Don't Foul Up Heat Exchanger Care Inadequate cleaning can impact heat recovery as well as energy and operations efficiency

摘要

SOMETHING HAD changed in the crude unit.The performance of heat exchanger E-126 had declined rapidly once again - heat recovery was down by 60%.It had already been cleaned three times in the past twelve months.I extracted data from the plant historian,calculated heat transfer coefficients,made a flashy plot to show the time-dependence,then presented it to the managers;they were impressed and agreed that something had changed in the past year.What could it be? Feed contamination? Additives? Water quality to the desalter?