The steam reformer is the largest and most expensive piece of equipment in ammonia, methanol and

hydrogen plants. On account of the arduous operating conditions the tubes run close to their metallurgical
limits and suffer so-called "creep damage" over time. This damage does not occur at a uniform rate across
the reformer; local overheating may cause more damage to some tubes than others. For example, flames
from the furnace burners may accidentally impinge directly on the outside surface of one or two tubes, or
the activity of the catalyst in the odd tube may become impaired by carbon formation, which reduces the
reaction rate and, therefore, the rate at which the heat is removed from the inside surface of the tube wall,
leading to so-called "hot bands".

Tube design and material selection dictate the maximum permissible operating tube wall temperature
(TWT) for a particular projected design life. Most commonly this is 100,000 hours, which would be
equivalent to 11.4 years of non-stop operation, were not such a thing clearly impossible. Tubes fabricated
from modern alloys with improved high-temperature strength can be made thinner walled with a
correspondingly increased internal diameter. That significantly increases the volume of catalyst that can
be accommodated in each tube and, thus, the maximum production capacity. Since the temperature
difference between the inside and outside surfaces is smaller in a thin-walled tube than it is in a thicker
one, as long as it is not operated at its capacity limit the thinner tube can run with a greater margin
between the normal operating TWT and the design limit. But if the thinner tubes are used for the purpose
of squeezing every bit of possible production capacity from the furnace, the TWT margin will be the same
as for older, thicker-walled tubes, necessitating the same precision in control of their operation and the
same frequency of inspection.

Inspection is required to identify individual tubes that must be removed to avoid failure and the
consequential losses of an unscheduled shut-down. New, more sophisticated inspection techniques can
detect creep early enough and with sufficient accuracy for corrective action to be taken to avoid the need
to have routine complete tube replacement on well managed furnaces.

Failure mechanisms

The main damage mechanism for reformer tubes is the combination of thermal stresses through the tube
wall and the stress imposed by operation under pressure. This combination causes creep damage, which
typically develops on or just below the inside surface.

Creep is caused by the progressive advance of atomic dislocations in the alloy structure. These
dislocations flow through the alloy and accumulate at the grain boundaries, causing voids in the metal
structure. The voids align and eventually form microscopic cracks.

Creep damage normally occurs over a large part of the circumference and over an axial length of the tube,
resulting in a diameter increase. In common parlance, the tube bulges. Figure 1 shows the progression of
creep damage through the tube wall thickness from left to right. Initially an accumulation of voids or
cavities forms some 30-40% from the inside wall and these cavities align radially to form cracks. The
cracks then grow until they penetrate the inner wall. Once the inner wall is broken, the tube begins to tear
as the cracks grow outwards until they reach the outside. The final rupture occurs as a longitudinal split.

Temperature excursions or overheating can also cause a sudden and dramatic reduction in tube life.
Whenever tubes are heated and cooled (thermal cycling), stresses are temporarily increased and this
leads to an acceleration of creep damage. In extreme cases, cooling or heating can be too rapid, leading to
thermal shock failure.

Tube failures resulting from known service problems, such as splitting caused by serious overheating, are
easily recognised. However, even under good, well-controlled service conditions, all reformer tubes will
slowly undergo creep damage. Therefore, over and above process controls, it is advisable to monitor the
service conditions and quality of the tubes themselves. This involves regular tube skin temperature
readings to ensure that the design tube skin temperature is not exceeded, and at every opportunity for
inspection as much information as possible should be gathered on the mechanical state of the tubes.

Creep strain is a time-dependent phenomenon. In reformer tubes the strain generally exhibits itself by an
increase in tube diameter, which accompanies the crack propagation and growth. The stages of creep life
can be shown in a plot of strain against time. Such a creep curve is shown in Fig. 2. The curve can be
segmented into three zones known as primary (I), secondary (II) and tertiary (III) creep.

Stage (I): Primary creep occurs early in tube life, and its rate decreases as progressive work-hardening
inhibits dislocation movement.

Stage (II). Secondary or steady-state creep is the condition under which the tubes are designed to operate.
The diameter increases at a very constant slow rate.
Stage (III). Tertiary creep is the final stage, during which deformation accelerates. At this point cracks
within the structure are getting larger …