Failure of Secondary Reformer due to Top Dish Head

Rupture, its Refurbishment and Root Cause Analysis

After more than 41 years of trouble-free service, a fire jet with explosion occurred due to loss of con-
tainment from the Secondary reformer top dish head. A crack in the pipe base metal allowed the
premature entry of air into the flammable process gas environment ahead of the burner, where it ig-
nited causing failure of the refractory; exposing metal surface to high temperatures of burning gas;
thus resulting in dish-head rupture. The dish-head was restored by welding an insert patch, three di-
mensionally formed from Carbon Steel plate, using in-house resources and plant production was re-
sumed in just 15 days.

Abid Hussain
Head of Asset Reliability and Integrity Management (ARIM)
Fauji Fertilizer Company Limited, Pakistan

Syed Faran Hussain

Head of Inspection
Fauji Fertilizer Company Limited, Pakistan

Introduction Secondary Reformer, R-203 top dish head. Am-

monia plant shutdown security was immediately

T he Ammonia-Urea complex (Haldor

Topsoe - Saipem technology) located at
Mirpur Mathelo, Pakistan was acquired
by Fauji Fertilizer Company Limited (FFC) in
2002; the facility was first commissioned under a
actuated at 2310 hrs. The flame extinguished it-
self within a few seconds after gas cut off as a
result of actuation of shutdown security and
downstream isolation. Information from world-
wide accidents of secondary reformers indicate a
government owned entity in 1980. Nameplate ca- loss of production of 3 to 12 months due to this
pacity of the ammonia plant was increased to kind of incident, including injuries [1].
1250 MTPD from the original capacity of 1000
MTPD in 2008. During normal operation (108%
revamped capacity) of the plant, the secondary Secondary Reformer
reformer vessel shell experienced loss of contain-
Secondary Reformer is a special design reactor
ment, which resulted in an explosion and forced
with respect to internal structure owing to the
a total plant shutdown. The top dish head of the
very high operating temperature (1000°C to
secondary reformer was damaged; fortunately,
1300°C, 1832 to 2372 °F). It has a vertically in-
no injury to personnel or further property damage
stalled burner on vessel top flange with several
occurred.
flow nozzles installed in three circular rings at the
At 2309 hours on Sunday 3rd July 2022, a blast
bottom of the burner. The pressure shell is made
was heard by the operations team. Immediately
of alloy steel A-204 Gr. B. To protect the shell
afterwards, a jet fire was witnessed coming from
from exposure to the high internal temperatures,
two layers of refractories, hot face and insulating
face, are installed in the shell. The external shell
surface of the reactor has heat sensitive paint
(thermoindicative), which changes color from
green to whitish grey with temperature change
from 250 to 440 °C (482 to 824 °F) to indicate
localized hotspot / refractory failure. A 3-dimen-
sional sketch of the reformer is shown in Figure
1.
Figure 1. Reformer construction details
Air enters the reactor from the top head nozzle
(10”) at 465 °C and 34 kg/cm2 and exits the
burner through nozzles after flowing through
burner pipe. The terminology is explained in Fig-
ure 1. The process gas from the primary reformer
enters the reactor through a refractory lined trans-
fer line at 788 °C and 33 Kg/cm2. It flows down-
ward through the annulus space available at the
outside of the burner pipe before reaching the tip
of the burner nozzles, where the combustion re-
action occurs since the mixture is above its auto
ignition temperature (510 °C to 530 °C).
The reactor can be divided in two sections: com-
bustion section and reforming section. In the
combustion section, Oxygen in the air, supplied
through the burner nozzle, is utilized in combus-
tion with Hydrogen and part of the methane pre-
sent in the process gas to produce heat for the
forming reaction in the catalyst bed. Nitrogen in
the air stays inert for subsequent use in ammonia
production. In the reforming section, reactions
take place and hydrogen and carbon oxides are
produced over a fixed catalyst bed. The tempera-
ture of the reformed gas at outlet of the reformer
is maintained between 910-920 °C.
Inspection and Maintenance
Regime in Place
Inspection of the secondary reformer is per-
formed both online and offline. The online in-
spections include visual monitoring of thermal
paint. Change in color of heat sensitive paint is
considered a sign of deterioration of refractory.
In case the temperature exceeds a pre-defined
threshold, steam spargers are applied on the hot
spots to keep the shell metal temperature within
design limits. Moreover, this monitoring is com-
plimented by thermography inspections.
The offline inspections are carried out during
plant Turnarounds (TAs), and this includes inter-
nal inspection after vessel entry to look for ab-
