Flame Impingement

Flame Impingement is responsible for the most losses of production in heaters. It causes
premature coking of the heater tubes and has been the cause of many a tube rupture. The problem
is not all flame impingement is obvious to the operator. Unfortunately a large portion of the
flame in a heater is invisible to the human eye.

Same Heater….Same Flame

It is hard to believe that the illustration above is the same heater and the same flame, In this
demonstration a small amount (a tablespoon) of Sodium Bicarbonate (Baking Soda) was added
to the air register. The Sodium Bicarbonate does not change the flame; the Sodium ionizes in the
flame and becomes luminous, making the invisible portion of the flame visible. It can now be
clearly seen that portions of the flame are looking for Oxygen. This heater needs more air to be
added, its bushy appearance would suggest more draft is also needed to draw the flame upwards,
away from the heater tubes.
If you look closely at the picture on the left the flame appears lazy. As a rule a lazy flame is the
result of low gas pressure or not enough air, not enough draft or any combination of these.
In this illustration the Sodium Bicarbonate is being admitted through an observation port. A
small amount was placed on a book and the draft of the heater drew it in. The results were
immediate and quite impressive.

In this particular case the issue was a burner design problem. The
burners were over-lapping causing unstable flames. The operators
had done all that was possible to best operate the heater. (This
heater is located at the Montreal Refinery and is being reengineered
to correct the problem.)