Fouling Rates and Cleaning Methods in Refinery Heat Exchangers

The three phases of heat-exchanger operation and maintenance which are covered in this paper are: rate of fouling (operating data from exchangers in various refinery services are used to correlate rate of fouling with time); reduction of fouling (the use of pressure and temperature control, blanketed feed tankage, feed stripping, and injection of additives as means to reduce fouling rates is discussed, as well as results obtained by refineries); cleaning methods (the mechanics and effectiveness of some methods of cleaning heat exchangers are discussed, the methods described being sandblasting, mechanical cleaning, and chemical cleaning).