normalities in all the accessible areas with or
without removal of catalyst bed. Visual inspec-
tion of the burner and Dye Penetrant Testing
(DPT) of the accessible welds is employed to de-
tect any abnormalities.
Inspection and Maintenance
History
After acquisition of the plant during the turna-
round of 2003, the burner was removed for in-
spection. The part of the burner containing burner
rings was replaced with an upgraded design of
the rings and burner nozzles, based on the recom-
mendation of Haldor Topsoe and the operational
experience of FFC [2]. All the other parts of the
burner were retained.
In subsequent turnarounds, several observations
were made such as cracked / burnt support plate
and bulged and cracked anchor plate, which sup-
ports the top dome refractory. New deflector
plate and burnt guide ring were fabricated; the
damaged parts were replaced accordingly. Visual
inspection and Dye Penetrant Test of the accessi-
ble welds was also carried out in each turna-
round. No cracking in the air inlet pipe seal weld
or inlet pipe base metal was reported in these in-
spections.
Operation and Monitoring
The secondary reformer is equipped with 04 skin
temperature sensors configured in the Distributed
Control System (DCS) located one each at coni-
cal portion, cylindrical shell, above conical por-
tion and at bottom dish head. No change in these
indications were observed before the incident.
The top dish head and inlet nozzle are not pro-
vided with any skin temperature indicators.
Trends of the process parameters were also ana-
lyzed for the period prior to incident and no ab-
normality was found.
After Turnaround-2020, thermography inspec-
tions were made three times as per schedule, and
no abnormality was recorded on the air inlet noz-
zle or dish head. The top dish head is visited
physically in every shift by the field operator; no
abnormality was observed in these field visits.
A camera installed at one of the locations cap-
tured the incident. A small flame was recorded
about 12 minutes before the explosion. The flame
remained unnoticed and its intensity gradually
grew till explosion.
Observations and Findings
A fish mouth rupture 420 mm × 200 mm of Sec-
ondary Reformer’s top head was observed
(Figure 2). Metal thinning was witnessed at the
rupture point; the minimum thickness was at the
opening, which recovered back to normal imme-
diately beyond the swelled area. No thickness
loss was recorded adjacent to the ruptured area.
The color of the swelled part was black (as the
paint got detached and exposed the metal) while
the temperature indicating paint color was ob-
served to have changed its color from green to
white in the area adjacent to the rupture point on
top head.
An opening of 70mm long and 35mm wide was
found in the air inlet pipe at approximately 30 cm
(~1ft) away from top sealing ring and signs of
burning and surface degradation marks (signs of
burning and flame impingement) were observed
around this hole (Figure 3 and
Figure 6).
Upon removal of the air inlet spool, the face of
the air inlet nozzle was inspected. A circumfer-
ential crack was observed inside the air inlet pipe
in a length covering almost 85% of the total cir-
cumference (Figure 4). The crack remained lin-
ear for most of its length except for its termina-
tion points, where it changed its direction sharply
downwards. The crack was around 1mm wide
throughout its linear length; however, it was
found tight close at the termination points (crack
a in the figure). A second crack (crack b in the
figure) was observed on the collar to the flange
seal weld (length ~70 mm).
 Figure 2. Dish head fish mouth opening
Figure 3. Through hole in air inlet pipe
Figure 4. Circumferential crack in the air inlet
pipe (a) and crack in seal weld (b).
Figure 5. Deformed deflector plate
The deflector plate / sleeve was found deformed
and bent upwards as shown in Figure 5. It
might be due to the flame disruption caused by
the vacuum created at the time of blast and
flame going upwards, hence burning and de-
forming the deflector plate. One fourth of the
top head/dome refractory was found fallen off,
while the refractory of the remaining portion
was also deteriorated to some extent. The an-
chors were also found damaged. The extent of
refractory damage is shown in
Figure 6.
Reformer Shell
Catalyst and alumina lumps were found in
healthy condition. No observations were found
regarding detrimental depressurization of vessel.
Refractory was generally in satisfactory condi-
tion except for damage in the neck portion in the
vicinity of the dish to neck flange.
Burner Assembly
The hole of 70mm x 35mm observed in the air
inlet pipe had burnt-like appearance (Figure 7).
The area around the hole was also degraded. This
degradation was also observed around the pe-
riphery of the seal ring; however, the damage was
more pronounced at the hole location. This phe-
nomenon was absent just above the sealing ring
interface.

