Experimental Study on Quantitative Measurement of Coking Thickness by Active Infrared Thermography

Abstract

Heating pipes used in oil refinery plants have problems of coke accumulation on their inner wall after long-term using. Inner wall coke disturbs normal thermal diffusion and this leads to serious accident due to creep failure of the heating pipe. Therefore, effective nondestructive testing technique has been required for quantitative measurement of coke thickness. In this study a new quantitative measurement technique of coke thickness is developed based on active infrared thermography method. Moving halogen lamp heat source is employed for active heating. Transient temperature distribution after active heating is measured by infrared thermography and processed by Fourier analysis to obtain the relationship between phase values and coke thickness.