been in
operation for over five years and have
demonstrated they can crack any combi-
nation of naphtha and recycle
ethane/propane in any radiant cell with-
out loss of plant capacity.
Large furnaces have the advantage of
providing a high capacity on a smaller
plot area, and independent cell operation
has been incorporated in plant expansion
furnaces, where the additional furnace
capacity is a substantial portion of the
existing plant. For example, two high
conversion gas-cracking furnaces were
installed into an existing Stone and Web-
ster Gulf Coast plant.
The capacity of the two furnaces
almost equalled the original plant size.
Thus, taking a full furnace off for decok-
ing was considered a risk for upsetting the
recovery section of the plant. Using inde-
pendent cell operation only one quarter
of the new installed furnace capacity is
disturbed during a decoke cycle.
This is similar to decoking an existing
furnace. The compact furnace footprint
allowed two large furnaces to be installed
where only two smaller single cell fur-
naces had been previously considered.
Similarly, the two large Gulf Coast liquid
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P T Q SPRING 2000
crackers provided similar capacity
increase on a plant that had seven small-
er revamped units, cracking gas through
naphtha in any of the cells provided cou-
pled with decoke back to the firebox.
Multi-zone cracking.
In response to client requests for feed
flexible furnaces, a concept called Multi-
Zone Cracking has been developed. This
is an extension of the proven indepen-
dent zone-cracking concept. By sub-
dividing each radiant cell into two or
more smaller zones, the furnace can be
designed to crack different feedstocks
without the loss of feed flexibility.
With client inquiries now requesting
ethylene plants approaching 1.5 million
tonnes/year and minimum furnace
count, this concept will make it possible
to offer furnaces that have a capacity of
300 000+ tonnes/year. Each radiant sec-
tion can be decoked using the indepen-
dent cell-decoking concept.
Using the furnace intensification and
combing this with the new U-coil design,
the furnace footprint for a 300 000
tonnes/year feed flexible liquid-gas is
approximately 15 per cent shorter than
the current 175 000 tonnes/year liquid
furnace that five years ago was consid-
ered state of the art design. Combing all
of the current known design features
 MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

from various operating furnaces, it is of the furnace for easy maintenance revamps. With over 100 floor fired fur-
practical to design and furnace approach- access. As the power requirement naces in operation varying in height
ing 350 000 tonnes/year while using increased, the use of the common 415V from 10m to 15m and length from 9m
proven technology. This is larger than motor is no longer feasible. to 30m, many of the features have been
some plants built in the past 10 years. Using variable frequency speed drives proven by actual operation.
rather than inlet vane control and min- These improvements have translated
Furnace control. imising the number of observation into greater furnace availability while
There are probably as many opinions on doors located on the radiant firebox reducing capital and maintenance costs.
ethylene pyrolysis control as there are walls to reduce air leakage, the operator
This article is based on a paper presented at
furnace types. On the new U-coil design, can achieve close control with high effi-
the DeWitt World Petrochemical Review,
the furnace was designed to crack a ciency over the wide operating modes.
Houston, Texas, March 1999.
heavy feedstock and naphtha in each There have been no operational debits
half of the furnace coils. associated with design features.
The control was designed to set the In conclusion, the technical features John R Brewer is chief engineer, Fired
base load 100 per cent floor firing to described can be equally applied to new Heater and Furnace Division, with Stone
match the heavy stock and vary the grassroots furnace designs or furnace & Webster, Houston,Texas.
naphtha feedrate to the required severi-
ty to achieve the equivalent firing rate.
For the naphtha, only two control
valves were required but for the heavy
feedstock, one valve per convection pass
was supplied.
For feed flexible furnaces, one control
valve is generally recommended for
each convection section pass. With the
large gas cracker, one control valve was
used to every two convection passes.
The company has also installed indi-
vidual pass control and zone floor firing
for some clients who want the ultimate
in furnace operation flexibility and con-
trol. With these large furnace designs,
there is more available room to allow
the installation of control valves and
other ancillary equipment, which is
often located on a separate pipe rack,
without sacrificing maintenance access
or operability. For independent cell
operation, only oxygen analyser and
one draft controller is required to con-
trol the furnace. Essentially, the furnace
operates as a single unit and the draft
variation of individual radiant fireboxes
does not affect the floor-fired operation.
Effect of equipment sizes on the large
furnace.
The large furnace capacity had a design
philosophy impact on two pieces of
equipment, the burner capacity and
induced draft sizing. Initially, the large
furnaces using previously proven design
parameters were designed. Thus, the
selected burners were in the 7–9
tonnes/hr range.
With furnace intensification, conven-
tional burner sizing set the firebox
length thus floor burners up to 16 mil-
lion Btu/hr were tested to see what prob-
lem if any this would cause. Although
the final burner selection was less than
16 million Btu/hr extrapolating the next
large furnace design with burners in the
range of 16 to 20 million Btu/hr is pos-
sible. From a NOx aspect, the burners
provided the lowest NOx numbers with-
3
out catalyst at 70mg/Nm . For induced
draft fans, the physical size of the fan
was not an issue. With long firebox
lengths, the fans were located at the end

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P T Q SPRING 2000