36 Safety - Focus on ATEX
FLIR Thermal Imaging Cameras Reveal What’s Behind the Flames
Steve Beynon - an interview with Jean- François Tournieux, project leader at Petroval Steve Beynon, EMEA Gas Imaging Business Development Manager, FLIR Commercial Systems
2 Kings Hill Avenue , Kings Hill, West Malling, Kent , United Kingdom Tel: +44 1732 220011 • Email:
gasimaging@flir.com
A wide variety of industries relies on furnaces and boilers for manufacturing processes. But furnace and boiler equipment is prone to failures from a variety of mechanisms. Tese includecoking that plugs the inside of tubes and impedes product flow, slag build-up on the outside of tubes, clinker damage, under- and over-heating, flame impingement on tubes due to burner misalignment, and product leaks that ignite and cause serious damage to the equipment. Tese failures cause not only quality problems; they can also shut down an entire process line. FLIR thermal imaging cameras can detect most of these equipment problems during operation, and at an early stage so failures can be prevented. Tis allows an orderly shutdown and component replacement, thereby reducing maintenance costs and production losses.
Petroval inspected this crude distillation unit furnace
The French company Petroval was one of the first to recognise the potential of thermal imaging for technical inspections of industrial installations. “Before thermal imaging cameras were introduced there simply was no thorough way of finding failures during operation”, explains Jean- François Tournieux, project leader at Petroval. “Using FLIR thermal imaging cameras is a great non-destructive method to find such failures – even during operation – and accurately determine at what production speed it is still safe to operate.” The Normandy, France, based company is owned by TOTAL and Eurecat and was founded in 1990. In addition to the head office in Le Havre, Petroval also has an office in Houston, Texas, since 2003, and will open an office in Singapore in 2011. Petroval provides services in more than 50 countries around the world; in fact more than 80% of the work is done outside of France.
Cooled and uncooled
The inspection with a thermal imaging camera from FLIR revealed a hot area due to flame impingement on the tubes at start up
Currently Petroval uses three thermal imaging cameras from FLIR; one with a cooled detector and two with an uncooled detector. The cooled thermal imaging camera is the FLIR Agema 550 with heat shield and flame filter. This camera is mainly used for inspections of the inside of the furnace. The two uncooled thermal imaging cameras are the FLIR ThermaCAM P50F, which also contains a flame filter, and the FLIR P640, which is mainly used for insulation inspection from the outside. According to Petroval's technicians all three cameras are great tools for his purpose. “The FLIR Agema 550 is very accurate and
Hot spots on these ducts indicate faulty insulation FLIR GF309: high temperature inspection
The FLIR Agema 550 and the FLIR ThermaCAM P50F used by Petroval are both ‘older’ models that are not currently marketed by FLIR Systems. Today, the FLIR GF309 is the state of the art technology currently used for furnace inspections. In addition, this new model is a dual use
thermal imaging camera that can not only be used for high temperature industrial furnace applications, but for thermal inspections of mechanical or electrical components as well. That makes these cameras ideal for monitoring all types of furnaces, heaters and boilers, particularly in the chemical, petrochemical and utility industries.
The FLIR Agema 550 contains a cooled Platinum Silicide (PtSi) focal plane array (FPA) detector. Platinum Silicide has been waived as a detector material because the PtSi detectors are less sensitive then indium antimonide (InSb) detectors, which form the heart of the new FLIR GF309 thermal imaging camera. This choice also allowed FLIR to market dual use thermal imaging
sensitive. The FLIR ThermaCAM P50F is not as sensitive to small temperature differences, but because it has an uncooled detector it is maintenance free and
it takes less time to start up, for a cooled camera usually has to run the cooling system for about five minutes before it can be used. And the third one, the FLIR P640 is the perfect tool for both insulation inspection and for detecting faults in electrical equipment.”
FLIR P640: a maintenance camera for predictive maintenance
The FLIR P640 thermal imaging camera has an uncooled microbolometer detector that produces thermal images of 640 x 480 pixels. The FLIR P640 has some very useful built-in features that make it ideal for predictive maintenance, such as a laser pointer, Picture in Picture and FLIR Thermal Fusion to merge the visual and the thermal image. “The FLIR P640 thermal imaging camera is very quick and easy to use. It’s great: even from a distance of fifty to a hundred meters you can still detect small hot spots that indicate insulation failure.”
According to Tournieux the FLIR P640 can still detect small hot spots from a large distance indicating insulation failure
August / September 2011 •
www.petro-online.com
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