Refinery Furnaces

SEI refinery testing started in mid-2001. To date, SEI has tested acoustic systems at two refineries: Coastal Aruba Refining Co. NV at Aruba, and PDVSA-Refineria Isla N.V at Curaçao.

SEI has successfully tested acoustic systems on four refinery process heaters: a hydrogen reformer and delayed coker at Aruba; and a crude distillation unit and platformer at Curaçao. These refinery processes were chosen as they are typically found at nearly all refineries. SEI equipment sensitivity and response time have been successfully demonstrated and more extensive pilot tests are currently in progress. Reports for all four processes are available on our Literature Page.

Temperature stability, operation and performance optimization requires accurate real-time temperatures, and the proper and complete combustion of the variety of fuels involved. One key variable is the atmospheric reduced crude (ARC) temperature. The ARC temperature is critical for increased gas oil yield, at the same time reducing the Coker feed. Our role is to enable higher refinery throughput rates through better process temperatures.

SEI Acoustic Pyrometer Features

• Non-Intrusive design.
• The system’s lower range of 35^o F allows it to be used for cold or warm start-ups.
• Upper temperature range of 3500^o F, or nearly 2000^o C.
• Opposed to replacing Thermocouples during outages, saves time when most needed.
• Linear and Accurate, not affected by burner noise.
• The 4-20 mA temperature output is of the path, average, and difference, and easily connects to the Plant’s computer system.
• RS-232 and RS-422 for local monitoring and statistics.
• Telephone modem for remote monitoring
• An EEPROM stores all program settings