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GBH Enterprises, Ltd.
101 THINGS THAT CAN GO WRONG ON A

PRIMARY REFORMER - BEST PRACTICES GUIDE
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0 Introduction
1 Common Problems Affecting the Catalyst ...................................................... 9
1.1 Poisons ..................................................................................................... 9

1.1.1 Chloride Poisoning ............................................................................ 10
1.1.2 Arsenic .............................................................................................. 11
1.2 Carbon Formation and Hot Tubes........................................................... 11

1.2.1 Causes of Carbon Formation ............................................................ 11
1.2.2 Effect of Carbon Laydown ................................................................. 13
1.2.3 Effect of High Hydrocarbons ............................................................. 13
1.2.4 Loss of Fuel ...................................................................................... 14
1.2.5 Purging of Feed System.................................................................... 14
1.2.6 Actions to Limit Carbon Laydown Down............................................ 14
1.2.7 Carbon Removal by Steaming .......................................................... 15
1.2.8 More Severe Steaming ..................................................................... 15
1.2.9 The ‘Wind Down’ Effect ..................................................................... 15
1.3 Catalyst Breakage ................................................................................... 16

1.3.1 Effect of Trips .................................................................................... 16
1.3.2 Effect of Catalyst Design ................................................................... 16
1.3.2.1 Example of a Catalyst with Good Breakage Characteristics ....... 17
1.3.2.2 Example of a Catalysts with Poor Breakage Characteristics....... 17
1.3.2.3 Up Flow Fluidization Problems.................................................... 18
1.3.3 Milling of the Catalyst ........................................................................ 19
1.3.4 Effect of Water .................................................................................. 19
1.3.4.1 Effect of Water Carry Over .......................................................... 19
1.3.4.2 Shattering of the Catalyst ............................................................ 20
1.3.4.3 Condensation .............................................................................. 20
1.3.4.4 Passing Steam Valve .................................................................. 21
1.4 Catalyst Loading ..................................................................................... 21

1.4.1 Poor Catalyst Loading ....................................................................... 21
1.4.2 Effect of Voids ................................................................................... 22
1.4.3 Tube Expansion ................................................................................ 23
1.4.4 In-Correct Catalyst Loading .............................................................. 23
1.5 Reduction of the Catalyst ........................................................................ 23
1.6 Ammonia Formation ................................................................................ 25


2 Common Problems Affecting the Tubes ....................................................... 25
2.1 Hot Tubes ............................................................................................... 25
2.2 Tube Failure ............................................................................................ 26

2.2.1 Fundamentals of Tube Design .......................................................... 26
2.2.2 Tube Failure by Creep ...................................................................... 28
2.2.3 Failure due to General Overheating .................................................. 30
2.2.4 Thermal Cycling ................................................................................ 31
2.2.5 Failure due to Localized Overheating................................................ 32
2.2.5.1 Flame Impingement .................................................................... 33
2.2.5.2 Tunnel Port Effect ....................................................................... 33
2.2.5.3 Single Tube Catastrophic Failure ................................................ 35
2.2.5.4 Pigtail Nipping ............................................................................. 35
2.2.5.5 Domino Effect ............................................................................. 36
2.2.6 Loss of Feed ..................................................................................... 38
2.2.7 Tube Weld Positions ......................................................................... 38
2.3 Failure of Mixed Feed Pre Heat Coil ....................................................... 39
2.4 Boxing Up of Reformer............................................................................ 40

2.4.1 Storage of Tubes .............................................................................. 41
2.5 Effect of Water ........................................................................................ 41

2.5.1 Effect of Water Carry Forward .......................................................... 41
2.5.1.1 Effect on the Tube ....................................................................... 41
2.5.1.2 Effect on the Catalyst and Tube .................................................. 42
2.6 Stress Corrosion Cracking of Tube Tops and Bottoms ........................... 42

2.6.1 Tube Tops ......................................................................................... 42
2.6.2 Tube Bottoms.................................................................................... 43
2.7 Bowed Tubes .......................................................................................... 44
2.8 Tensioning of Tubes ............................................................................... 45
2.9 Pigtails .................................................................................................... 45

2.9.1 Failure by Creep ............................................................................... 45
2.9.2 Failure by Cracking ........................................................................... 46

2.10 Differential Tube Metallurgy’s ............................................................... 47
2.11 Risers ................................................................................................... 48
3 Common Problems Affecting the Furnace Box ............................................. 49
3.1 Fluegas Maldistribution ........................................................................... 49

3.1.1 Top Fired Furnaces ........................................................................... 49
3.1.2 Injection through Side Wall Peepholes.............................................. 50
3.1.3 Injection through Burner Ignition Port ................................................ 50
3.1.4 Foster Wheeler Furnaces.................................................................. 52
3.1.4.1 Fluegas Fan Effect ...................................................................... 52
3.1.4.2 Flow Maldistribution between Cells ............................................. 53
3.1.5 Tests for Mal Distribution .................................................................. 54
3.2 Coffins ..................................................................................................... 54

3.2.1 Design of Coffin Roof ........................................................................ 54
3.2.2 Effect of Damage to Coffins .............................................................. 55
3.2.2.1 Movement of Tunnel Walls.......................................................... 57
3.2.3 Coffin Damage on Kellogg Furnaces ................................................ 57
3.2.4 Removal of Coffins ............................................................................ 57
3.2.5 Modification to Port Layout................................................................ 59
3.3 Effect of Wind on Box Stability ................................................................ 59
3.4 Purging of the Box .................................................................................. 60
4 Common Problems Affecting Burners ........................................................... 60
4.1 Operation and Maintenance of Burners .................................................. 60

4.1.1 Burner Misalignment ......................................................................... 61
4.1.1.1 Cleaning of the Burner Tips ........................................................ 61
4.1.1.2 Damage to the Burner Quarls ..................................................... 62
4.1.1.3 Top Fired Reformers ................................................................... 63
4.1.2 Lighting Burners ................................................................................ 64
4.1.2.1 Side Fired Furnaces .................................................................... 65
4.1.2.2 Foster Wheeler Furnaces............................................................ 65
4.1.3 Non Optimal Firing in Foster Wheeler Furnaces ............................... 66

4.1.4 Fuel Usage........................................................................................ 67
4.1.5 After-Burning ..................................................................................... 67
4.1.6 Metal Dusting of Burner Tips............................................................. 68
4.2 Flame Instability ...................................................................................... 68
4.3 NOX ......................................................................................................... 68
4.4 SOX ......................................................................................................... 69
5 Common Problems Affecting the Fluegas Duct ............................................ 69
5.1 Too Much Excess Air .............................................................................. 69

5.1.1 Leaks in Rotary Air Preheaters ......................................................... 69
5.1.2 Areas of Potential Air Leakage.......................................................... 70
5.2 Too Little Excess Air ............................................................................... 70

5.2.1 Due to Insufficient ID Fan Capacity ................................................... 70
5.3 Fluegas Coiling Fouling........................................................................... 71
5.4 Problems with Fans ................................................................................ 73

5.4.1 ID Fan Trips ...................................................................................... 73
5.4.2 ID Fan Close to Maximum Speed Pressure Boxes ........................... 73
5.4.3 Governor Instability ........................................................................... 73
5.4.4 Flue Gas Mal-Distribution – Effect on Box Pressure ......................... 73
6 Common Problems Affecting the Header Designs ........................................ 74
6.1 Fuel and Fuel Header Designs ............................................................... 74

6.1.1 Symmetry .......................................................................................... 74
6.1.2 Deposition of Particular Matter in Fuel Headers................................ 74
6.1.3 Fuel Valve Suction ............................................................................ 74
6.1.4 Purge CV Changes ........................................................................... 74
6.2 Combustion Air Problems ....................................................................... 75

6.2.1 Poor Combustion Duct Design .......................................................... 75
6.2.2 Combustion Air Maldistribution ......................................................... 75
6.2.2.1 Due to Mechanical Failure .......................................................... 75

6.3 Process Headers .................................................................................... 77
6.3.1 Inlet Process Gas Header Design ..................................................... 77
6.3.1.1 Dead Legs and Low Points ......................................................... 77
6.3.1.2 Headers too Hot .......................................................................... 77
6.3.2 Exit Header Design ........................................................................... 78
6.3.2.1 Exit Header Failure ..................................................................... 80
7 Common Problems Affecting Refractory ....................................................... 81
7.1 General Refractory Damage ................................................................... 81
7.2 Tracking of Gas behind Refractory ......................................................... 81
7.3 Seals around Tube Inlets/Outlets ............................................................ 81
7.4 Peephole Refractory ............................................................................... 82
7.5 Cooling of Hot Reformer Casing ............................................................. 82

7.6 Damage to Refractory Anchors ............................................................... 83
8 Common Miscellaneous Problems................................................................ 84
8.1 Nickel Carbonyl Formation ...................................................................... 84
8.2 On Line Analyzers ................................................................................... 84
8.3 Temperature Measurements ................................................................... 85

8.3.1 Exit Header Temperature Measurement ........................................... 85
8.3.1.1 M W Kellogg Furnaces ................................................................ 86
8.3.1.2 European Plant Experience ........................................................ 87
8.3.2 Variations in Exit Temperatures ........................................................ 87
8.3.3 Fluegas Temperature Measurements ............................................... 88
8.4 Metal dusting of Waste Heat Boilers ....................................................... 89
8.5 Flowmeter Errors .................................................................................... 89
8.6 Sample Shifting ....................................................................................... 90

8.7 Zinc Alloys............................................................................................... 91
8.8 Power Failures ........................................................................................ 91
9 Troubleshooting ............................................................................................ 92
9.1 Process Troubleshooting Guide .............................................................. 92
9.2 Mechanical Troubleshooting Guide ......................................................... 95
10 Conclusions ............................................................................................... 98
11 GBHE INTERNAL References ................................................................... 99

0 Introduction
This paper details some common problems that can occur on primary reformer,
the associated convection section and the waste heat boiler. These problems
can lead to either a full plant shut down to effect repairs or to a loss of plant
efficiency. The problems have been grouped into and under the following
headings,
• Catalyst,
• Tubes,
• Furnace box,
• Burners,
• Fluegas duct,
• Header designs,
• Refractory
• Waste Heat Boilers.
Some typical examples include, but are not limited to,
• Carbon formation.
• Tube failure due to general overheating or overheating in a specific area.
• Fluegas maldistribution.
• Metal dusting of Waste Heat Boilers.
• Damage to coffins or coffin removal.
• Maintenance of burners.
• Combustion air maldistribution.
• Leaks in Rotary Air Pre-heaters.
• Flame impingement.
• Effect of water on tubes and catalyst.
Plant reliability could be defined by the following graph,

After plant start up, there are a number of problems formally associated with
commissioning, design issues and the operators learning about the plant.
Towards the end of the plants life, the problems are more associated with ageing
hardware, loss of corporate memory, changes in plant personnel and changes in
operating philosophy. It should be noted that many of these problems that have
occurred in the past are starting to re-occur again. This is a function of the above
issues and the reduction in plant personnel due to the effect of market forces on
fixed costs. See reference12 for further details.
For details on reformer design, references 14 and 15 are recommended reading.
1 Common Problems Affecting the Catalyst
1.1 Poisons
There are a large number of poisons that can affect primary reforming catalyst;
typical poisons include,
• Sulfur compounds such as hydrogen sulfide, COS, mercaptans and

thiophenes.
• Chlorides and halides.
• Mercury.
• Arsenic.
• Silica.
• Phosphates.
• Organo-metallic’s.

• Heavy metals.
• Alkali metals.
• Vanadium – this can be a problem with plants with a Vetrocoke system.
Sulfur can be moved by steaming as discussed in section 0. With the exception

of sulfur, once the catalyst has been poisoned, either the affected portion or all of
the catalyst will have to be discharged and replaced.
1.1.1 Chloride Poisoning
Chlorides are a particularly virulent poison. It should be noted that chlorides

have an unusual effect on zinc oxide as they react on the surface of the pellets to
form zinc chloride. This skin completely blocks off access to the internal volume
of the pellet, thereby dramatically reducing he sulfur absorption capacity. The
following figure illustrates this effect,
This means that if a chloride guard is not installed then chlorides can pass
through to the reformer very quickly and since the zinc oxide has been poisoned,
the reformer will also see high levels of sulfur.