Figure 7. Removed portion of inlet pipe

Top Dome and Air Inlet Nozzle

Seal
Ring
Air Inlet
Pipe
Figure 6. Damaged and fallen refractory in the
dish head
Metal was found burnt and thinned around the
hole edges; the minimum recorded thickness was
5.0 mm which too recovered to values of 7~9 mm
within an inch from the hole. Hardness values
recorded around the hole were quite high i.e.
450~480 HB. The hardness values started recov-
ering moving away from the hole. The area with
no degradation marks had hardness values within
acceptable range.
Thickness measurements were carried out at the
top dome in the area adjacent to the ruptured por-
tion and no thickness reduction was observed.
Minimum recorded value was 27.8mm against
nominal thickness of 30mm, which is not consid-
ered a thickness loss based on the service life of
the equipment.
Magnetic Particle Inspection and Dye Penetrant
Testing were also carried out after power brush
cleaning of the top dome in an 18” band around
the area marked for replacement and no anoma-
lies were observed.
Hardness data was also collected at both the ex-
ternal and internal side of the dome as well as at
the top nozzle and reducer. All the recorded val-
ues were in acceptable range.
Metallographic Examination
Replica Metallography was performed to assess
the material degradation and extent of damage.
Examination of the extracted replicas of area
away from rupture region exhibited microstruc-
ture phases that were consistent with alloy steel.
Repair and Rehabilitation
The top dome head was rigged out after removal
of the air inlet pipping and shifted to the work-
shop (Figure 8). After thorough inspection and
thickness measurements of the damaged portion,
the air inlet pipe was separated by cutting. Fol-
lowed by refractory removal.
head was thoroughly inspected before proceed-
ing to repair work. The inspection included Dye
Penetrant Testing, Magnetic Particle Testing,
spot-thickness measurement and Hardness test-
ing.

Next the burner air pipe attached to the dome

head was removed by grinding of the seal weld
on the air inlet flange to pipe. The collar was sep-
arated from the air inlet flange and extracted from
the dome head. The crack inside the pipe ap-
peared to be originating from the fillet weld of
the support ring. Soap Film Test of the welds
confirmed that both the cracks were through. The
seal weld was machined to remove the burner
pipe and it revealed that the length of crack was
greater at the root in comparison to the weld face
(i.e. visible side of the weld) hence suggesting
that it initiated from root and travelled upwards
towards the surface. Figure 9. Forming of plates with hydraulic
press

Patch and insert plates were formed to the curva-

ture of the top dome from plates of ASTM A-285
Gr. C material using a hydraulic press.

