Fellow members,

As part of condition monitoring, we would like to avert frequent failures happened in our steam reformer tubes, is there any online monitoring Techniques/solutions apart from Thermal imaging.

All thermography can do it, I think. Becareful with radaition though.

However, I would think that process control especially firing rate and/or heat distribution must be monitored perfectly to avoid any hotspots or overheating.

The suspension mechanism also needs to be monitored to ensure straightness of the tubes and avoid bowing.

What type of firing design do you have, is it top-fired or side-fired?

Mr,Josh,

Thanks for your reply,we have been using Top fired with more than 960 tubes reformers.due to catalyst fines we are getting hot spots and over heating.In our experince thermogrphy helps some extent such as locating hot spots, but failure such as rupture may occur some other place in the same tube. also another one once we noticed hot spots what are the failure preventive measures we can take to overcome while in service?