1.1.2 Arsenic
If the catalyst is poisoned by arsenic, then not only does the catalyst have to be
discharged but the inside of the tubes have to be cleaned to remove any residual
arsenic. If this is not done, then this residual arsenic will leach out of the parent
metal and poison the replacement catalyst.
1.2 Carbon Formation and Hot Tubes
Carbon formation is normally highlighted by the formation of hot bands on the

reformer tubes as highlighted by the following figure,
1.2.1 Causes of Carbon Formation
Carbon formation occurs when one of the following occurs,
• The plant is operated at a low steam to carbon ratio; this typically occurs
during a plant transient such as shut down or start up.

• The feedstock composition changes such that the feed includes more heavy
hydrocarbons; this is occurring more often as many gas wells are
approaching the end of their useful life.
• The catalyst activity drops such that the inside tube wall and/or the process
gas temperature becomes high enough that carbon formation rate exceeds
the carbon gasification rate; this typically occurs at the end of the catalyst life
or if the catalyst has been poisoned. The latter problem is occurring with
more regularity as many gas wells are approaching the end of their useful life.
• The catalyst has poor heat transfer characteristics which cause an increase in
tube wall and process gas temperatures.
• Insufficient purging of the plant to remove residual hydrocarbon prior to

restart.
• Collection of liquid hydrocarbons in dead legs or low points.
• Complete loss of steam whilst all or some of the feedstock is still being
passed to the reformer. In the latter case, this cannot be removed even with
steam (see section 0). Typically, this can be caused by a passing valve or a
lack /poor instrumentation.
It should be noted that once carbon is laid down, a viscous circle is formed; this
is because the carbon lay down causes,
• A decrease in inside tube wall heat transfer coefficient.
• A decrease in the inter pellet heat transfer coefficient.
• A decrease in catalyst activity as the active nickel sites are covered by

carbon.
• An increase in resistance to flow through the affected tube, thereby

decreasing the heat sink available.

1.2.2 Effect of Carbon Laydown
These all cause an increase in inside tube wall and process gas temperature and
hence an increase in the rate of carbon deposition which then increases the
effects of the above.
Eventually the outside tube wall temperature is increased such that it glows with
the typical orange color that is a sure sign of carbon laydown. If nothing is done
to halt the progress of the carbon formation, then eventually the tube wall
temperature will increase such that it reaches the design tube wall temperature
and hence becomes a plant limitation.
1.2.3 Effect of High Hydrocarbons
It is well known that slugs of high hydrocarbons can lead to hot banding if the
steam to carbon is not adjusted accordingly. Such incidents are well known and
relatively common.
Once such incident occurred on a South American plant. The upstream LNG
plant has two stages of condensate removal, the first operating at 35°C and the
second at –35°C. Both stages were subject to trips and shut downs and when
they were out of service, large amounts of higher hydrocarbons were not
removed from the natural gas and therefore passed to the steam reformer. This
lead to excessive hot banding of the reformer.
The following figures illustrate some typical hot bands as observed on this
reformer,

The reformer was steam out and was successful since the hot bands were
removed,
1.2.4 Loss of Fuel
If the fuel is lost to the furnace, then the exit reformer and fluegas temperatures
from the furnace will start to drop very quickly. This latter effect causes a loss of
feed pre heat and steam generation. If no action is taken, then it is possible for
carbon formation to occur due to the reduction in steam to carbon ratio.
1.2.5 Purging of Feed System
If the front end of the plant is not purged adequately enough, then CO and CO2
can be methanated to form CH4. On restart this can crack thereby depositing
carbon on the surface of the catalyst.
1.2.6 Actions to Limit Carbon Laydown Down
Increasing the steam to carbon ratio and the hydrogen recycle rate is
directionally the correct action to take once carbon formation has been detected.
This will only reduce the rate of carbon formation slightly. In reality it will not help
gasify carbon that has already been laid down.

1.2.7 Carbon Removal by Steaming
The only method to ensure that carbon is removed is to steam the catalyst. The
following is a set of guidelines that should be followed when it is necessary to
steam the catalyst,
1. The steam rate shall be set at a minimum of 50% of the design steam rate.
2. The reformer exit temperature shall be as high as possible and shall be in
excess of 700°C.
3. The steam out shall be performed for at least 12 hours.
4. The gas exit the reformer shall be tested for methane and carbon dioxide; it
should be noted that there will be little carbon monoxide since the water gas
shift reaction favors the formation of carbon dioxide. The results of the test
shall be trended as a measure of the progress of the steaming.
5. The exit reformer gases shall also be tested for hydrogen sulfide. An
alternate is to test the process condensate for sulfites and hydrogen sulfide
(in some cases a small test is adequate for detecting this).
6. If the gas sample is taken down stream of the process condensate knock out
pot, the nitrogen shall be added at the mixing tee to act as a carrier gas.
Further details are available in Ref. 1 and 2.
1.2.8 More Severe Steaming
If normal steaming as detailed above, fails to remove the carbon from the tubes,
then hydrogen can be added to speed up the process. If this fails, then air (or
oxygen can be added to help remove the carbon by burning. If this fails, then the
only option is to replace the catalyst.
1.2.9 The ‘Wind Down’ Effect
If a hot tube or hot spots develop, then it may often happen that the local firing
around the affected tubes is reduced, to lower the tube temperature. In order to
maintain the overall production rate, however, it is then deemed necessary to
increase the general level of firing. This has been known to lead to more hot
spots - so the local firing is reduced, and the general firing increased, as before.
This process can lead to a vicious circle, ending with many damaged tubes, and
reduced overall firing efficiency.

It is probably advisable to live with the slight loss of efficiency caused by NOT
increasing the general level of firing in the first place.
This is a particular problem if the original cause of the hot spot is due to carbon
formation since it does mean that the tubes that have their firing increased will
become hotter and therefore will be more susceptible to forming carbon.
1.3 Catalyst Breakage
Catalyst breakage can be caused by carryover of water (see section 0),

excessive trips or poor catalyst design.
1.3.1 Effect of Trips
Excessive trips cause expansion and contraction of the tubes; the contraction of
the tubes cases large stresses to build up on the pellets and these stresses can
only be relieved by movement of the catalyst axially in the tube or pellet
breakage. In reality, only the catalyst at the top of the tubes can move and the
catalyst towards the bottom of the tube, where the temperature changes will be
the greatest, are locked in position. Therefore, the only possibility is for the
catalyst to fracture.
1.3.2 Effect of Catalyst Design
If the catalyst has been designed such that on breakage, it forms a large number
of small fragments, the pressure drop will rise rapidly. An example of this
phenomenon is given below.

1.3.2.1 Example of a Catalyst with Good Breakage Characteristics
Comp J four hole catalyst is an example of a catalyst with good breakage

characteristics, in that when it does break it forms large fragments which means
that the pressure drop is relatively small. This is because,
• Pressure drop is inversely proportional to effective pellet diameter – therefore

if the fragments formed are large, then the effective pellet diameter only
increases marginally,
• Pressure drop is related to voidage by the following term (1-e)/e³ and

therefore any decrease in voidage will cause large increases in pressure drop
1.3.2.2 Example of a Catalysts with Poor Breakage Characteristics
An example of a catalyst with poor breakage characteristics if that of the Comp U

Wagon Wheel (the extended Wagon Wheel – EW, with thicker ligaments may be
better) and Comp H’s seven hole catalyst,

Breakage of the catalyst in a tube will lead to a high resistance to flow and
therefore, the flow through the tube will be low. This will cause the tube to
operate hot – a similar effect is caused by variability in the loaded voidage (see
section 0).
1.3.2.3 Up Flow Fluidization Problems
The majority of reformers have the process gas flowing downwards and hence
there are no issues associated with fluidization of the catalyst, however, there are
a number of up flow circular reformer. If the design of the reformer is poor or the
plant has been uprated, then is it possible to achieve process side velocities that
are sufficiently high to fluidize the catalyst. This will lead to catalyst attrition and
breakage which will cause excessively high pressure drop and fouling of
downstream equipment by catalyst dust.
A potential solution to this problem is to install a hold down device with sufficient
mass to resist the fluidization force. A typical design is shown below.

1.3.3 Milling of the Catalyst
Milling of the catalyst can occur if the tube inlet is incorrectly designed. Typical
designs of inlets are shown below for a side and top entry.
Both designs are acceptable, however the separation between the inlet and the
catalyst surface must be sufficiently large to ensure that catalyst damage does
not occur. It should be noted that for side entry pigtails, the separation shall be a
minimum of 100 mm and for top fired, a minimum of 200 mm.
At a European Plant, the customer complained of a high pressure drop and when
the tubes where opened, it was found that the catalyst had been milled into
spherical particles. In this reformer, the separation distance was only 100 mm
and the jet of gas leaving the pigtails rolled the catalyst around.
1.3.4 Effect of Water
1.3.4.1 Effect of Water Carry Over
A further problem is water carry over from the steam drum, where the liquid is not
fully disengaged from the steam. If this liquid is not vaporized in the steam
superheater, then it is possible for boiler salts to be carried over to the reformer
where it can be poisoned or a crust of salts can be formed on the catalyst.

1.3.4.2 Shattering of the Catalyst
Recently on an Ammonia plant in South America, the operator managed to fill the
bottom section of the reformer tubes with water. Upon restart, the pressure drop
across the reformer was high and this lead to a shut down. After discharging the
catalyst it was found to have had the edges sheared off as shown below,
The cause of this was when the catalyst was heated up, the water could not
escape from the centre of the ligaments, which represents the thickest part of the
catalyst pellet, before it was vaporized. As soon as the water vaporized, there
was a huge volume expansion which caused these sections to break away from
the rest of the pellet.
1.3.4.3 Condensation
On a plant trip it is very possible that steam can condense and sit in dead legs or
low points in the feed header system. On a plant restart, it is possible that the
water is carried forward on to the catalyst. The catalyst is normally hot at this
stage, and as the cold water hits the hot catalyst, the catalyst will be rapidly
cooled and the stresses induced can shatter the catalyst.
This problem can be prevented by eliminating low points and dead legs during
the design of the plant – it is usual that this kind of problem will be picked up
during the plant HAZOP review. Suitable positioning of drains and correct start
up procedures will also help in minimizing the risk.

1.3.4.4 Passing Steam Valve
If the process steam valve passes during a shut down or whilst the plant is shut
down, then it is possible for water to condense on the catalyst. On restart this
can lead to a number of problems such as shattering of the catalyst and potential
formation of concrete.
1.4 Catalyst Loading
1.4.1 Poor Catalyst Loading
Ensuring a good catalyst loading is fundamental in ensuring efficient operation of

the primary reformer. Any deviations
in resistance to flow through the tubes
will result in differential flows between
tubes and this in turn will lead to tube
wall temperature differences as
illustrated to the right,
A good catalyst loading will cause

even process gas distribution and
hence even tube wall temperature
distribution as shown below

Another effect is that there will be process gas exit temperature spreads on the
reformer which will artificially increase the methane slip from the reformer. The
effect of this effect is illustrated below.
The industry has developed a number of pressure drop measurement devices,

one of which is called the PD Rig which allows for tubes pressure drops to be
measured at various points during catalyst loading. The results of this allow the
operator to determine which tubes have a low resistance to flow (a low pressure
drop) which need further vibration and those with a high resistance to flow (a high
pressure drop) which need reloading.
Also the method of loading is very important. The traditional sock loading, can
when applied correctly, give a very good catalyst loading. However, the more
modern Unidense method can give a loading where little or in some cases no
remedial action is required during and after catalyst loading to achieve a uniform
catalyst loading.
1.4.2 Effect of Voids
Furthermore, a poor loading can give rise to localized voids within the tube which
will be seen as hot spots on the tube. This can then limit the reformer
performance since to keep these tubes cool; the firing around these tubes with
hot spots has to be reduced.

