Development and Field Trial of Dimpled-Tube Technology for Chemical Industry Process Heaters

Abstract

Most approaches to increasing heat transfer rates in the convection sections of gas-fired process heaters involve the incorporation of fins, baffles, turbulizers, etc. to increase either the heat transfer surface area or turbulence or both. Although these approaches are effective in increasing the heat transfer rates, this increase is invariably accompanied by an associated increase in convection section pressure drop as well as, for heaters firing ‘dirty’ fuel mixtures, increased fouling of the tubes – both of which are highly undesirable. GTI has identified an approach that will increase heat transfer rates without a significant increase in pressure drop or fouling rate. Compared to other types of heat transfer enhancement approaches, the proposed dimpled tube approach achieves very high heat transfer rates at the lowest pressure drops. Incorporating this approach into convection sections of chemical industry fired process heaters may increase energy efficiency by 3-5%. The energy efficiency increase will allow reducing firing rates to provide the required heating duty while reducing the emissions of CO2 and NOx.