Figure 8. Dome after refractory removal and re-

moval of affected section
Based on the hardness data, the affected area
around the fracture was marked for replacement. Figure 9 shows the plate being formed to the top
An oxyacetylene flame cutter was used for cut- dome curvature.
ting and removal of the marked area. The dome
Beveling of the edges of the dome was performed
for welding of the inserted plate followed by Dye
Penetrant Test (Figure 10). Three sides of the in-
sert plate and the dome head cut section were
double beveled and the side that goes under the
reinforcement pad was compound beveled. DHT
(Dehydrogenation Heat Treatment) was carried
out at 350 °C for three hours. Welding was per-
formed using Gas Tungsten Arc Welding with
filler wire ER-80S-G. DPT was done after both
root passes and were declared satisfactory. Fill-
ing was completed using E7018-A1 electrode.
Radiographic Testing of three sides and Ultra-
sonic Flaw Detection of the fourth side (Fourth
side was beneath the reinforcement pad) was car-
ried out with satisfactory results.
Figure 10. DPT of insert plate
Additionally, a patch plate was fillet welded over
the insert plate to serve as a precautionary meas-
ure against leakage and to reinforce the insert
plate as well. The patch plate was provided with
a pressure indicator with a block valve arrange-
ment.
All the welding job was done while adhering to
the Pre Heat and Post Heat requirements of the
material followed by a Post Weld Heat Treat-
ment.
After welding of the insert and reinforcement
plates, the deformed anchors of existing refrac-
tory were replaced with new anchors. The dish
head contains two-layer refractory namely the
hot face and insulating face as described earlier.
These refractories were casted after ensuring
their cold crushing strength in compression test-
ing; both hot and insulating faces were installed
with standard installing and curing procedures.
The repair procedure was evaluated as per API
579-1 FFS level 3 assessment conducted by a US
based third party consultant.
Failure Analysis and Damage
Mechanism
Two cracks were initiated on the air inlet nozzle
welds: one in the base metal of air inlet pipe and
one in the seal weld. The crack in the base metal
close to the lower fillet weld was larger and visi-
ble to the naked eye. This fillet weld, at the lower
side of collar functioning as a joint between the
collar and Air Inlet Pipe, was subjected to high
stresses due to its location and also to thermal and
mechanical fatigue for more than 41 years of op-
eration. The fillet weld is highlighted with a red
circle and colored yellow in Figure 11. It ap-
peared that the crack initiated at the toe of the
lower weld some time ago and propagated cir-
cumferentially along the toe as well as radially
inside the base metal until it got through.
Collar to Flange Seal Weld
Air Inlet Pipe to Collar Weld
Air Inlet Pipe to
Collar Weld
Air Inlet Pipe
SS-321 H
Figure 11. Crack initiated at the toe of the lower
weld and propagated circumferentially along
the toe as well as radially inside.
Considering the crack size and morphology, it the annular space
appears that the pipe base metal was cracked in
the through thickness followed by consequential
growth of the crack in the seal weld. Over a long
period of time the base metal cracks got through
and allowed process air to flow into the annular
space filled with ceramic wool (the annular space
or chamber is the space between air inlet pipe and
top nozzle of the dome, which is marked by white
arrow in Figure 12).

Due to this flow of ~460°C hot air the tempera- Figure 13. Leaking air mixes with process gas
ture of annular space between Air Inlet Pipe and to form a flame impinging the pipe resulting in
top nozzle of Secondary Reformer increased, material deterioration
thus changing the color of the temperature indic-
ative paint on the nozzle from green to white.
However, this change in color didn’t raise any
alarm since the color changing phenomenon had
been witnessed several times in the past at all
three plants of FFC. But in these instances, the
change in color was due to the pressurization of
the process gas in to the chamber between air in-
let pipe and top dome, which was caused by the
poor packing of ceramic wool inside the chamber
and the inherent gaps in the sealing ring. The pro- Figure 14. Air gushed out of this newly formed
cess gas surrounding the burner pipe is already at hole and turned into a jet of high temperature
auto ignition temperatures, and leaking air flame hitting, damaging the refractory, over-
through the annular space, therefore, made a heating the metal which then explode to fish
flame at this location. The phenomenon is mouth.
sketched in Figure 13 and Figure 14. From the
thermographs of February 2022, it is clear that Although this flame would have been all around
the process air was not entering the annulus space the circumference of the pipe OD (also evident
behind the air inlet pipe since the skin tempera- from the material degradation signs observed on
ture of the nozzle were below 200°C and the tem- the pipe circumference), the fire intensity re-
perature indicating paint was also green in color. mained particularly high at one location causing
deterioration of the air pipe due to direct flame
impingement through a small hole in seal ring.