1.4.3 Tube Expansion
Care should be taken to allow for the effect of tube expansion. Sufficient catalyst
must be charged into the reformer tube when cold to make sure that when
operating, and therefore hot, the catalyst does not settle down so far as to
expose empty space at the top of the reformer tube.
1.4.4 In-Correct Catalyst Loading
Another problem can occur if a two tier catalyst combination is being loaded with
the top catalyst being potash doped. Unless the catalysts are a different shape
or size, it is easy to load the catalyst the wrong way around. This means that
there is no protection against carbon formation in the top of the tube and carbon
will be a problem if the conditions as outlined in section 0 are fulfilled.
1.5 Reduction of the Catalyst
As with many catalysts, primary reforming catalysts are supplied in the oxide
form and therefore require reduction. Unlike the majority of catalysts, there is
normally no hydrogen to reduce the reforming catalyst.
It is normal practice therefore to start the plant up on steam and natural gas and
allow the reduction to be performed by the cracking of natural gas. Once the
plant is operating, it is possible to recycle hydrogen from the back end of the
plant to complete the reduction.

This initially incomplete reduction can lead to the observation from a customer
that the tubes are hot and therefore the catalyst is not active. Another potential
problem occurs with reformers where the inlet temperature is too low. Reformer
catalysts are required to be at a sufficiently high temperature in order to be
reduced – the required temperature is a function of the catalyst support as shown
below,
If the inlet temperature is less than these figures, then the catalyst will not be
reduced and the un-reduced section of the catalyst will remain until the operating
temperature at that point in the tube exceeds the minimum reduction
temperature. Since catalysts containing magnesium oxide require a very high
temperature before they reduce, they are normally supplied with the top 15% as
pre-reduced. This however, only good for the first start up – thereafter, all
restarts which must a trip and subsequent oxidation, will suffer from the problem
outlined above.

1.6 Ammonia Formation
Ammonia will be formed over primary reformer catalyst by combination of

nitrogen from the feedstock and hydrogen formed within the reformer. Ammonia
formation is favored by high temperatures and therefore the bulk of the ammonia
is formed at the tube exit – this is also where the hydrogen content of the process
gas is its highest. Nitrogen formation rate is also proportional to the nitrogen
content of the process gas and the activity of the catalyst. This means that at
start of run, the ammonia formation levels will be their highest, typically 30% of
the equilibrium value and at end of run, they will be at their lowest, typically 10%
of equilibrium.
2 Common Problems Affecting the Tubes
2.1 Hot Tubes
There are a number of forms of hot tubes, each with a different cause; the
following figure illustrates the different forms,

The causes of this are,
• Hot spots due to localized high voidage or catalyst poisoning (0).

• Hot tubes due to low flow caused by a high loaded density (low voidage).
• Giraffe necking,
• Tiger tailing.
• Speckled tubes due to small zones of high voidage where the catalyst is not
touching the inside wall of the tube.
These hot zones on the tube can lead to a reduction in tube life and
consequently, premature tube failure.
2.2 Tube Failure
There are many causes of tube failure within primary reformers of which some
are discussed below. Some of these failures must be expected and others that
can be deemed as premature.
2.2.1 Fundamentals of Tube Design
Due to the operating conditions of a primary reformer, that is high temperature

and moderate pressure, the reformer tubes are operated in the creep regime; in
this regime, the tubes are gradually being stretched and hence the tube loses
strength and thickness. This process is similar to that which affects glass; if one
where to look at an old glass window, it appears to be of variable thickness and
appears ‘wavy’.
This fact has been accounted for in the design of the reformer tubes and it is
typical that reformer tubes are designed to last for 100,000 hours (with an
expectation that 2.5% of the tubes will fail before this time is reached). In many
cases, tubes have lasted much longer than this due to over design of the tubes
or operation at less than the design temperature and pressure.

The process used to design the reformer tubes is to determine the hoop stress
that is applied to the tube due to the differential pressure between the process
gas and fluegas sides of the furnace. The Larsen-Miller plot (as shown below) to
determine the maximum allowable operating temperature.
The reverse procedure can also be used where the design temperature is set
and then the maximum allowable stress is calculated from the Larsen-Miller plot,
which then allows the tube thickness of be determined.

2.2.2 Tube Failure by Creep
Failure of the tube is normally due to creep damage that occurs from the inside of
the tube wall to the outside of the tube wall, as illustrated below,
The typical progression of creep damage at the micro level is shown below,

The left hand figure shows the development of isolated creep voids between the
grains. The middle figures shows how these develop into fissures between the
grains and the right hand figures shows these fissures joining up and developing
into cracks. Typical tube failures are shown below,
Failures can also occur at the welds in the tubes,
This was a common problem with older tubes since the weld material was
somewhat weaker than the parent tube material. However, modern weld
material, if properly applied will actually be stronger than the parent material and
so this problem is now less common on modern furnaces.

2.2.3 Failure due to General Overheating
This situation is where either all of the majority of tubes have failed in a reformer
due to operation at high temperatures. It is typical that this problem occurs
during start ups or shut downs of the primary reformer. One of the root causes of
such failures is that the process parameters are very different from the normal
operating conditions and it is not normally obvious to the plant operators that
there is a problem.
A classic example is the complete ‘burn down’ of the tubes in a Canadian primary
reformer. The plant was tripped due to loss of feedstock, however the feedstock
isolation valve did not close fully and feedstock continued to be passed forward
to the reformer. The set point on reformed gas pressure not reduced and the
reformer continued to be operated at 16 bar. Steam was introduced for plant
restart at reduced rate and all the burners were lit (a deviation from operating
procedure). At this time the steam reformer tubes "looked normal" but there was
nearly three times the amount of fuel going to burners than there should have
been. Also the fuel gas had a higher than normal calorific value which increased
the heat release by a further 15%.
At this point the first tube started to rupture and the oxygen level in the furnace
dropped to zero since the feedstock was now combusting in the furnace.
Normally the high pressure furnace trip would have been activated but this was
being bypassed. Flames were observed issuing from the peepholes and a visual
inspection of the reformer found that the tubes were “white hot and peeling
open”. The following are photos of the reformer after the plant was shut down,

It should be noted that the reformer exit gas temperature on panel never
exceeded 700°C (1290°F); it should be noted that the exit temperatures from the
primary reformer during transients should not be used as a guide to tube
temperature.
2.2.4 Thermal Cycling
During the life of a reformer tube, it will experience a number of full thermal and
pressure cycles caused by plant start-ups and shut-downs. The cumulative effect
of these cycles can be very damaging, and lead to accelerated creep cracking.
The tube life is crudely related to the number of cycles it has seen, and possibly
also the tube wall thickness.
Thick tubes (typically made from HK40 and similar alloys) may be defined as
those in which the OD:ID ratio is greater than 1.35 (e.g. 17 mm (0.7 inch) wall
thickness for a 100 mm (3.94 inches) bore tube are significantly less tolerant to
thermal cycling than thin tubes. Fortunately, the availability of stronger alloys
(such as 36X and XM) in recent years, leading to thinner tubes, has reduced the
significance of this problem in new plants.

2.2.5 Failure due to Localized Overheating
There are many mechanisms for localized tube overheating which cause a single
tube or a group of tubes to fail catastrophically. One method of determining that
the tubes have been subjected to is the color of the catalyst; at high
temperatures, the catalyst support will be affected and spinel formation will start
to occur.
The effect of this is to change the color of the catalyst as shown in the following
picture from a Caribbean Plant,
Typical color changes are highlighted below,

Additional information can be found in reference 10.
2.2.5.1 Flame Impingement
There are a number of causes of flame impingement on the tubes, for example,
misaligned burners, fluegas mal-distribution (see section 0) and poor burner
maintenance. The effects of these are discussed in the relevant section
elsewhere in this document. The effect of these on the tubes is precisely the
same, in that a small section of the tube will become overheated and eventually
fail due to excessive localized creep.
2.2.5.2 Tunnel Port Effect
It had been noted that a number of large methanol reformers had suffered
premature tube failures in the bottom section of the tubes; NDT had shown that
the effect was limited to a length of 100-150 mm of the tube in the zones
opposite the portholes.
Checks using a surface contact thermocouple, and both an optical and gold cup
pyrometer were made on the tube temperatures in this zone and they were found
to be significantly higher than expected as illustrated below,

It was noted that the tubes had failed almost directly opposite the ports in the
tunnels, as shown below,
Theoretical checks where then made using a Monte Carlo simulation to

determine the paths that radiation would take from the inside of the coffin. This
shows that a beam of radiation did escape from the tunnels and impacted on the
tubes causing the tube temperature to be significantly greater than would be
expected,

It is typically found that this effect can raise the temperature of the tubes in this
zone by between 10 and 18°C which equates to a reduction in tube life of
between 25 and 45% which explains the premature failure of the tubes. The
short term solution is to install an insulated sleeve around this area; this does
increase the methane slip and causes a short term plant inefficiency. A longer
terms solution is to install a high activity/heat transfer catalyst in this zone to
reduce the tube wall temperature.
2.2.5.3 Single Tube Catastrophic Failure
If a tube does fail, then it is still possible to continue to operate the furnace.
Checks should be made to ensure that the jet issuing from the failure point is not
impinging on another tube, which could lead to localized overheating of and
premature failure. This check should be repeated at regular intervals and if the
jet dies impinge on another tube, then the tube shall be nipped as quickly as
possible.
2.2.5.4 Pigtail Nipping
If a tube or pigtail does fail, then it is

possible on appropriately designed
furnaces to nip the tube using a pig tail
nipper; the following picture illustrates
a tube that has been nipped (the
yellow tube) ,
This tube will be significantly hotter

than the other tubes since it is still
receiving full heat flux from the burners, but there is no flow of process gas
through the tube to cool it. Eventually the tube will fail as highlighted in the next
picture,

Note in this picture the collapsed coffin in the distance.
2.2.5.5 Domino Effect
A North American Plant operator of a large reformer in the USA suffered a

significant number of tube s failure in the 1990’s. The root cause of this problem
was their policy of fuel management after nipping failed tubes. As with many top
fired furnaces, NA Plant operator had the capability to nip tubes.
After a tube failure, it was nipped, however, the NA Plant did not reduce the fuel
to the burners around the failed tube – it should be noted that it is normal practice
to reduce the fuel firing around a nipped tube. By not reducing the firing around
the nipped tube, the adjacent tubes received the heat from the burners
associated with them and also from the burners next to the failed tube.
This increased their temperature significantly and lead to some of these adjacent
tubes failing; the following figures illustrate what happen - note newly failed tubes
are highlighted as red and previously failed tubes are highlighted as black.

This effect then propagated down the row with the failed tubes as illustrated
below,
As the number of tubes that failed increased, the tubes tube in the opposite row
became to hot, and eventually lead to the failures jumping across to the adjacent
rows. This then causes the adjacent tubes in these rows to fail, and the failures
then started to propagate along the adjacent tube row as shown in the following
figures,

By the time the plant was shut down, approximately 25% of the tubes in the
reformer had failed.
2.2.6 Loss of Feed
If the feed to the reformer is lost, then the operators face two potential problems.
The first is that the fuel rate to the reformer must be reduced since there is no
longer the steam-reforming reaction to keep the tubes cool. If the fuel rate is not
reduced quickly enough then the tubes will be overheated and in the worst case,
then the tubes will fail due to generalised overheating (see section 0).
2.2.7 Tube Weld Positions
When reformer tubes are manufactured they are produced in sections that are
between 3,500 and 5,000 mm long. These sections are then welded together to
produce the required reformer tube length. In the early days of tube
manufacture, the weld material used was significantly weaker than the parent
material and therefore represented a potential localized failure point. It was
therefore common practice to ensure that the welds were not placed at the point
of highest heat flux – on a Top Fired reformer this meant about one third of the
way down the tube. With more modern alloys this is less of a problem since the
weld material is now stronger than the parent material. However, it is still good
practice to ensure that the weld is position away from such places in case of a
weld defect.

