Delayed coker at a refinery in Kansas, USA.
Calcium silicate on the coker feed lines failed in two years, leading to excessive heat loss and pigging every few weeks. Pyrogel® HPS reduced duty rate and pushed time-between-pigs from weeks to months.
Calcium silicate failed within 2 years.
The incumbent insulation could not survive the heat, movement, and traffic on the inlet feed lines.
- Calcium silicate failed within 2 years. Damaged by excessive heat, vibration, and traffic.
- Excessive heat loss and premature coking. Failure mode caused process degradation.
- Pigging required every few weeks. Maintenance burden was high and growing.
Specify Pyrogel® HPS for both resilience and thermal performance.
The site already trusted Pyrogel® from other applications — Pyrogel® HPS was the right grade for this temperature regime.
- Pyrogel® HPS selected. For both physical resilience and thermal performance on coker feed lines.
- 12-in pipe, 40 mm of HPS. Specified during the next turnaround.
- Reduced duty rate on the DCU furnace. Less heat had to be added back; the furnace ran cooler.
- Time between pigging: weeks → months. Maintenance interval extended materially.
After re-insulation with Pyrogel® HPS, the duty rate on the DCU furnace reduced, and the time between pigging increased from weeks to months.
$600k per year of profitability from a maintenance interval extension.
By restoring thermal performance and dramatically extending the pigging cycle, Pyrogel® HPS added approximately $600k per year of profitability to the unit. The operator subsequently specified Pyrogel® for the coke drums on the next reinsulation cycle.
Pigging coker feed lines every few weeks?
Pyrogel® HPS is engineered to extend the interval — Aspen can quantify the maintenance saving.