Continuous Flaring in LPG Plant

Yes, there are standards but without knowing where you are it's impossible to offer specific advice. You can start here.

Thanks very much. This flare stack is in the island of Bahrain in Middle East.

This material has a nominal composition of 25Cr-20Ni and can withstand high temperatures for a long long time. I, for one, would'nt worry unless it is exposed to pressure or loads which cause creep at high temp. This material was earlier used for centrifugally cast Reformer tubes carrying a mix of hydrocarbons and steam at a press. of 40 Kg/cm2 in a furnace where it is exposed to high external temp. Presently other more suitable materials are under use for this service.

The 310 SS will not take flame temperature - for that matter no metal withstands flame temperature. The metal would have to be shielded from the full flame temperature by some other gas - even air.

Never have designed a flare myself but should not be hard. If there is another plant in your area see if you can learn anything from that installation.

The reformer feed tubes are a totally different set of conditions with temperature limits set by process conditions. 310 would have only been used there due to financial conditions, import restrictions or possibly a cheap purchasing agent.

i agree too.

thanks my friend

While this does not help you, but my question is, why do you even do this anyway?

I know i have zero knowledge in the GAS industry. but i see these gigantic flames all the time and what a tremendous waste of energy! With how scarce this stuff is getting, why would anyone just want to burn it off!

I mean I see these flames locally here and the size of them what they burn off in a few hours I could heat my home for the whole winter easily!

What a disgusting waste! in addition they are usually burning with very low oxygen content and are very orange sooty flames so the amount of pollution being dumped into the atmosphere has to be also terrible.

WHY?

Dear NSS, Your question is excellent, why we used to burn these gases?

In oil fields and oil refining plants, there are a quantity of gases get out due to the process itself. And we tried to gather these quantities of gases using compressors, vessels, and piping networks, but we discovered that it is not economically target in addition to its intermittent supply.

So, the unique solution nowadays is to burn these gases into air and pollute the atmosphere. May be an economically new technology in future shall solve that problem, we hope.

The flare stack comes into play in upset conditions such as an overpressure relief valve popping, and in startup / shutdown operations. So one must allow for eg. the stack handling a stream of mostly steam, from a purging operation in one part of the plant being hit with a blast of process hydrocarbons that MUST be lit. IOW, the flare stack must safely burn anything combustible that operations or malfunctions can send. Bopal was partly a flare stack maintenance failure.