Atmospheric furnace operation
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I have a colleague who works at a small chemical plant, in the atmospheric and vacuum distillation unit. Once, after the atmospheric furnace went out due to a loss of heat, the furnace operator there did not follow the standard procedures for restarting it; instead, he simply reduced the amount of steam used for atomization and then injected fuel oil directly. Have you encountered anything similar?
There’s no major issue with burning fuel oil, but it’s not possible to do so with gas
Gas definitely won’t work! :handshake
It’s better to follow the procedures; spraying fuel directly into the small device can easily lead to backfiring, and the flame from the viewing window can burn people.
Experienced workers usually proceed in this way with the aim of resuming production as quickly as possible, but the risk level is very high; it’s absolutely not acceptable to use gas fuel in such situations
Doing this can easily lead to tempering, so be very careful! Rules and regulations are summaries of lessons; do not take safety gambling lightly in the hope of getting lucky.
It’s too dangerous; people often get burned as a result of such actions.
We have also carried out such operations: after the heating furnace was shut down and the temperature inside the furnace was still high, we reduced or even stopped the supply of atomizing steam, allowing the fuel oil to ignite directly. However, this approach carries a high level of risk
Under normal circumstances, extinguishing the fire during ignition can be done in this way； If the fire extinguishing time is too long, it will not work; this can lead to a fire at the bottom of the furnace and an over-temperature incident.
It’s best to follow the procedures in such situations. Maybe nothing goes wrong after one or two attempts, but who knows when someone might get injured? Especially for beginners, I don’t think it takes much time; good habits should be developed from the start, for the benefit of both oneself and others.