2.3 Failure of Mixed Feed Pre Heat Coil
A European HYCO plant operator suffered a catastrophic tube (8 tubes out of 24)
and coil failure. The root cause of this failure was due to poor design of the
mixed feed preheat coil, where one of the passes (out of a total of 11) received
less flow than the other
passes within that coil. The
diagram to the right illustrates
the layout of the coil.
It is unknown whether there

was a blockage in this pass or
whether since this was the
last pass, the pass received
less flow than the others.
However, it is clear that this
pass did see high
temperatures and that the
pass failed due to exposure to
high temperatures.
This caused the mixed feed to pass through the failed tube into the fluegas duct,
leading to high box pressure; the high pressure trip did not activate due to a relay
failure. The reformer tubes then saw low flow and this lead to the tube
temperature increasing such that they failed as illustrated below,
This in turn led to a fire in the radiant box and in the penthouse leading to
significant amounts of damage.

2.4 Boxing Up of Reformer
At a South American Methanol plant, on a plant trip, the operating procedure

dictated that all firing be stopped and all fans immediately shut down. A ten
minute steam purge was allowed but then all process flows were stopped hence
there was no flow through the tubes. The furnace was then left to soak in a hot
atmosphere.
The furnace is ceramic fibre lines with brick tunnels and brick floor. Therefore,
the walls at 1050°C radiated to the tubes and the tubes warmed up a little for
most of the length. As the ceramic fibre has a low density, the fibre cooled down
to the tube temperature without heating the tubes up very much. However, the
tunnels are also at 1050°C but have a large mass, warmed up the tubes in the
tunnel region to quite high temperatures. This is its own right was not a problem
as the tubes had little pressure inside them at this time.
As the furnace lost heat through the ceramic fibre lining, the upper section of the
tubes cooled down, but the tubes at the bottom did not as the tunnels retained a
lot of heat. The biggest problem was then on restart when a lot of steam flowed
into the tubes. This flowed down the top 10m of tube which was at say 600°C
and then flowed into the bottom 2m of tube that was still at say 950°C and
created thermal shock of the tubes by cooling them from the inside too rapidly.
The overheating during the first stages after the trip could have used up some life
if pressure was retained or the plant was re-pressured quickly. In the early days,
of this South American Methanol plant, had a very poor power supply so many
trips would have been rapidly restarted as there was no plant breakdown or
repairs required, simply wait for the power to come back on.
The result is that the tubes in the top part of the furnace, which operated a lot
cooler than design had very little creep, but the bottom of the tubes had up to 6%
creep, and it was a very sharp change from the low creep to high creep which
corresponded to the level of the tunnel tops. The problem with all this was that
the South American Methanol plant, had run a crawler down the tubes after 10
years or so and pronounced them to be fine with max. creep at 1.5% or so. The
crawler did not go down between the tunnels as it was too large.
The plant then restarted and some tubes failed and were found with large levels
of creep, so they blamed this on 4-hole.

2.4.1 Storage of Tubes
Spare tubes should always be stored in a dry and clean warehouse to prevent
damage. The following picture illustrates what should not be done,
2.5 Effect of Water
2.5.1 Effect of Water Carry Forward
If water is carried forward either from a saturator or from the process steam, it is
possible to generate an extreme thermal shock due to the quenching of the
inside of the reformer tubes. This creates both a high tensile stress on the inside
of the tubes, and reduced ductility leading to sudden, deep cracking, or even
shattering of tubes.
2.5.1.1 Effect on the Tube
Such a situation occurred in a Western European modern 1350 mtpd ammonia

plant which was successfully commissioned, and shown to be capable of running
well both at and above flowsheet rates. However, after less than a year in
operation, a tube failed. This was followed by seven further tube failures in the
following 8 months. On examination, non-destructive testing (NDT) revealed
widespread cracking of tubes, particularly at welds. The tubes had generally
failed by longitudinal splitting.

The tubes split some 1.2-1.5 metres (4 - 5 feet) down from the top of the roof,
with the split being typically 0.61 metres (2 feet) in length. In all cases, cracks
had originated from inside the tube bore. Deep craze cracking was found to be
common around the vicinity of the split, which were all brittle fractures which is
typical of thermal over-stressing. Further creep of the remaining much reduced
wall thickness led to final failure of the tubes over a period of time.
2.5.1.2 Effect on the Catalyst and Tube
In some cases where the catalyst has been wetted, the support material can be
leached out and deposited on the inside of the tube walls. When this residue is
dried out, a hard coating is formed on the inside of the tube wall which is very
difficult to remove. A device known as a ‘frapper’ can be used to remove this
coating; this device consists of a pear shaped metal head attached to a high
speed rotating shaft by a hinge. This problem occurred at Koch nitrogen at
Sterlington in the late 1990’s and took three days to clean out.
2.6 Stress Corrosion Cracking of Tube Tops and Bottoms
Stress corrosion cracking (SCC) has been seen on a number of reformers

around the world. Condensation (with associated concentration of impurities in
condensate on re-evaporation) can occur, leading to premature tube failure due
predominantly to stress corrosion cracking.
Careful design of tube ends, and suitable start-up and shutdown procedures to
avoid the dew-point of steam being reached, are needed. This problem appeared
to have receded, but has recently re-emerged, with several plants experiencing
cracks at the tube tops.
2.6.1 Tube Tops
It should be noted that the tube tops, do protrude above the furnace roof and
therefore is it recommended that the tube tops are insulated to keep them hot
and prevent condensation.

2.6.2 Tube Bottoms
In some reformer designs, such as the original design for a European Methanol
Plant, the tube bottoms have a cold catalyst discharge end. The following figure
illustrates the original Methanol plant tube bottom design,
In order to prevent this occurring again, GBHE has access to a hot bottom tube
design which prevents SCC at the tube bottom and this is illustrated below,

2.7 Bowed Tubes
Bowing of tubes can be caused by differential heating between the two sides of
the same tube. The bending stress produced is proportional to the deflection
from the vertical, and increases with the degree of top tensioning. If, therefore,
tubes are bowed, then the sum of the combined stress due to pressure,
tensioning and bowing may be such that the allowable stress is exceeded,
leading to shorter tube life. Since on many older plants, the welds are frequently
weaker than the parent material, the location of welds on bowed tubes must be
taken into account.
Excessive bending of the tubes can prevent easy movement of the tubes through
the casing of the reformer. It this occurs then the tubes cannot expand axially
and will be compressed increasing the stresses on the tube.
Furthermore, the tubes will tend to bend even more. This will lead to a reduction
in tube life. Once a tube is bent then even after cooling, the tube will stay bent
and even after being reheated, the tube will still stay bent. If the tube is bowed
such that it deviates by more than one diameter from the tubes in the row, then it
is recommended that the tube is replaced at the earliest opportunity possible.
This is because the bending on the tube induces stresses which are sufficiently
high that the tube could fail prematurely.

2.8 Tensioning of Tubes
Almost all reformer tubes are top tensioned. This tensioning produces
longitudinal stress in the tube which must be added to the longitudinal stress
caused by the pressure. Additional stresses can also be generated, for example
by tube bowing.
If the tube is over tensioned due to poor set up or design of the spring hangers
(or similar support systems), then additional stresses can be generated in the
tubes which can lead to the failure of the tube. If the tube is under tensioned,
then the tube will exert a force on the exit headers and this can reduced the life
of the exit header.
2.9 Pigtails
Outlet reformer pigtails operate in the creep regime, and can fail either by creep
of cracking of the pigtail welds.
2.9.1 Failure by Creep
Creep generally shows itself as bulging/ballooning of the material. This can be

accurately measured at shut-downs using GO,NO GO gauges or circumferential
(vernier) tapes. GO,NO GO gauges are manufactured from carbon steel frame
shaped like a ‘G’ clamp with tungsten carbide tips. The gap is set at the tubes
outside diameter for the material purchased plus 2½%. Therefore, if the exit
pigtail is 38 mm (1.5 inches) OD then the gauge will be set at 38.95 mm (1.53
inches).
This can then be used to quickly accept or reject exit pigtails that have suffered
excessive creep. It is also useful to manufacture a similar gauge set at 1% and
2%. These can then be used to assist in the decision making for future pigtail
replacement planning. A pigtail is generally deemed unfit for service when 2½%
creep has been achieved. This figure has been used by GBHE for many years
and was developed from tests during the development of the “Pigtail Nipper”, to
ensure the nip is successful. However, if pigtails are not going to be nipped it is
not uncommon for this figure to be as high as 4% before replacement is
necessary.

2.9.2 Failure by Cracking
The other mode of failure is cracking of the weld. This can be caused by a
number of external sources, i.e. movement between the reformer tube and the
outlet header or thermal gradients at the junctions. Depending on the type of
reformer/pigtail configuration, the profile of the weld is extremely important.
Foster Wheeler type reformers with short pigtails are particularly susceptible to
weld problems if the profile is not correct. With an incorrect profile the life in
cycles can be as little as 55 increasing to 250 with the correct profile. An
example of a poor weld is given below,
Note the two problems here, the first is that the pigtail has not fully penetrated
into the sockolet leaving a gap and the second is that weld is not complete –
again notice the triangular gap. An example of such a failure is shown below,

An example of this occurred on a European Methanol Plant in 1994.
A leak had been detected during routine check but was deemed to be small
enough that the plant could continue to operate. Four days later, the plant
tripped due to high box pressure and a fire was seen around the location of the
failed pigtail.
Further details on this failure are given in reference 7.
2.10 Differential Tube Metallurgy’s
An Asian operator of an Uhde reformer had placed some of the tubes in one area
of the reformer using a 36X equivalent; the original tubes where HK40. To take
advantage of the improved metallurgy, the firing in this area with the 36X tubes
was increased. This lead to an observed high temperature spread across the
furnace.

2.11 Risers
Risers are only used in M W Kellogg furnaces as illustrated in the figures below,
On a South American plant, (an M W Kellogg methanol plant), the risers suffered
from significant cracking around 30% of the way down the riser. The cause of
this was thought to be due to flame impingement.
The short term fix was to insulate the upper part of the riser, this would however,
cause a marginal reduction in radiant box efficiency. The longer term solution
was to replace all the risers in the reformer.

3 Common Problems Affecting the Furnace Box
3.1 Fluegas Maldistribution
Mal distribution occurs on many furnaces to some extent, however, in some

cases this can cause the methane slip to rise above the expected value. Below
is a discussion of some of the worst effects seen?
3.1.1 Top Fired Furnaces
This phenomenon was noted during a reformer survey on the Canadian

Methanol Plant primary reformer. An unusual tubewall temperature profile was
noted,
As can be seen the outer rows are significantly cooler then the inner rows. At
this stage some design problems were observed in the coffins by GBHE and
recommendations were made to the plant operators who rectified these issues at
a shut down. However after the shutdown, there still was a significant mal
distribution – tests with injecting fire extinguisher powder into the furnace
highlighted the following effects,

Injection through Side Wall Peepholes
As can be seen the fluegas near the wall is flowing upwards.
3.1.2 Injection through Burner Ignition Port
The following pictures illustrate the injection of dry powder through the burner
ignition ports,
As can be seen the fluegas is flowing across the furnace roof and is impacting on
the tubes.

At this stage the furnace was modelled using CFD to determine theoretically
whether we would expect the unusual flow patterns observed during the dry
powder plant trials. The result of this model is shown below,
As can be seen the model predicts that there is up flow at the walls and there is
cross flow from the outer lanes to the inner lanes at the top of the furnace.
The root cause of the problem was a mismatch between the burner capacity,
outer lane sizing and the outer coffin sizing.
As can be seen the flow patterns predicted by the CFD model match that seen
on the plant. GBHE has a range of solutions to resolve this problem and these
are discussed in more detail in reference 5.

