Ethylene Furnace Convection Section Tutorial

Cracking furnaces generate a lot of waste heat.  The furnace convection sections are designed to recover this heat from flue gas by pre-heating and vaporizing process feed prior to the radiant section, pre-heating boiler feed water, superheating steam streams and, in some cases, pre-heating air for combustion.  The efficient recovery of this heat in the convection section is critical to the economics of the process.

This ethylene furnace tutorial will cover the objective of the convection section, typical layouts, internal components and their failure modes, inspection areas and repairs.