HRSG duct burners can affect downstream tube metal

temperatures
HRSGs / By Team-CCJ

Metal temperature is, perhaps, the variable most affecting the service lives of superheaters
and reheaters. Long-term overheating of these components can result in failures
necessitating multi-million-dollar repairs, based on the experience of Bryan Craig, PE, and
his colleagues at HRST Inc. There is an upward trend for overheating failures in the industry,
and many HRSGs are approaching the time in their respective lifecycles when this is
becoming a significant risk.

Fig 1 shows a typical configuration of a large HRSG with a

duct burner. In HRSGs with duct burners, maximum tube metal temperatures in Module 2
occur when duct firing. An increase in the operating metal temperature of 15 to 20 deg F
can reduce equipment life by half in some instances.

The overwhelming majority of superheater and reheater overheating failures seen to date by
HRST engineers have been downstream of duct burners (Fig 2). Poor exhaust-gas and/or
fuel-gas flow distribution at the duct burner can lead to local areas that are fuel-rich,
resulting in long flames and local overheating in the downstream tube bundles.

Here are two scenarios:

Uniform fuel-gas flow distribution, non-uniform exhaust-gas flow distribution.

Turbine exhaust gas (TEG) is the “air” source for an HRSG duct burner. If the fuel gas is
distributed uniformly throughout the burner elements, but the exhaust gas flow is non-
uniform, then the areas with higher-than-average exhaust-gas velocities will have a high
air/fuel ratio, and areas with lower-than-average exhaust-gas velocities will have a low
air/fuel ratio. A low air/fuel ratio means fuel-rich. Thus, areas with lower-than-average TEG
velocities will be fuel-rich and have longer-than-average flames.

Non-uniform fuel-gas distribution, uniform TEG flow distribution.

This is straightforward. If there’s uniform distribution of TEG flow to the duct burner, then
the areas that receive higher-than-average fuel flow will be fuel rich, comparatively, and will
have longer flames.

In reality, of course, neither the fuel flow nor the TEG flow to a duct burner is perfectly
uniform. Still, it helps to think of the two effects separately.

TEG velocity profile. Turbine exhaust enters the HRSG at high velocity, at a low elevation.
The momentum of TEG flow entering the HRSG causes its velocity to be higher at the
bottom of the duct burner and lower at the top. This can be corrected by installing a flow-
distribution device—such as a perforated plate.

If there are multiple rows of HP superheater and reheater tubes upstream of the duct
burner, the flow resistance of these also can help to even out the TEG flow profile at the
duct-burner plane. Even so, it typically is not perfectly uniform, as Fig 3 shows.
With this TEG flow profile, and assuming fuel flow is distributed equally to each duct-burner
element and uniformly across the elements, you can expect a higher-than-average
temperature and longer flames downstream of the HRSG at the top of the unit, and a lower-
than-average downstream temperature at the bottom of the HRSG—based on the relative
air/fuel ratios in the different zones.

Fig 4 presents the velocity profile for another HRSG, on the same scale as that described in
Fig 3, but one with no flow distribution grid and a very short inlet duct. The TEG velocity at
the bottom of the HRSG is much higher than average and the TEG velocity at the top of the
unit is much lower than average. There is only a small zone with a TEG velocity close to the
average value across the plane, as Fig 5 indicates.

Fuel flow profile. Now, let’s look at fuel flow. Fuel enters the HRSG at a much lower
temperature (40F is typical) than the nominal 1000F TEG temperature at the duct-burner
inlet. Thus, the fuel heats up as it flows along the duct-burner element. Heat-transfer
calculations made by HRST engineers predict the fuel temperature curve in Fig 6 for a
typical duct burner.

Most duct burners inspected by HRST personnel have uniformly distributed, equal-size
openings (a/k/a nozzles) in the burner runners. With this design, a higher fuel flow per
nozzle is expected at the inlet end of the runner where the fuel is cooler than it is at the far
end. The duct-burner fuel-flow profile in Fig 7 is based on the fuel-temperature profile from
Fig 6.

With this fuel profile, one would expect the downstream gas temperature to be higher, and
flame length longer, on the fuel inlet side of the duct burner; and lower/shorter on the far
side.

If you calculate the downstream tube-metal-temperature variation driven only by the effect
of left-to-right fuel-flow distribution along the length of the duct-burner elements, the
difference from the left side to the right side of the HRSG is nearly 40 deg F, as illustrated in
Fig 8. This is substantial considering that a 15- to 20-deg-F difference in tube metal
temperature can correlate to a factor of two in creep life!

Combined effects of fuel and exhaust-gas flow distribution. The photos in Fig 9 are
from a plant with two identical HRSGs, except that they are mirrored. There are no flow-
distribution grids in these units. The downstream tubes in both HRSGs show indications of
overheating at the higher elevations, plus a bias toward the fuel-supply side.