Flame impingement on the pipe made a crack and

ultimately a hole, which allowed a jet of air to
gush out and produced a jet of high temperature
flame (in excess of 1000 °C) hitting and damag-
ing the hot face of the refractory (melting tem-
perature 1400°C) in front of the hole around the
reactor flange.
Figure 12. The crack upon getting through the
pipe thickness, allowed process air to flow into
The refractory support ring also melted under the
flame. Some dish head refractory in the direct
line of flame got detached. The next line of de-
fense i.e., “arms” of Y anchors installed close to
support plate also got exposed when the hot gases
penetrated the hot face. Subsequently, the hot
gases came into contact with the anchors of insu-
lating layer. The major portions of the refractory
got detached and fell from the weakest zone. The
refractory damage exposed the dish head metal to
high temperatures in excess of 1000°C. The de-
sign operating temperature of metal at this loca-
tion is 250°C; therefore, due to high temperature,
the metal started swelling and got plastically de-
formed until it ruptured.
for inspection. Over the years the designer/pro-
cess licensor M/s Haldor Topsoe continued to
improve the design against this design discrep-
ancy as follows:
At another plant of FFC, which was commis-
sioned in 1982 (i.e. 2 years later than FFC-3), the
groove/fillet weld was replaced with a J-Type
groove weld at the collar ring, which is a rela-
tively strong joint compared to the previous de-
sign; however, it is still not accessible for inspec-
tion (Figure 18).

Root Cause Analysis

Metallurgical assessment was carried out to iden-
tify and characterize the damage mechanism. Ex-
amination of the fracture face exhibited three dis-
cernible regions depicting the crack initiation
zone, crack propagation zone and final fracture
zone.

The crack initiation zone is identified by the pres-

ence of a series of vertical lines aligned parallel
to the crack propagation known as ratchet marks, Figure 15. Visible beach marks at fracture face
which suggests that the weld toe region acted as .
a preferential site for the stress concentration and
facilitated crack initiation. While the beach
markings observed adjacent to the ratchet marks
confirms the propagation of the crack due to fa-
tigue. The ratchet and beach marks are shown in
Figure 15 and Figure 16.

The fillet weld that initiated the crack into the

base metal was in stress by virtue of its design;
i.e. a support collar ring is connected by groove
and fillet welds on upper and lower ends, respec-
tively, to the burner pipe; the collar rests on the Figure 16. Macro analysis of fracture face.
flange and the weight of the burner is on these
two groove/fillet welds (Figure 17). In addition
to the weight of the burner assembly, the weld is
also subjected to thermal fatigue owing to
startup, shutdowns and other process upsets.
Moreover, the lower fillet weld is not accessible

Figure 17. Existing design
Figure 18. Design with J-type groove weld
Figure 19. Improved Design with Butt weld
In 1990’s vintage plants, the further improved
design (FFC Plant-2): the collar ring was re-
placed with a weld neck collar butt welded to the
pipe thus eliminating this weld altogether (Figure
19). Further design improvements included ma-
terial upgradation of the air inlet pipe to resist
higher temperature and thermal fatigue. There-
fore, the poor design of the weld is identified to
be the root cause.
Conclusion
Failures of secondary reformers are very rare in
industry and the risks associated with such fail-
ures are normally very high. The explosion in
FFC was a result of a weld crack in the air inlet
pipe of the burner. This crack formed a passage
which let air into the reformer, ahead of the
burner where flammable process gas ignited and
this resulted in failure of the refractory, thus ex-
posing the metal surface to very high tempera-
tures above the design values and eventually re-
sulting in loss of containment.
Based on the investigation carried out, no mal-
operation or non-compliance of Standard Oper-
ating Procedures was observed. The root cause of
the failure is attributed to weakness in the design,
which was improved by the designer in later
years at new plants. However, this improvement
was not carried out on this ~41 year old equip-
ment due to lack of communication and docu-
mentation sharing.
Learning from the incident, a robust action plan
was developed to address vulnerable areas and
mitigate risk associated with ageing plants in-
cluding improved liaison with the process licen-
sor and document sharing, implementation of
RBI and PSM systems and establishment of As-
set Reliability and Integrity department.
Although refurbishment of such distinctively
ruptured dish head within 2 weeks’ time is an af-
firmation of emergency preparedness and ma-
turity of FFC systems; however, the incident also
provided an opportunity to review and improve
these systems further to prevent such unique oc-
currences in future.
References

[1] G. M. Lawrence, "Shell Rupture of a

Secondary Reformer," Plant/Operations
Progress, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 60-62, 1984.
[2] S. Hussain, A. Basit, H. Holm-Christensen
and H. Stahl, "Secondary Reformer Burner
Nozzle Design and Operating Experience,"
Ammonia Plant Safety and Related
Facilities, no. 39, pp. 147-155, 1999.