3.1.4 Foster Wheeler Furnaces
3.1.4.1 Fluegas Fan Effect
Fluegas mal distribution is not limited to top fired furnaces, it can also occur on
Foster Wheeler furnaces. A European Methanol Plant suffered from the ‘Camel
Hump’ effect due to the position of the fluegas fans.
In this furnace the two fluegas fans where mounted on top of the convection
section and these preferential drew fluegas towards them. This is shown below,
The position of the fans should be noted.

This gave high fluegas flowrates directly below then and low fluegas flowrates in
between the fans. This was seen as high tube wall temperatures directly below
the fans and lower tubes wall temperature between the fans as illustrated below,
3.1.4.2 Flow Maldistribution between Cells
It is possible on Foster Wheeler and Side Fired furnaces to achieve differential

process gas flows to each reformer. This will give differential exit temperatures
exit the furnace. A similar effect can be seen on the fuel system and the table
below illustrates this,
Name Units Poorly Balanced Well

Cell 1 Cell 2 Mixed Gas Balanced
Fuel Flow % 55 45 100 100
Exit Temperature °C 869 810 840 842
Exit Slip mol % 1.5 3.7 2.6 2.3
ATE °C 11 11 16 12

3.1.5 Tests for Mal Distribution
Flue gas mal distribution can be checked for in two ways, the first is to inject dry
powder from a fire extinguisher through either the peepholes or the burner
ignition ports. The second method is to injection potassium bicarbonate through
the burner ignition ports.
The peephole tests allow for checks on up flow at the walls and in the centre of
the furnace whilst the burner ignition port checks allow for tests on cross blow
and flame shape.
A combination of both of these tests allows for practical determination of the

fluegas flow patterns within the radiant section. This combined with tube wall
temperature measurements provides a powerful trouble shooting tool in
analysing problems in the primary reformer. An example of the use of these
tools is given in case study X4.
3.2 Coffins
3.2.1 Design of Coffin Roof
There are two options for the design of the coffin roof; the first is with the roof
being supported directly from the side walls as illustrated below,

This design of roof has lead to failures as the top of the side walls are only
supported in the vertical direction and it is easy to move then to the left or the
right. There is little margin before this movement causes the coffin roof to fall.
An improved design recommended by GBHE is to have a stepped section at the

top of the side wall – not only does this improve the strength of the side wall but
increases the margin if the roof or side wall moves.
3.2.2 Effect of Damage to Coffins
If the coffins are damaged in any way then this will cause a mal-distribution in the
localized area around the damage. An example of this was the collapse of the
coffins at a South American (a 576 tube reformer). The following picture
illustrates this,
The following figure illustrates the damaged area of the coffins and the effect that
this damage has had on the flow distribution in the reformer,

This in turn causes a distribution of temperatures along the length of the coffins
as shown below,

3.2.2.1 Movement of Tunnel Walls
Another problem is the movement of the tunnel walls. If the movement of the
tunnel walls is sufficiently great, then the tunnels can collapse. The following
figure illustrates tunnels that have started to move,
3.2.3 Coffin Damage on Kellogg Furnaces
At a Middle Eastern Plant (a Kellogg Ammonia plant), one of the side coffins had
collapsed and the debris was pushing against the half headers. This caused the
half head to be moved to one side and cause a bend to be formed in the tubes.
This bend would raise the stresses on the tube and lead to early failure of the
tube.
3.2.4 Removal of Coffins
A number of plants have removed the coffins from the radiant section of the box
because of either,
• High pressure drop through the poses a limit to the plant rate.
• Repair issues associated with damage to the coffins.

The following figure shows the fluegas flow patterns with coffins installed – as
is clear the fluegas in passing down the furnace in plug flow,
The following figures shows that fluegas flow patterns with the coffins removed.
As is clear there is a significant mal distribution of gas and much of that gas is
flowing preferentially towards the fluegas extraction end.

The overall effect of this is to increase the tube temperatures at the fluegas
extraction end of the furnace,
As can be seen the tube wall temperatures are much higher at the fluegas
extraction end of the furnace, and these tubes may fail prematurely due to
excessive creep.
3.2.5 Modification to Port Layout
In an effort to reduce the pressure drop on the fluegas side of a furnace, some
operators have increased the free area of the side wall of the coffins by removing
some of the bricks. If the wrong number of bricks are removed r they are
removed from the wrong position, then this can lead to flue gas mal-distribution
similar to that discussed in section 0, albeit on a more localized level.
3.3 Effect of Wind on Box Stability
Wind can dramatically affect the performance of a furnace and lead to large
temperature drops on the side of the furnace facing the wind. On a European
Ammonia Plant, plates were installed on the side of the furnace to reduce the
effect of the wind on the pigtails.
At Far Eastern Plant, the effect of the wind could drop the outlet temperatures by
as much as 20°C. This will reduce the inlet waste heat boiler temperature,
thereby reducing the amount of HP steam raised.

3.4 Purging of the Box
It is very important that the reformer box and auxiliary duct are purged thoroughly
to remove any hydrocarbons prior to restarting the plant. This will prevent
ignition of any residual hydrocarbons in an uncontrolled manner. This is normally
achieved by starting up the combustion air fans to flush the system with air.
4 Common Problems Affecting Burners
4.1 Operation and Maintenance of Burners
The importance of good burner operation in terms of good operation of the

primary reformer and auxiliary duct firing must not be understated. Poor
performance of burners can lead to poor process efficiency and premature tube
failure. Reference 6 gives more details on the operation and maintenance of
burners. The important areas that require checking are,
• Tile to gun position.
• Tip port dimensions.
• Surface finish of holes.
• Centricity of gun.
• Condition of tile and security of fixings.
• Condition of metallurgy (oxidation).
It is important to keep a good record of the vendor drawings of the burners to

ensure that if they are ever removed for maintenance, that they can be re-
installed with the appropriate dimensions for all components. The picture below
shows some burner tips that have suffered from carbon laydown due to
insufficient air,

4.1.1 Burner Misalignment
Burner or flame misalignment can lead to tube damage particularly in top fired
furnaces. Below are some examples of the causes of burner misalignment.
4.1.1.1 Cleaning of the Burner Tips
It is important that the burner tips are kept clean since any depositions on the
burners will lead to misalignment of the flames.

4.1.1.2 Damage to the Burner Quarls
The quarl is the part of the burner that sits in the furnace wall and is exposed to
the hot gases in the radiant section of the reformer. These should be checked
visually on a regular basis for damage such as cracking and gaps. Below is a
picture illustrating the cracks that can occur in a burner quarl,
Any gaps can lead to a mal-distribution of the fuel and air entering the furnace
which will in turn lead to a misaligned flame.

4.1.1.3 Top Fired Reformers
If a burner is misaligned on a top fired furnace, then the flame will not run parallel
to the tubes and will play on the tube surface. This will lead to very high outside
tube wall temperatures and eventual tube failure. The figure and picture below
illustrates this,
A good example (see Ref. 4) was on a small methanol plant which has only 72
tubes. Catastrophic tube failure occurred in the late 1980’s. After investigation,
the sequence of events leading to the failure was found (in summary) to be,
• Serious burner problems on a significant number of burners; the burner quarls

were black, showing that the flame was not stabilized. Subsequently, many
burners were found to have erosion at the tip, leading in the worst case to a
hole. This gave rise to local overheating, which led to a small tube leak
followed by catastrophic failure of a single tube. Burner problems of this type
have been noted on several plants, and can be easily rectified by the choice
of a suitable material for the burner tip.
• The single tube failure led to a plant trip. An attempt was made to restart
immediately after this trip. The large leak on the failed tube resulted in
reduced flow to the other tubes. This, coupled with control of the reformer
using unreliable temperature measurements, gave rise to severe overheating
of the furnace in general. Addition of the natural gas during the start-up led to
quenching of the reformer tubes, causing many other failures, predominantly
at upper tube welds. The plant shut down again, and had to be completely
retubed.

4.1.2 Lighting Burners
On start up, it is important that the burners are lighted in a sequence so that each
tube receives an even heat flux and no tubes are over heated. A typical burner
lighting pattern for a top fired reformer is highlighted below,
The principle shown above is can also be applied to Side Fired and Foster
Wheeler furnaces.
Failure to follow the required procedure can lead to overheating of the tubes and
potentially causing early tube failure (see section 0).
It should be noted that the majority of reformer burn downs do occur during plant
start up and shut downs.
Some operators do not light off individual burners using an ignitor (typically a
pizo-electric device). Instead they light off a few burners as usual and then rely
on the fact the reformer is above the auto ignition temperature before introducing
fuel to the unlit burners.
The main issues with this is that each time a burner valve is opened, fuel passes
into the furnace and combusts – sometimes this occurs close to the tube causing
flame impingement (see section 0). The second issue is that the sudden
combustion of the fuel gas will lead to localized pressure increases which can
stress the furnace casing.

4.1.2.1 Side Fired Furnaces
Misalignment on a side fired furnace is not a problem from the tube perspective
but can lead to refractory damage. The following figure illustrates the design of
a typical side fired burner and how they are positioned in the furnace,
It should be noted that on side fired furnaces there are large number of burners,
which increases the maintenance costs for the furnace and increases the
probability of a problem occurring.
4.1.2.2 Foster Wheeler Furnaces
In a Foster Wheeler furnace, the burner is angled such that the flames run
parallel to the refractory. If the flames are not parallel, then the flame can
impinge directly on the refractory and cause damage as illustrated below,

4.1.3 Non Optimal Firing in Foster Wheeler Furnaces
It is possible to have the wrong split of firing between the two levels of burners in
a Foster Wheeler furnace. By increasing the firing at the top level it is possible to
increase the fluegas temperature and hence the amount of steam raised in the
duct or by increasing the firing at the lower level it is possible to reduce the
methane slip. The following table illustrates this effect,
Firing Split % 45/55 50/50 45/55

Outlet Temperature °C 769 769 770
Exit Composition
CH4 mol % 12.97 12.97 12.97
CO mol % 7.79 7.78 7.8
CO2 mol % 11.04 11.04 11.03
H2 mol % 63.54 63.5 63.54
N2 mol % 4.67 4.67 4.66
Catalyst Pressure Drop bara 1.2 1.2 1.2
Furnace Duty MW 66.1 66.1 66.2
Max. TWT °C 821 817 827
Min. TWT Margin °C 137 140 131
Flue Gas Temperature °C 988 1012 942

4.1.4 Fuel Usage
Burners are designed to operate on specific ranges of fuels and any deviation
from this range of fuels may cause the burner to operate in such a way as to
cause problems. Therefore, prior to any significant change in fuel gas
composition, the burner vendor should be contacted to ensure that the burner
has been designed to accept that fuel composition.
A simple to check to determine if a gas change is acceptable to check the Wobbe

number; if the Wobbe number of the new gas is similar to that of a gas that the
burner has been designed for, then it is likely that the new gas will also give
acceptable combustion. The Wobbe number is defined by,
Wobbe = LCV /(ρ)0.5
If burners have insufficient air supplied to them, then the flame shapes and
length may deviate from the design requirement which can lead to unstable
flames, misaligned flames or after-burning.
Insufficient combustion air can be attributed to,
• Combustion air mal-distribution – see section 0.

• Insufficient capacity on Forced Draft 1 (FD) or Induced Draft 2 (ID) fans – Sec
6.2.1
4.1.5 After-Burning
After-burning is caused by incomplete combustion in the top of the furnace which

allows fuel to move down until it mixes with oxygen, at which point the fuel
combusts giving the classic observation of flames licking around the tubes in the
bottom half of the furnace.
To resolve this problem, additional combustion air needs to be supplied to the

area affected by the after burning.
1
Combustion Air Fan.
2
Flue Gas Fan.

