Introduction to Furnaces & Fired Heaters

Provide an introduction to furnaces and fired heaters, outlining the basic concepts and purpose of these heating systems.

Explore how industrial furnaces or fire heaters supply high temperature heat to drive process operations and how heat exchangers recover energy to adjust temperatures.

Explore the basics of furnaces and fired heaters and learn how to properly proceed to the next section in this module.

Explain how direct and indirect fire furnaces transfer combustion heat to process fluids. Highlight multiservice operations and temperature control enabling multiple processes and selective heating for catalytic reforming and cracking.

Review the basics of furnaces and fired heaters and prepare to proceed to the next section.

Explore the key furnace parts, including the radiation and convection sections and the stack, and how heat transfer from combustion gases to the process fluid drives efficiency.

Classify furnaces by tube layouts in the radiation and convection sections, including vertical cylindrical, box type with vertical tubes, cabin with horizontal tubes, radiant wall, and double fiery furnaces.

Explore the design of vertical cylindrical furnaces, featuring radiation and convection zones, heat exchange on vertical walls, and multiple geometry types with vertical or horizontal tubes and optional liquid coils.

Explore a box type furnace with vertical tubes and arc shaped radiation tubes, floor burners, and a heat exchange area on the vertical side walls, with a multi-cell combustion chamber.

Explore a cabin furnace with horizontal tubes and floor burners, and identify three geometries: standard radiation cell, cabin type with a separation wall and side burners, and end-wall burners.

Radiant wall furnaces use heat exchange surfaces on the median plane of the combustion chamber with burners distributed along the sidewalls to transfer heat efficiently.

Explore double fired furnaces, focusing on heat exchange surface area in the median plane of burner rows, with three geometries: vertical-tube floor burners, roof burners, and horizontal-tube sidewall burners.

Summarizes furnace types and heat exchange layouts, including convection section placement and negative pressure, plus combustion air and excess air considerations for oil or natural gas fuels.

Explore essential concepts in furnaces and fired heaters, and learn the steps to safely proceed to the next section.

Minimize heat losses through furnace walls with an economically optimum insulation. Target one to two percent losses in large units and optimize excess air and flue gas handling.

Explore the core concepts of furnaces and fired heaters and review essential prerequisites before proceeding to the next section.

Define the functions and operating limits of each major furnace component to determine if it performs its duty, including burners, air heaters, refractory lining supports, and whippers.

Explore furnace tube bundles, straight seamless pipes joined by return bands or plug headers with inspection plugs, and consider outside diameter, thickness, corrosion and oxidation resistance, and max operating temperatures.

Explore tube coil supports in vertical cylinder and cabin furnaces, detailing base and wall supports in convection and radiation zones, and the free expansion principle in materials with refractory lining.

Understand furnace wall lining: metal shell with insulating refractory lining, balancing low conductivity, high temperature resistance, and strength; compare bricks, concrete, ceramic fibers, and calcium silicate second-layer insulators.

Analyze burners in fired heaters, covering combustion basics, flame propagation, and premix versus diffusion flames. Learn how excess air affects efficiency, unburned fuel, and pollutant emissions.

Heat is recovered from floor gases to heat combustion air, via direct exchange, an intermediate fluid, or the main process fluid, with integrated, static, and dynamic air heaters.

Sweepers in the convection section keep heat exchange surfaces clean by removing dust deposits, using air or steam blowing devices or acoustic subsonic sweepers to suspend dust.

Review essential concepts in furnaces and fired heaters before proceeding to the next section of the course.

Learn the fundamentals of furnaces and fired heaters and ensure readiness before proceeding to the next lectures.

Control a fired heater by balancing outlet temperature, firing, and skin temperature using SAS and BBCS, while coordinating flow splitting, cascading temperature to fuel flow, and air-fuel balance.

Explore complex fired heater control for fuel gas with variable heating value, using Warby index analyzer and flow meter in cascade control to regulate heat flux.

Explore advanced process control techniques in process industries, regulating level, temperature, pressure, and flow while learning safety instrumented systems, alarms, interlocks, and P&IDs for major equipment.