WORKING with an engineering specialist with a proven track record in spray technology for operations in refineries, can mean the difference between acceptable performance and optimal performance/service life.
With decades of experience designing and manufacturing spray equipment for refineries, Spraying Systems Co. – represented in South Africa by Monitor Engineering – uses their extensive experience to guide a customer’s decision-making toward an optimal outcome.
Correct spray injector design for the application means predictable performance
Performance issues in refineries can be difficult to detect until degradation is severe, because once a piece of equipment is installed, it is out of sight and often out of mind. Therefore, when equipment is going to be installed inside of piping or another vessel, it is essential that it is designed properly for the application, that it can withstand the operating environment, and will deliver the required performance and service life.
“To avoid unscheduled shutdowns that are costly and disruptive,” says Grant Orsmond, MD of Monitor Engineering, “it’s vital to understand which type of equipment is best for the operation, (washing, cooling, injecting, quenching or humidifying), what the fabrication requirements are to ensure long service life, and actual performance with your process conditions prior to construction and installation.”
Partnering with Monitor Engineering and Spraying Systems Co. will help ensure predictable, repeatable performance in the Crude Oil Distillation unit (CDU), the Fluid Catalytic Cracking Unit (FCCU), hydrotreater, coker, and more, to avoid problems such as wall wetting, duct corrosion, refractory cracking, damage to downstream equipment, and premature equipment failure.
Services to validate performance prior to spray injector design and fabrication
Spray equipment used in refineries is built-to-order to meet specific process conditions. Prior to equipment fabrication, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is often recommended to validate performance and avoid costly and dangerous problems. Modeling the fluid flow, heat and mass transfer, chemical reactions and more, using actual operation conditions, will reveal potential costly problems such as wall wetting, refractory cracking, duct corrosion, premature equipment failures and unscheduled outages.
The models are highly accurate and instead of using theoretical calculations, Spray Systems Co. uses their proprietary data library compiled from actual testing completed in their spray laboratories.
It all starts with the nozzle
Orsmond explains that nozzle selection is an important first step, but it is just the beginning. If a refinery is using spray quills – pipes with splits or holes – the process efficiency is compromised as the fluid exiting the pipe is uninhibited. A spray injector which has pipes with one or more nozzles, corrects this problem.
The nozzle converts the fluid exiting the pipe into a predictable drop size spectrum with specific spray characteristics enabling more control over the distribution of the fluid in the receiving process stream. The result is more thorough washing of gas, more efficient cooling of vapours, increased efficiency of SO² removal, and improved scrubber impingement.
The type of spray equipment supplied by Monitor Engineering for refineries includes, hydraulic injectors, air/stream/gas atomizing injectors, Flomax® air, stream and hydrogen atomizing nozzles, single and multi-nozzle injectors, recirculating injectors, desuperheating injectors, retractable injectors, and tank mixing educators.
With 80 years of spray experience, and a proven track record with leading refineries and engineering firms around the world, Spray Systems Co. and Monitor Engineering have the expertise and experience needed to design, fabricate and validate performance.
For more information, please contact:
Grant Orsmond
grant@monitorspray.co.za
www.spray.co.za