After-burning can also occur in the flue-gas duct on plants where there are
auxiliary burners or flue-gas from fired heaters is fed into the duct. This will be
heard clearly as a rumbling which is indicative of multiple detonations. It should
be noted that such after-burning causing local pressure rises (typically from one
to eight bar) and it is this that causes the distinctive rumbling.
4.1.6 Metal Dusting of Burner Tips
Metal dusting of burner tips has been observed on methanol plants if they
operate mainly on purge gas from a methanol loop. We have just had a very
similar enquiry from a South American Methanol Plant, as they are suffering
corrosion on burners in all 3 of their plants.
The tip can be just inside the metal dusting region in the 450 - 500°C
temperature range even though the purge normally contains only 1% CO and
CO2 it does lie in the carbon forming side of the equilibrium.
The corrosion you have highlighted on the final photo is classic metal dusting
pitting corrosion. Often burner tips are made from alloy 800 or a similar cast
alloy. Alloy 800 is the WORST alloy for metal dusting resistance and the material
could (should) be changed for one with less risk of metal dusting.
4.2 Flame Instability
At a South American Methanol Plant, there were serious problems with flame roll
over around the burners leading to damage to the burner tips and the tiles (see
ref. 11). In order to minimise the problem, John Zinc modified the tip design to
reduce the deviation from the vertical of the flames.
4.3 NOX
The legal limits on NOX emissions have become tighter and tighter over the last
few years. This pressure will increase and this will lead to more operators using
low NOx burners.

There have been a number of problems with low NOx burners, most notably at an
Asian Plant. The main issue is around the flame shape and the flame stability.
At an Asian Plant it was noted that the one row of low NOX burners installed in
the reformer was very unstable leading to flame impingement.
4.4 SOX
Due to environmental considerations, SOX emissions are becoming more of a

problem. It is normal that the top up natural gas used on the reformer is taken off
from the feed gas close to battery limits. However, one plant has modified his
take off point to after the zinc oxide bed to minimise the sulphur being passed to
the reformer and hence limit the SOx production.
5 Common Problems Affecting the Fluegas Duct
5.1 Too Much Excess Air
Many plants operate with very high levels of excess air (more than 10%) in order
to overcome operational difficulties such as poor combustion air distribution or
high coil temperatures. Excess air does not cause any operational problems per
se, but it does represent an inefficiency.
5.1.1 Leaks in Rotary Air Preheaters
A customer had noticed that the efficiency of his plant had been gradually
reducing over the previous six months. GBHE conducted reformer survey
covering both the radiant and convection sections. Detailed flowsheeting of the
front end of the plant showed that the plant was generally operating as would be
expected; however, there was a heat imbalance across the combustion air pre
heater; it should be noted that the pre heater was of a rotary design.
Further modelling of the combustion air pre heater indicated that there appeared
to be a very large air leakage between the combustion air and the fluegas side.
The plant checked the oxygen levels throughout the convection section and the
air pre heater and it was found that there was 14% oxygen in the fluegas exit the
air pre heater compared to 3 % inlet the air pre heater. This leak caused a plant
inefficiency that is worth US$ 500,000 per year.

5.1.2 Areas of Potential Air Leakage
Other than the air preheater there are many other places where air can leak into
the radiant and convection section of the reformer; these include, but are not
limited to,
• Peephole doors.
• Radiant and convection section construction joints.
• Header box joints.
• Tubes entry and exit points through the radiant box casing.
• Burner attachment to the reformer casing.
• Explosion protection plates.
5.2 Too Little Excess Air
5.2.1 Due to Insufficient ID Fan Capacity
During a routine reformer survey of a world scale Methanol customer’s primary

reformer, it was noted that there was severe after burning was occurring in the
centre of the radiant box. After-burning is caused by incomplete combustion in
the top of the furnace which allows fuel to move down until it mixes with oxygen,
at which point the fuel combusts giving the classic observation of flames licking
around the tubes in the bottom half of the furnace. It was noted that no after
burning was seen in the outer lanes. It was noticed that the oxygen
measurement exit the radiant box was at 1.5%; this was rechecked and
confirmed by the plant operator.
It was also noted that the fluegas fan was operating at its maximum speed and
that the box pressure was close to being positive.
Inspection of the combustion air duct showed that after the air was pre heated,
the air was split into two ducts which passed along the side of the convection
section and then to the midpoint of the radiant section. At this point both ducts
turned through 90° and ran vertically alongside the radiant box until they reached
the level of the penthouse. At this point both ducts were split and as shown in
the figure below, ran along the side of the penthouse.

At the ends of the penthouse all the sub ducts turned through 90° and passed
along the ends of the penthouse. From here headers pass the combustion air
along the burner rows and to each burner.
On inspection of this system it was clear

that there was insufficient pressure
differential between the duct and the box
to force enough air through to the centre
of the furnace. This caused there to be a
lack of combustion air in the centre of the
furnace, and hence there was
incomplete combustion and fuel passed
into the bottom half of the furnace.
The outer lanes of burners had an

excess of air, and therefore there was
high excess oxygen content in the fluegas. Some of this excess oxygen then
mixed with the excess fuel in the centre of the furnace and this resulted in the
after burning noted.
This effect was costing the plan operator approximately US$ 383,000 per year in
lost production. A further hidden cost was that the tubes affected by the after
burning would be operating with high tube wall temperatures for short periods of
time and therefore their overall life would be shortened.
5.3 Fluegas Coiling Fouling
There have been many cases of fouling of the fluegas duct coils due to,
• Insufficient combustion air resulting in carbon formation in the radiant section

or downstream of tunnel or auxiliary burners.
• Refractory dust.

This fouling causes two problems, the first is that it increases the resistance to
flow through the duct which causes the ID fan to become power limited, which
can eventually limit plant rate.
The second problem is that the fouling blocks up the gaps between the fins on
the coils (where applicable) and coats the surface of the coils. This increases the
heat transfer resistance and therefore reduces the heat picked up in the affected
coils and thereby raises the temperature of the downstream coils. This will raise
the suction temperature of the induced draft fan, reducing the gas density –
alternatively, this can be considered to be an increase in the actual volumetric
flowrate. This increase the pressure drop across the pressure drop across the
coils and thereby increases the load on the ID fan. This is illustrated below as a
movement of the operating point on the fan curve,
Eventually the fan will operate at its maximum speed and any further increase in
fouling will require a plant rate reduction.

5.4 Problems with Fans
5.4.1 ID Fan Trips
If an ID fan fails then it is possible to keep the plant on line, albeit at a lower rate
(typically about 60%). On a top fired furnace, the flue gas is forced through the
duct by the flow of freshly combusted gases. On side fired and Foster Wheeler
furnaces, the same effect is seen but is coupled with buoyancy of the fluegas
trying to rise. The same is true if the ID fan governor fails or mis-operates.
5.4.2 ID Fan Close to Maximum Speed Pressure Boxes
If the ID fan is close to its maximum speed then the box pressure can become
variable leading to safety issues such as localized zone of positive pressure
which can lead to flames issuing from the reformer peepholes.
5.4.3 Governor Instability
In many cases the ID fan speed is controlled by the box pressure (see Ref. 11). It
should also be noted that it there are pressure variations within the reformer and
the box pressure measurement is taken in one of these zones, it is possible for
the governor to hunt and in the worst case, to cause a gross instability leading to
a plant trip.
5.4.4 Flue Gas Mal-Distribution – Effect on Box Pressure
If there is mal-distribution in the reformer box, then it is possible to have

variable/transient pressures throughout the box, and in the worst case, zones of
positive pressure with the potential for flames to issue from the peepholes.

6 Common Problems Affecting the Header Designs
6.1 Fuel and Fuel Header Designs
6.1.1 Symmetry
Fuel headers should be design such that all burners receive the same amount of
fuel. This is normally means that the fuel header is design to be as symmetrical
as possible. If the design is not symmetrical, then some tubes can receive more
heat than others and some tubes less heat. This can lead to wide temperature
variations which will be observed as high approaches to equilibrium and high
methane slips. The hot tubes will also have their life reduced.
6.1.2 Deposition of Particular Matter in Fuel Headers

During a reformer survey at a Far Eastern Plant, it was noted that many burners
were out of service. Discussions with the plant personnel found that the burners
became dirty and needed regular cleaning. Part of the problem was thought to
be that dirt and oil in the feed gas was deposited in the fuel headers.
6.1.3 Fuel Valve Suction

During a reformer survey at Far Eastern Plant (a Kellogg furnace), a transient
was observed where the temperature measurements on one of the manifolds
suddenly rose by 49°C; the temperatures of the other manifold thermocouples
dropped by only 2-3°C. The root cause was determined to be that the main fuel
valve to one row of burners suffered from suction. This valve would suddenly
open, pulling more fuel in from the main fuel header and raising the exit tube
temperatures. The other rows of burners then received less fuel and this caused
the tube exit temperatures to drop.
6.1.4 Purge CV Changes

Care should be taken on plants where the calorific value of the natural gas or
purge gases sent to the fuel headers. If the CV of the fuel gas does rise, then
the total furnace duty will rise, and this can lead to an increase in the exit header
temperature. Unless the exit temperature is used to control the fuel gas rate
automatically, then this can be a problem – alarms should be set with a suitable
range to pick this up.

6.2 Combustion Air Problems
An area that is often over looked is the combustion air pre-heater. However, any
problem in this area is inextricably linked to the performance of the radiant
section, burners and the operation of the combustion air and fluegas fans.
6.2.1 Poor Combustion Duct Design

Combustion air duct design headers should be design such that all burners
receive the same amount of combustion air. This is normally means that the
ducting is designed to be as symmetrical as possible.
If the design is not symmetrical, then some tubes can receive more combustion
air and hence will be cooler than; the converse is true. This can lead to wide
temperature variations which will be observed as high approaches to equilibrium
and high methane slips. The hot tubes will also have their life reduced. After
burning may also be an issue.
6.2.2 Combustion Air Maldistribution
6.2.2.1 Due to Mechanical Failure
During a reformer survey on a Western European Ammonia plant, an unusual

temperature distribution between two halves of the primary reformer was noted
as highlighted in the figures below,

On site inspection of the layout of the reformer and feed/fuel and combustion air
ducts coupled with detailed discussions with the plant engineers eliminated many
of the causes of this temperature mal distribution such as process feed
variations, firing differences, inlet/outlet header asymmetry. The only possible
cause left was that there were differential amounts of combustion air being feed
to the two halves of the reformer; this was possible since each half of the
reformer was fed from its own combustion air duct.
During a subsequent plant shut down, inspection of the air dampers in each half
of the duct found that one was wide open and the other was stuck. Repairs were
conducted and after the plant start up, GBHE performed a further reformer
survey from which the following temperature plots were generated.
As can be seen the mal distribution has been eliminated and the tube wall
temperatures are very even throughout the reformer. This problem has been
shown to have cost the plant approximately US$500,000 per year.

6.3 Process Headers
6.3.1 Inlet Process Gas Header Design
The design of the inlet header is key to ensuring even gas distribution to the
tubes. The design should be as symmetrical as possible so that each tube
receives the same flow of process gas which should ensure an even tube wall
temperature profile throughout the furnace.
Failure to ensure such symmetry can lead to variations in exit temperatures and
hence differential methane slips from the tubes and a higher than expected
methane slip.
6.3.1.1 Dead Legs and Low Points
The inlet headers and associated pipework from the mixing tee to the tube inlet
shall be designed such that there are no dead legs where condensate (feed or
steam) can collect. If there are low points then drains should be installed such
that this condensate can be removed. Operations procedures should clearly
state that these drains are opened during start ups.
6.3.1.2 Headers too Hot
If the headers are to hot due to over performing pre heat coils or high fluegas
temperatures inlet the feed preheat coil, then the inlet headers can fail due to
lack of strength.

6.3.2 Exit Header Design
The same principles apply to the exit header as apply to the inlet header as
noted in section 0 above.
The following picture illustrates a design of exit header that is not symmetrical,
As can be seen, process gas will try and flow through the left hand end of the
reformer since the flow path through the reformer is the shortest.
It should be noted that just like reformer tubes, the exit headers on a reformer
operate in the creep regime. As such, it should be expected that the headers will
fail due to creep. Another failure mechanism is the high stresses that can be
raised in the exit headers due to the high thickness required by the high
operating temperatures and differential pressures.

