Home/Thermal Imaging
Petrochemical Applications
Refractory and Petrochemical Installations
A wide variety of industries rely on furnaces and boilers for
manufacturing processes, but the refractory linings for furnaces,
boilers, kilns, incinerators, crackers and reactors are prone to
degeneration and loss of performance. With a thermal imaging
camera damaged refractory material and the corresponding heat
loss can be easily located, as the heat transmission will show up
clearly on a thermal image.
Thermal imaging cameras are widely used in the petrochemical
sector. They provide rapid, accurate diagnosis for furnace
maintenance, refractory loss management and condenser fin
diagnosis. Heat exchangers can be checked to detect blocked
pipes.
Furnace and boiler equipment is also prone to failures from
a variety of other mechanisms. These include coking that plugs
the inside of tubes and impedes product flow, slag build-up on
the outside of tubes, under and overheating, flame impingement
on tubes due to burner misalignment, and product leaks that
ignite and cause serious damage to the equipment.
To ensure refractory quality of boiler and furnace installations
it is not enough to just perform inspections from the outside.
The refractory on the inside of the boiler or furnace has to be
inspected as well. With conventional methods it is necessary to
shut down the installation to be able to inspect the inside. This
is extremely costly due to a loss of production during downtime.
These losses are not necessary, however, for FLIR Systems also
has special thermal imaging cameras that can be used to inspect
the inside of the installation during operation.
This is possible due to the flame filter FLIR has included in the
design of these thermal imaging cameras. Flames emit infrared
radiation at different intensities at different wavelengths and at
certain wavelengths in the infrared spectrum flames emit hardly
any thermal radiation at all. A flame filter uses that fact to enable
the thermal imaging camera to ‘see’ through the flames.
References: Flir Systems