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March
2017
HYDROCARBON
ENGINEERING
146
HEAT TECHNOLOGY
Q
Why is heat technology so crucial to downstream
process plant operations?
Across the hydrocarbon chain, good and efficient heat transfer
between fluids is fundamental to obtaining the high quality and
valuable products the industry produces. It is this heating and
cooling of streams that is one of the main energy intensive
processes that occurs in most process plants. From upstream to
downstream, in order to improve production, economics and
carbon footprint within plants, reducing this energy is a must
when applying the mantra ‘to do more, with less’.
Q
What are the main applications for your company’s
heat technologies/equipment within the downstream
industry, and how do they assist in these applications?
One of the main technologies CALGAVIN Ltd offers is hiTRAN®
Thermal Systems. This form of wire matrix turbulator installed
inside heat exchanger tubes increases the heat transfer rate for
the same pressure drop as compared to a multi-pass empty tube
design, for both single and two phase applications. When
processing viscous fluids in downstream processes, the heat
transfer is increased by disrupting the laminar boundary layer
and improving radial mixing of the liquid from the tube wall to
the bulk flow. A large proportion of downstream processes also
entail condensing and evaporating duties. For condensing
applications, hiTRAN improves vapour phase cooling and
inter-phase mass transfer rates, which is a consideration when
inert gases are present. Typical condensing applications are vent
condensers, vacuum condensers with inert components, reflux
condensers and condensers operating over a wide boiling range
of mixtures.
Typical applications where hiTRAN is used to aid evaporation
are re-boilers with low temperature driving forces, e.g. viscous
liquids, ethylene, LPG and LNG vapourisers. hiTRAN Systems for
these applications have shown to reduce sub-cooled lengths,
control film boiling at the tube wall, enhance fluid distribution and
wall wetting, and mitigate droplet carry over through improved
heat transfer in the super-heated region.
q
What was your company’s first heat related equipment
or technology aimed at the downstream oil and gas
industry?
One of the company’s earliest downstream applications was for a
train of feed/effluent heat exchangers in the production of
paraxylene at the old ICI Chemical & Polymer site at Wilton, UK.
The over-tubes stream was subject to quite heavy fouling. To
mitigate this, the tube-side co-efficient was doubled, and as a
consequence substantially improved the overall efficiency.
q
How have R&D methods evolved over the past 10 years
in relation to downstream heat technology?
Through improved research facilities and additional computational
fluid dynamics (CFD) capabilities, highly accurate thermal and
hydraulic estimates have been further validated. This has enabled
engineers to fully understand the fluid flow phenomena for
viscous single figure Reynolds ranges and understand the effect of
natural convection for viscous polymers/chemicals. For two phase
downstream applications, this research and product development
has shown the influence of hiTRAN upon the interaction of liquid
and gas phases with respect to flow stratification. Also,
measurement of the shear stresses made by hiTRAN have been
researched to enable better judgement of this technology for
fouling services.
q
Talk us through your company’s design process for new
heat technologies or equipment.
CALGAVIN’s expertise lies in specialist heat transfer evaluations. We
use a variety of analytical engineering services ranging from heat
transfer design, study to revamp, CFD, and air cooler
troubleshooting, in order to provide the heat transfer solution. For
existing heat exchangers in the field, by modelling the performance
using internal software/correlations and industrial heat transfer
software starting with plant data, this starts the troubleshooting
process as to what solution of heat technology would be most
suitable. The customer is then shown the possible achievable
improvements. These benefits could be increased throughput,
reduced energy consumption, reduced mechanical fatigue,
improved product quality, or meeting original design specifications
that have not been met before. For new designs, hiTRAN and empty
tube designs are compared in terms of plot space and the
economics, giving more optimised designs available to the customer
q
Explain how new heat equipment or technology is
tested at your company.
CALGAVIN and its partners fund and actively support research both
in-house and at universities and research establishments worldwide.
This extensive and valuable network of research provides valuable
information, allowing clients to gain a high level of confidence when
applying new technology or improving plant design proposed by
CALGAVIN.
q
What has been the company’s biggest achievement or
technological breakthrough in terms of downstream
heat technology?
One of the most important achievements from a technical stand
point is working with one of the largest chemical manufacturers to
develop our technology into their mono-ethylene-glycol (MEG)
units as a process licence. Successful installations have already
occurred in China, India and soon in the US.
q
How has the recent oil market volatility affected the
heat technology/equipment sector?
Similar to many companies in the sector, the price drop of oil and
gas, and the following volatility, has reduced the expected business
from future major projects. Having said this, CALGAVIN has
concentrated its efforts on supporting companies who have seen
the benefits of improving the performance and economics of their
existing plants. Clearly, some of this work will come back as oil
prices inevitably rise. Such uncertainty does concentrate our efforts
in making sure we not only maintain our current markets but also
develop new ones and new products.
q
Where do you see the heat technology market in 10 years?
There will undoubtedly be some significant additions to
the traditional well proven technologies used but we are unlikely
to see any changes of the magnitude one sees in the
communication industry. Incremental improvements in the variety
and performance of equipment used will, I believe, always offer
financial incentives to invest in research. In our own particular field
we see very specific opportunities ‘tailored’ to meet very specific
applications.
MARTIN GOUGH, CALGAVIN LTD, UK