Trade News
Pullach, Germany, June 24, 2021 – Linde Advanced Operations Services (LAOS) has been awarded a Remote Diagnostics Service order by Chevron Australia. It comprises the continuous remote monitoring and diagnostics of Linde-supplied plate-fin heat exchangers (PFHE). The objective of this service is to detect operating conditions in the LNG plant. It includes consulting from Linde experts.
Thomas Heinzerling, Senior Vice President, Advanced Operations Services at Linde Engineering, comments: “Plate-fin heat exchangers are individually manufactured to meet the needs of every customer’s specific use case. Not only is each individual system different, the process environments for these components vary just as widely. In the past, it was practically impossible for plant operators to predict the process conditions. With our service we help Chevron to avoid unexpected plant downtime resulting from heat exchanger problems. It also lowers repair and maintenance costs significantly.”
To determine the status of the structural health of the heat exchanger, additional temperature sensors were installed on the surface of the heat exchanger blocks. Once a minute, the temperature and flow measurements of the process streams as well as the surface temperatures are transmitted from the site to the Linde cloud. A digital twin of each individual heat exchanger calculates the temperature distribution, indicates the health status of the equipment 24/7 and alerts Linde experts as required. Equipped with all relevant diagnostic information provided by the Linde-developed algorithms, history of each heat exchanger supports maintenance decisions.
Background on thermal stress for plate fin heat exchangers
PFHEs are key components in many cryogenic processing plants such as air separation, petrochemical and gas treatment plants as well as natural gas and helium liquefaction plants. They transfer heat between various fluids or gases. Up to 20 process streams can be handled by a single PFHE. The equipment may be subject to frequent load changes or demanding thermal conditions exceeding the recommended operation guidelines. During those operation conditions, mass flows, pressure and temperature distribution can change. Local temperature may change by up to 200°C, leading locally to thermal shrinking or elongations within the PFHE, causing increased mechanical stresses in the equipment. On the long-term, operation with very demanding thermal conditions can cause microscopic damage and lead to small cracks.
About Linde
Linde is a leading global industrial gases and engineering company with 2020 sales of $27 billion (€24 billion). We live our mission of making our world more productive every day by providing high-quality solutions, technologies and services which are making our customers more successful and helping to sustain and protect our planet.
The company serves a variety of end markets including chemicals & refining, food & beverage, electronics, healthcare, manufacturing, and primary metals. Linde's industrial gases are used in countless applications, from life-saving oxygen for hospitals to high-purity & specialty gases for electronics manufacturing, hydrogen for clean fuels and much more. Linde also delivers state-of-the-art gas processing solutions to support customer expansion, efficiency improvements and emissions reductions.
For more information about the company and its products and services, please visit www.linde.com