subject: Latest Heat Exchanger Cleaning Techniques [print this page] In most of the cases, maintenance of a platform's Waste Heat Recovery Unit (WHRU) and similar shell and tube heat exchangers can be an extremely dangerous process. It needs to be removed, carried off line, and moved to shore for maintenance purpose. Shell and tube heat exchangers are made of coiled tubes and can become filled with carbon deposits. The conventional methods for clearing the blockage include bypassing the fouled unit, removing off bends and cleaning the tubes, then re joining the U-bends and complete unit replacement.
The conventional methods of heat exchanger cleaning are overcome due to latest advancements in technology. It is not good to just bypass the unit. There are various drawbacks of this inefficiency. One of them is the increased operational costs. Moreover, it is time consuming and expensive due to cutting of U-bends and re-welding them. Sometimes it can be difficult or impossible to get access to rejoin them.
The new methods of heat exchanger cleaning include the ability to clean areas with limited access, and clear deposits from U-bends with ever removing them. This process sometimes can be done without even taking the unit offline, and generally takes less time and results in a higher degree of defouling. Through this way, a large number of unit can e restored too near-factory efficiency. For big applications such as refineries, petro-chemical plants, or power plants, the savings can be much higher.
The U-bends retain many deposits and considered as a hindrance to the system. Full replacement carries the cost of completely replacing equipment that, other than the heat exchanger tube fouling, is still in working condition. Today, a lager number of companies adopt latest heat exchanger cleaning technologies in order to gain competitive advantage. Many tube bundles can now be cleaned more efficiently with heat exchanger cleaning than with pressure jetting, which takes day to clean.