An example of this is from a European Methanol Plant; the following figure
illustrates the results of the stress analysis on the exit headers for the original
design,
Note the high stresses raised as highlighted by the red coloured zones. The
redesigned headers were manufactured using modern production methods (spun
cast) and modern alloys (36X and XM) which allowed for the headers to be
reduced in thickness. This reduced the stresses in the headers significantly as
highlighted below,

Reference 13 gives more detail on this.
6.3.2.1 Exit Header Failure
The following figure shows cracking observed on the exit header of a European
Methanol Plant reformer.

7 Common Problems Affecting Refractory
7.1 General Refractory Damage
Refractory can be damaged in a number of ways, such as,
• Rapid cooling/heating or the refractory during transients.
• Poor installation of the refractory.
• Poor design/specification of the refractory.
7.2 Tracking of Gas behind Refractory
If the refractory moves away from the casing due to the failure of the refractory
anchors, then a gap can form between the casing and the refractory wall.
Gas can then track between these two surfaces, and this will raise the
temperature of the cold refractory facing and the casing.
This can lead to rapid failure of the casing wall.
7.3 Seals around Tube Inlets/Outlets
To allow for free movement of the tubes when the reformer is heated up and the
tubes expand, a small gap between the tubes and the reformer casing is required
to allow the tubes to expand.
This gap is normally filled with refractory rope to prevent ingress of air into the
reformer, thereby, increasing the excess air in the reformer.
The following figure illustrates the design of such a seal,

7.4 Peephole Refractory
A common problem associated with peepholes is that the refractory is not fully
sealed around the peephole. This causes the casing and in some cases the
peephole door temperature to rise, which causes the paint on the refractory
casing to become hot.
7.5 Cooling of Hot Reformer Casing
When the casing of the reformer become hot, it is usual to cool the casing using
either a water curtain or a steam lance. Care should be taken around and below
areas where steam lances are being used since the condensate can be quite hot.
It should be noted that the reformer casing is normally painted with a heat
sensitive paint which highlights the areas that are becoming too hot.
If the casing does fail, then it is possible to continue to operate. Additional air will
be draw into the furnace which will cause a reduction in plant efficiency. Clearly
care should be taken to ensure that the damage to the casing does not progress
– use of a steam lance is required and personnel safety is important – the area
should be cordoned off.

Care should be taken to ensure that excessive water curtains are not used on the
reformer – in one case, moss was found to be growing where the water curtain
was applied.
7.6 Damage to Refractory Anchors
On Far Eastern Ammonia Plant during operation it was noted that refractory was
falling off from the walls of the reformer (Foster Wheeler). During a plant shut
down, inspection showed that there was significant damage to the refractory
anchors as illustrated below,
It was found that the wrong material was used for the refractory anchors and that
these failed due to excessive over heating followed by oxidation.
The root cause of this is that if the cover of cup lock is not firmly secured or not
thick enough to drop the temperature, the pin underneath oxidises and fails, and
this is what has been seen in the pictures.
Furthermore, GBHE would not recommend the use of the blanket system of this
type, in a FW furnace, as the turbulence is too great and the cups are very easily
damaged, along with the lining. It is more normal to have a brick lined system or
vacuum formed system for the lower halve, and then the upper sections are
installed with a blanket system which is less susceptible to erosion.

The failure is mainly attributed to the fixing becoming over heated and oxidizing
away. A rough guide to the oxidation resistance some materials.
• Carbon Steel 450°C

• Chrome Moly 580-640°C
• 18 Cr 8 Ni (SS 304) 870°C
• 17 Cr 10 Ni (321) 950°C
• 25 Cr 20 Ni (310) 1040°C
• 35 Cr 25 Ni (800) 1040-1100°C
8 Common Miscellaneous Problems
8.1 Nickel Carbonyl Formation
Much of the above details potential issues with the mechanical equipment and its
operation, however, there is a less common problem that does not fit in either
category, that of nickel carbonyl formation. Nickel carbonyl is high toxic and can
kill at levels greater than 0.05 ppm and cause hospitalization at levels greater
than 2 ppm.
Its formation is favored by low temperature and moderate pressure with a

reaction occurring between a CO containing gas and metal containing nickel. It
should be noted that much of the front end of a synthesis gas generation plant is
constructed from alloys containing nickel. At ambient temperatures, nickel
carbonyl is a liquid that is indistinguishable from water.
8.2 On Line Analyzers
One issue that reoccurs with regularity is that on line analysers are not as
accurate as laboratory analysers and have a tendency to drift. This can lead to
false compositions being used in data set analysis and can affect the accuracy of
the fit and in some cases, the actual results of the fit. This is particularly
important for primary reformers, where a small change in the methane slip can
have a dramatic effect on the exit temperature and apparent catalyst activity.
Where possible it is recommended that we always receive the analysis of
samples from the laboratory.

8.3 Temperature Measurements
8.3.1 Exit Header Temperature Measurement
On a primary reformer, it is typical to have thermocouples installed at various

points between the exit of the tubes and the next equipment items (either a
secondary reformer or waste heat boiler). There will be heat losses from the
various components (pigtails, sub headers, headers and transfer mains), which
will cause the measured temperature to be lower than the real tube exit
temperature. Some typical guidelines are for the temperature drop based on
various thermocouple locations is as follows,
• Exit tubes : 1-3°C.

• Sub headers : 3-10°C.
• Main headers : 5-15°C.
• Inlet secondary,
• Top Fired Reformers : 10-20°C .
• Foster Wheeler Reformers : 15-35°C.
• Inlet WHB,
• Top Fired Reformers : 10-20°C.
• Foster Wheeler Reformers : 15-35°C.
These numbers are indicative only and depending on the state of the insulation,
the numbers can be significantly higher. When asking a customer to specify an
outlet temperature, the position of the thermocouple should always be checked.
Programs such as VULCAN CERES / VULCAN TP3 and VULCAN REFSIM can
be used to determine the extent of this temperature loss.
Use of the measured exit temperature when attempting to simulate the reformer
can lead to a high methane slip.

8.3.1.1 M W Kellogg Furnaces
The one type of reformer where the exit tube temperatures can be believed is the
M W Kellogg furnace. Here the thermocouples are positioned at the point where
the half headers meet and the riser is located as illustrated below,
Since this is all contained within the furnace, there are no heat losses and
therefore, the measured temperatures can be believed.
It should also be noted that it is typical that the secondary inlet temperature can
be generally believed. This is because as the process gas passes up the riser it
picks up heat from the fluegas, normally the temperature rises by about 15°C.
This equates to the usual temperature loss seen down the transfer main to the
secondary reformer.

8.3.1.2 European Plant Experience
A classic example of this problem occurs at a European Plant; after replacing the
catalyst, the operator was complaining of high observed approaches to
equilibrium and this inferred that the catalyst had a low activity. A reformer
survey was conducted and the simulated equilibrium temperature was found to
be 853°C; a good match was found between the simulated and corrected tube
wall temperatures indicating no loss of catalyst activity. The operator was adding
34°C to the measured exit temperature based on historical heat losses from
transfer mains.
In discussions with the operator, it was found that during the recent turn around,
the maintenance department had replaced the insulation on the bottom of the
tubes and on the pigtails. This meant that the heat losses had been reduced
from their historical values such that the assumption that 34°C could be added to
the measured reformer outlet temperature was not valid. The operators
subsequently increased the measured outlet temperatures and then methane slip
dropped to the expected values.
Reference 8 has more details on this in the form of a full case study.
8.3.2 Variations in Exit Temperatures
If a reformer suffers from a variation in exit temperature, then this will cause the
overall approach to equilibrium and methane slip to rise.
This is due to the nature of the methane equilibrium curve which has a concave
shape as illustrated below,

If we take an extreme case as an illustration, with 50% of the reformer tubes
having a high exit temperature and 50% of the tubes having a low exit
temperature, this operating points can be plotted on the equilibrium graph as
shown below,
As can be seen the approach to equilibrium is very much higher than would be
expected. Typical causes are,
• Poor catalyst loading – see section 0.

• Carbon formation – see section 0.
• Fluegas mal-distribution – see section 0.
• Poor maintenance of the reformer.
8.3.3 Fluegas Temperature Measurements
One area where it is typical to see large errors is in the measurement of fluegas
temperatures. There are two prime causes of this, firstly the thermocouples are
operating at very high temperatures and either complete failure or drifting is
common.

The second cause depends on the actual position of the thermocouple in the
thermosheath; consider the following figure,
If the thermocouple is position such that it is touching the side of the

thermosheath facing the coil (in this case steam raising but in reality this is
irrelevant), then the thermosheath will receive less radiation and will typically
read lower than one where the thermocouple is touching the opposite side of the
thermosheath.
8.4 Metal dusting of Waste Heat Boilers
Metal dusting of waste heat boilers is a common problem and can lead to failure
of the boiler tubes. It is normal to insert ferrules (a metal insert) into the tubes at
the hot end as a sacrificial protection system.
8.5 Flowmeter Errors
Flowmeter error is a common problem, and can cause a significant error to occur
in the measured steam to carbon ratio. The steam to carbon ratio is determined
from the steam rate divided by the feedstock flowrate, therefore,
• If the steam flowmeter is reading higher than reality, the actual SC ratio will
be lower than as measured,
• If the steam flowmeter is reading lower than reality, the actual SC ratio will be
higher than as measured,

• If the feedstock flowmeter is reading higher than reality, the actual SC ratio
will be higher than as measured,
• If the feedstock flowmeter is reading lower than reality, the actual SC ratio will
be lower than as measured.
When customers then compare the methane slip from one charge to another,
they will see that the exit temperature is the same but the methane slip is higher.
Therefore, it is recommended that VULCAN CERES is used to rationalize out
plant data and checks are made on the measured and predicted steam to carbon
ratio to check whether this is a problem.
8.6 Sample Shifting
When sampling the reformed gas, particularly when the sample is taken at high
temperature, the sample must be cooled very quickly to prevent significant
shifting of the sample. Typically, this is highlighted by the measured CO being
lower than that predicted by the GBHE fitting programs whilst the measured CO2
is higher than predicted value. The following table details a typical difference
between the measured and predicted values,
Reformed Gas Composition Changes on Sampling
Component Units Measured Measured Predicted Predicted

Dry Wet Dry Wet
CH4 mol % 8.8 5.1 9.1 5.2
CO mol % 8.6 5.0 9.6 5.5
CO2 mol % 11.6 6.8 10.8 6.2
H2O mol % 0.0 41.7 0.0 42.7
H2 mol % 70.4 41.0 70.0 40.1
Although these differences appear small, they have a large effect on the
approach to equilibrium as shown in the following table,

Calculated Equilibrium Values
Name Units Measured Predicted

Methane Steam Kp bara2 133.5 131.6
WGS Kp n/a 1.34 1.05
Methane Steam Eqm Temp. °C 790 789
WGS Eqm Temp. °C 733 794
Actual Exit Temp. °C 784 795
WGS Approach °C -61 +1
Methane Steam Approach °C -6 +6
This problem can cause difficulties in estimating exit temperatures and also will
lead to rises in methane slip.
More details on this are given in reference 9.
8.7 Zinc Alloys
When cleaning the reformer tubes, alloys containing zinc should not be used
since this will lead to a reduction in the strength of the reformer tubes and hence
to premature failure of the tubes.
8.8 Power Failures
Another common cause of problems on steam reforming plants is that of power

failures. These normally cause the plant to trip which can then lead to,
• Breakage of the catalyst due to rapid temperature changes,
• Condensation of feed/steam and then subsequent movement of the

condensate into the reformer.

