Evaluation of the structural behaviour of a port chamber following damages produced in the refractory lining

摘要

The port chamber used in oil refineries is an exhaust chamber mountedafter the catalytic reactor for retaining and unifying the exhaust hot processgases. The thick steel shell has a refractory lining made of refractorycement called gunite or shotcrete. Damages produced in the refractorylining have serious effects on the thermal generated stresses in the steelshell. The research work aimed to find the level of these stresses in anumerical/experimental approach and to evaluate its consequences onthe service life of this important component of the oil refinery. A complexsequentially coupled physics thermal-structural analysis was performedusing the ANSYS code in order to get the stresses generated by a deepcrack in the shotcrete layer. The results concerning the thermal mappingwere based on previous inspections made with infrared thermography(IRT) and made possible an estimation of the remained service life of theport chamber.