Gas Cooler Emergency Repair at Chemical Plant

Fast response keeps gas cooler operational. When a pressure gas cooler needed an emergency repair, Kelvion responded quickly, resulting in boosting the equipment’s reliability and extending its shelf life.

CTI technology favored
The gas cooler, installed at an air compression station at a Chemical plant in Western Germany, is used to cool down the hot (100⁰C) air released at pressure of up to18 bar from the compressor. It is the only product of its kind able to handle such huge volumes of compressed hot air and operates with a cooling water cycle of around 4 bar.

Over time, the single-finned copper tubes in the gas cooler had become corroded, resulting in leaks and a lower cooling performance. Instead of a tube replacement, the customer favored the Kelvion/CTI liner technology which we had introduced to them previously. The advantage of liners is that they are less prone to fouling and have a higher efficiency.

Good team effort
To avoid losing the back-up cooler, the project required a very fast turnaround. This was achieved through excellent teamwork between the Kelvion Teams in Germany and The Netherlands, as well as close co-operation with the customer.

The Kelvion Team in The Netherlands ensured that the 50 pieces of liner tubing were delivered to the site quickly. The tubes are made from stainless steel, in compliance with DIN EN 10217-7 W2RB.

First, the Service team removed the 22 brass plugs from both header sides and cleaned out the tubes with rotating brushes. The next step was inserting the stainless steel liners into the damaged tubes and expanding them using hydraulic pressure of around 370 bar.

Measuring the existing tubes in order to calculate roller expansion rates proved difficult due to the extent of the corrosion. However, the team overcame the challenge and, once the roller expansion was applied to both tube sheets and the header installed, a hydro pressure test with 4 bar was carried out successfully under witness of the customer and TüV-South.

The result
The work was completed in just five days and the gas cooler is back in full working order, to the customer’s satisfaction.

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