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Feed Preheat
In some refineries, delayed coker feed which is usually vacuum reduced crude (VRC) arrives at the
‘coker hot, straight from the vacuum distillation unit, but in most cases, delayed coker feed is relatively
cold coming from tankage. The feed is preheated by heat exchangers with gas oil products or in some
rare cases by a fired coker preheater (tube furnace). In some refineries, the convection section of the
‘main coker furnace is used to preheat the cold feed. The hot coker feed, ranging from 360 to 400°C
(680 to 750°F), then enters the bottom of the fractionator / combination tower where the fresh feed is
combined with some condensed product vapors (recycle) to make up the feed to the coker heater.
The fractionator bottom provides some surge storage capacity for the inoming fresh feed, and in
some units, heat is transferred to the fresh feed by flowing a split of the fresh feed above the drum
overhead vapor entrance to the fractionator. This practice usually results in increased amounts of
heavy coker gas oil recycle in the furnace charge.
Coker Charge Pumps
The coker charge pumps located between the fractionator bottom and the coker heater are normally
driven by an electric motor with a steam-driven turbine pump as a backup. The pressure is in excess
of 35 bars (500 psig) with a mechanical seal operating up to 382°C (720°F).
Coker Tube Furnace
The coker tube furnace is the heart of the delayed coking process. The heater furnishes all of the heat
in the process. The outlet temperature of a coker fumace is typically around 500°C (930°F) with a
pressure of 4 bars (60 psig).
Coker Furnace Design, Coker fumace design objectives according to Elliott [1996] are:
+ High in-tube velocities resulting in maximum inside heat transfer coefficient
‘+ Minimum residence time in the furnace, especially above the cracking temperature threshold
+ A constantly rising temperature gradient
Optimum flux rate with minimum practicable maldistribution based on peripheral tube surface
+ Symmetrical piping and coil arrangement within the furnace enclosure
Multiple steam injection points for each heater pass
‘Normally the modem-day furnace has two to four passes per furnace. The tubes are mounted
horizontally on the side and held in place with alloy hangers. The furnace tubes are around 100 mm
ID with 6 to 12 mm wall thickness and are at least a 9% chrome alloy. Higher alloy tubes are being
used with the more rapid steam spalling and steam-air decoking methods. Aluminized tubes have
been tried, but offer no advantage. Multiple burners are along the bottom of the radiant wall opposite
from the tubes and are fired vertically upward. The burners for each firebox are controlled by the
temperatures of tubes in that firebox only. The control thermocouple for the firebox should be three
or more tubes back from the outlet to prevent coke forming on the thermocouple. The outlet
thermocouple is initially read and an off-set from the control thermocouple is then used to control the
furnace, Tall fumaces are advantageous since the roof tubes are less likely to have flame impingement
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