Impact of Short Operational Cycles on Cladding Materials in Coke Drums

• Published in: Journal of failure analysis and prevention Vol. 23; no. 2; pp. 767 - 774
• Main Author: Ibrahim, Samer E.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Materials Park Springer Nature B.V 01.04.2023
• Subjects: Cladding; Coke; Corrosion mechanisms; Design parameters; Environmental impact; Fatigue cracks; Fatigue life; Low cycle fatigue; Refineries; Revenue; Sulfidation; Thermal analysis
• ISSN: 1547-7029; 1864-1245
• DOI: 10.1007/s11668-023-01609-8

It is well known that delayed Coker unit is one of the most important refinery units in the downstream industry, coke drums are exposed to number of cycles of thermal loads which initiate mechanical deformation in form of bulges and subsequently cracks which occur because of low-cycle fatigue. To increase the coke productivity, some operators have introduced short operational cycles to increase the production rate at some point to increase the revenue, since by shortening the operational cycle, the coke drum will be able to make more cycles in short period and subsequently produce high volume of the final product. But the fact that increasing the revenue now is reducing the fatigue-life time of the coke drum and subsequently the coke drum retires before its normal time, added to that production loss, human safety, and environmental impacts due to failures because of working beyond design parameters. Therefore, this paper discusses the consequences on the coke drum after introducing short operational cycles especially on the cladding materials in the bottom section of the coke drum, and this paper explores how the sulfidation corrosion occurred and what is the impact on the reliability of coke drum itself.