9 Troubleshooting
9.1 Process Troubleshooting Guide
The following table should be used as a guide to trouble shooting some common
problems that occur on primary reformers.
Problem Cause Actions

Hot bands Poisoning of the catalyst. Reduce localised firing.
Steam catalyst.
Operation at low steam to Steam catalyst.
carbon. Replace catalyst.
Aged catalyst. Reduce localized firing.
Localized overheating. Check burners.
Check that potash doped
Incorrect catalyst loading. catalyst loaded at inlet to tube.
Replace as required.
Excessive General catalyst Reduce plant rate.
Pressure Drop breakage. Replace catalyst (all or a
portion).
Carbon formation due to Reduce localized firing.
low to steam carbon Steam catalyst.
operation or poisoning. Check design of inlet to tube for
Catalyst breakage at inlet jet impingement on catalyst.
to tubes. Check if there is water droplet
carry over.
Check is water can be carried
over on a trip or start up.
Check if condensate can form in
dead legs or low points during a
shut down.
Check if there has been water
Catalyst breakage at ingress into the bottom of the
outlet of tubes. tube.
Clean the inside of the tubes
Water leaching support with brushes or frapper to
material and causing prevent a in reduction inside
formation of cement. heat transfer coefficient.
Hot Tube Low catalyst voidage due Replace catalyst in affected

to breakage or over tubes.
vibration on loading.
Hot Patch Flame impingement. Reduce localized firing.
Check burners.
Localized over firing. Reduce localized firing.
Check burners.
Shimmering on Flame impingement. Reduce localized firing.
Tube Check burners.
Hot Spots 3 Localized low voidage. Reload affected tube.
Hot Patch at Top Settling of catalyst. Reload or top up affected tubes.
of Tube Poor reduction of catalyst Add hydrogen to reformer feed
at top of tube. to reduce this catalyst.
Tube Failure Flame Impingement. Repair burner and either nip or
change tube.
Localized overheating. Nip or change tube. Check
Excessive creep. burners.
Nip of change tube. Check
Catastrophic cracking. other tubes for excessive creep.
Nip or change tube. Check for
General overheating – water ingress.
burn down. Replace tubes and review
operating procedures.
Localized overheating at Nip of change tube and check
bottom of tube. for tunnel port effect. Install high
heat transfer/activity catalyst.
Catalyst Catalyst is blue/green or Catalyst has been overheated.
Changed Colour blue-green.
Collapsed Poor design. Repair next turn around.
Tunnel Check bottom of tubes for
excessive temperatures.
Cracking of Stress corrosion cracking. Lag tube tops to prevent
Tube Tops condensation and vaporization.
Cracking of Stress corrosion cracking. Check design of tube outlet.
Tube Bottoms Redesign to eliminate cold
zones.
Bowed Tubes Excessive firing from one Reduce firing.
side. Review and redesign tension
Poor tensioning. system.
3
This is a small patch on the tube that appears hotter than the rest of the tube. As such it differs
from a hot band.

Pigtail Failure Failure by creep. Replace pigtail.
Failure by cracking. Replace pigtail. Check for
excessive stress on pigtail.
Fluegas Flame impingement, high Use dry powder or K2CO3 to
Maldistribution ATE’s. check for flow patterns. Check
design of outer lanes, burners
and coffins. Modify as
appropriate.
Camel Hump High peak temperatures Introduce more pressure drop in
Effect 4 below fluegas fans. duct.
Afterburning Localised burning on Insufficient combustion air
tubes near bottom of box. supplied to some burners.
Increase combustion air to these
burners.
High O2 Levels Too much excess air in Reduce combustion air rate to
at Stack box. reformer.
Repair existing or install new
Poor tube to casing seal. sealing system.
Check for air leaks and repair.
High air leakage into Check heat balance and O2
convection/radiant inlet/outlet air preheater and
sections. repair.
Large air leakage in
combustion air preheater.
High Duct Fouling of duct coils. Clean coils.
Temperatures Check excess air levels.
Repair refractory where
damaged.
Hot Refractory Damage to refractory. Use steam lance or water to
Casing cool casing. Repair at shut
Failure of anchors. down.
Use steam lance or water to
cool casing. Repair at shut
down.
4
Foster Wheeler Furnaces only.

9.2 Mechanical Troubleshooting Guide
The following table is taken from reference 14 and is a guide as to what to
inspect on a steam reformer.
Waste Heat Boiler

Item Inspection Number Reason
type
Shell Visual All Freedom for thermal expansion to no
external binding or fouling
To ensure no lagging on the WHB side
extends to
DP or US of All Looking for fabrication /creep damage
transition
weld
Refractory Visual All Evidence or refractory damage
Thermograph Looking for hot spots and early
breakdown
Tube Visual 100% Introscope insp. of ferrules looking for
Plates inspection evidence or corrosion
Nozzles Visual 100%
inspection
Water side Visual Where Evidence of build up of BFW solids
inspection accessible behind the tube plates via blowdown
branches.
Evidences of external pitting of tube
O/D near the high heat flux zone

Convection section
type
Casing Visual All Looking for hotspots
Visual All Looking for Structural defects
Refractory Visual Where Looking for breakdown/spalling
accessible
Ceramic Visual Where Looking for breakdown / Shrinkage
fibre accessible
Coils Visual of All Looking for breakdown of the supports
coils sagging of coils
Supports.
Visual All
/thickness Looking for internal corrosion
survey of Where
return accessible Looking for mechanical damage and
bends fouling
Coil finning
Primary Reformer
Item Inspection Reason
type
Casing Visual online All Looking for hotspots
Visual offline All Looking for Structural defects and
air ingress points.
Refractory Visual off line All Looking for Shrinkage , spalling,
walls look at panels Discoloration. Loose
Visual off line All panels
Roof Looking for debris on floor, loose
Visual off line All tiles and nosing tiles.
Tunnels Looking at tunnel movements,
cracking of bricks and tunnel tops.
Burners Visual on line All Looking for consistent flame shape
and equal combustion
Visual off line All General condition – cleanliness
measure and correct burner settings
Roof Visual All Looking for debris on floor

Reformer
tubes Dye 20% Material at top in dead space is
SCC Reformer Penetrant Austenitic and susceptible. Crack
Tube Top 20% detect.
SCC Reformer Dye Tubes fitted with 'Hot Bottoms'. No
Tube Bottom Penetrant suspect condensation possible
Creep Rupture welds only These welds made by manual
of Reformer Radiography metal arc welding are weaker than
Tube Butt All the parent material. The lack of
Welds tube bowing reduces the risk
Diameter Measurement All
measurements All Looking of creep growth
Manual / %/Suspect
LOTISTM areas.
Eddy Current All
Ultrasonic’s All
Radiography
Visual Visual
Bulging Visual Looking for out of alignment
Bending excessive bending
Exit Headers
type
Exit Dye Penetrant All Looking for cracking
headers butt welds.
(Hot) Girth Selected Looking for creep growth
Measurements points
DP examine All Looking for signs of thermally induced
the support creep along with creep growth
and guide
attachment
welds
Transfer Visual All Review all transfer main movements
main Visual All Review thermographic paint for hot
(cold) spots
External DP All Looking for cracks
UT Selected Check thickness of shell based on hot
Dissimilar spots and cold areas outside of the

welds Visual All design temperatures
Shell
Internal Inspection of all refractory surfaces.
Pigtails
type
Outlet Measure All at Looking for signs of creep
Pigtails girths agreed Failures on other plants occur by
Cracking of DP points fatigue (creep ratcheting), or by creep
Pigtails at examine All fillet tearing when pigtails sag under their
Header or welds own weight. DP of the pigtail/header
Tube welds has shown no cracks
Connections
Inlet pigtails Visual all Check condition of lagging. Not in
creep range
10 Conclusions
As can be seen from the above there are many problems that can occur on a
primary reformer and these can affect all the varied components of a reformer.

11 GBHE INTERNAL References
Ref. 1. Safe Start Up and Operation of Steam Reformers
Ref. 2. Carbon Formation and Removal in Primary Reforming Process
Ref. 3. The Tunnel Port Effect : Validation by the Monte Carlo Simulation
Ref. 4. Failure Mechanisms, Inspection Techniques and Repair Methods:
Ref. 5. Fluegas Maldistribution
Ref. 6. Combustion System Design, Operation and Maintenance for Primary

Reformers.
Ref. 7. Replacement of Reformer Outlet Headers at a European Methanol

Plant
Ref. 8. Modern Techniques for Optimization of Primary Reformer Operation
Ref. 9. Reformer Surveys
Ref. 10. Presentation

Introduction to Reforming
Ref. 11. History of Reformer and Waste Heat Boiler Problems at a Far Eastern
Methanol Plant
Ref. 12. Safety Aspects of Ageing Plants
Ref. 13. Replacement of Reformer Outlet Headers at a European Methanol

Plant
Ref. 14. Steam Reformer Design, Maintenance and Inspection
Ref. 15. Primary Reformers – Theory and Operation


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GBH Enterprises, Ltd.

101 THINGS THAT CAN GO WRONG ON A

Information contained in this publication or as otherwise supplied to Users is

Web Site: www.GBHEnterprises.com

1 Common Problems Affecting the Catalyst ...................................................... 9

1.1 Poisons ..................................................................................................... 9

1.2 Carbon Formation and Hot Tubes........................................................... 11

1.3 Catalyst Breakage ................................................................................... 16

1.4 Catalyst Loading ..................................................................................... 21

1.5 Reduction of the Catalyst ........................................................................ 23

1.6 Ammonia Formation ................................................................................ 25

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2.1 Hot Tubes ............................................................................................... 25

2.2 Tube Failure ............................................................................................ 26

2.3 Failure of Mixed Feed Pre Heat Coil ....................................................... 39

2.4 Boxing Up of Reformer............................................................................ 40

2.5 Effect of Water ........................................................................................ 41

2.6 Stress Corrosion Cracking of Tube Tops and Bottoms ........................... 42

2.7 Bowed Tubes .......................................................................................... 44

2.8 Tensioning of Tubes ............................................................................... 45

2.9 Pigtails .................................................................................................... 45

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2.11 Risers ................................................................................................... 48

3 Common Problems Affecting the Furnace Box ............................................. 49

3.1 Fluegas Maldistribution ........................................................................... 49

3.2 Coffins ..................................................................................................... 54

3.3 Effect of Wind on Box Stability ................................................................ 59

3.4 Purging of the Box .................................................................................. 60

4 Common Problems Affecting Burners ........................................................... 60

4.1 Operation and Maintenance of Burners .................................................. 60

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4.2 Flame Instability ...................................................................................... 68

4.3 NOX ......................................................................................................... 68

4.4 SOX ......................................................................................................... 69

5 Common Problems Affecting the Fluegas Duct ............................................ 69

5.1 Too Much Excess Air .............................................................................. 69

5.2 Too Little Excess Air ............................................................................... 70

5.3 Fluegas Coiling Fouling........................................................................... 71

5.4 Problems with Fans ................................................................................ 73

6 Common Problems Affecting the Header Designs ........................................ 74

6.1 Fuel and Fuel Header Designs ............................................................... 74

6.2 Combustion Air Problems ....................................................................... 75

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7 Common Problems Affecting Refractory ....................................................... 81

7.1 General Refractory Damage ................................................................... 81

7.2 Tracking of Gas behind Refractory ......................................................... 81

7.3 Seals around Tube Inlets/Outlets ............................................................ 81

7.4 Peephole Refractory ............................................................................... 82

7.5 Cooling of Hot Reformer Casing ............................................................. 82

8 Common Miscellaneous Problems................................................................ 84

8.1 Nickel Carbonyl Formation ...................................................................... 84

8.2 On Line Analyzers ................................................................................... 84

8.3 Temperature Measurements ................................................................... 85

8.4 Metal dusting of Waste Heat Boilers ....................................................... 89

8.5 Flowmeter Errors .................................................................................... 89

8.6 Sample Shifting ....................................................................................... 90

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9.1 Process Troubleshooting Guide .............................................................. 92

9.2 Mechanical Troubleshooting Guide ......................................................... 95

11 GBHE INTERNAL References ................................................................... 99

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Some typical examples include, but are not limited to,

Plant reliability could be defined by the following graph,