The highest value and most critical asset in many plants, the steam reformer, hosts the components most likely to experience material failure - reformer tubes. Reformer reliability, availability and utilization (as measured by reformer tube reliability and condition) affect plant production, outage risk and potential production loss due to protracted downtime. Plant health, safety and profitability can be directly improved and unexpected tube failures can be avoided, with confident predictions of reformer remaining life. However, recognized industry standards for remaining life evaluation such as API 579-1, do not address reformer tubes. Moreover, the API 579-1 Section 10 Omega method for creep assessment was not designed to consider the unique performance characteristics of modern HP alloys, which make up most reformer tubes currently in service.
A solution designed for HP Alloys
Like our other LifeQuest™ products designed to address life assessment of assets such as process heaters and high energy piping, LifeQuest™ Reformer is a special application solution that delivers a proven reformer tube life assessment methodology and improves tube replacement management. At the core of LifeQuest™ Reformer technology is the most advanced reformer materials database in the industry, coupled with a finite element stress analysis module benchmarked by extensive data from both laboratory tests and actual in-service tube failures.
Key Features
- Data-rich reformer materials database:
- Extensive creep data for HP alloys
- Stores history of multiple reformer tube inspections
- Advanced creep model for HP alloys:
- Primary, secondary, and tertiary regimes
- Material aging/microstructure changes
- Nucleation and growth of microcavities
- Built-in finite element module to predict creep strain
and remaining life:
- Accounts for through-wall gradients in strain
and damage
- Quantifies the influence of cycling
on life consumption
- Imports and analyzes Quest TruTec LOTIS® inspection data
Materials Database and Creep Model
Reformer tubes constructed from HP alloys have unusual properties at elevated temperatures. Unlike low alloy steels, HP alloys do not obey the Omega creep law in API 579-1. Moreover, the microstructure and mechanical properties of HP alloys evolve over time. LifeQuest™ Reformer captures and enables tracking of these complexities with a highly sophisticated creep model, a model that has been benchmarked with an extensive materials database including HP alloys.
Advanced Finite Element Module
Accurate life assessment necessitates accounting for the differences between a laboratory creep specimen and a tube in service. Through-wall temperature gradients result in non-uniform stresses, creep strains and creep damage. Microcavities and cracks typically form first near the ID of the tube and then propagate to the OD. The built-in finite element module accurately predicts non-uniform creep strain and damage. This module is also useful for quantifying the influence of thermal cycling on tube life consumption.
Integration with LOTIS®
The LOTIS® inspection system, developed and operated by Quest Reliability’s sister company, Quest TruTec, provides detailed and accurate dimensional data for reformer tubes. LifeQuest™ Reformer reads LOTIS® data and calibrates the life assessment to measured creep strains.
For further information about LifeQuest™ Reformer, please contact us.