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Tips for Effective Project Management in Engineering: Brian Yuan, Senior Project Manager

Tips for Effective Project Management in Engineering: Article by Brian Yuan, Senior Project Manager Effective project management is crucial for the success of any engineering endeavor. From planning and scheduling to budgeting and resource allocation, engineering projects demand meticulous attention to detail and coordination among multidisciplinary teams. In this blog post, we’ll delve into some

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Solving a tube failure problem due to flow stratification using the Xtend™ tube insert

Blog by Kshitij Deshmukh, XRG Technologies A vacuum heater located at a major oil refinery experienced tube failures at the top of the radiant section, and inspection showed a substantial layer of coke in the top half of the tubes at the point of failure. It was conjectured  by site subject matter experts that there

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Plastic vs. Elastic Bending: When to Use the Extra Capacity

When you design a steel member for bending stresses, do you go straight to an elastic bending calculation without any further thought? Time to level up! Let me show you why you may be over designing your industrial structures, including fired heaters.

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Advice to My Aspiring Engineer

If you had a time machine, what would you tell your younger self about becoming an engineer? I recently faced this query when my college-bound daughter decided to pursue an engineering degree. This exercise inspired a list of the top “dos and don’ts” for young engineers. While schools and employers help develop technical skills, it’s my honor to nurture the non-technical skills that separate good engineers from the great.

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Mission Accomplished

Matthew Martin, XRG Technologies, details how the installation of a dispersed combustion system and explains how the technology can help refiners and petrochemical producers reduce emissions.

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XRG Technologies and BayoTech Partner to Design and Build a Next Generation Reformer Furnace

XRG Technologies, a leader in fired equipment engineering and design, and BayoTech, a leader in hydrogen production, transportation, and storage solutions, announced a new partnership to design and build a proprietary high performance reforming furnace.

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Hey Siri, optimize my fired heater performance!

The petrochemical and refining industries are facing unprecedented challenges to the current role of fired equipment in industrial processes.  Political, social, legislative, and environmental factors are driving both economic and compliance pressures to reduce the reliance on and impact of carbon-intensive production methods. The petroleum refining industry is facing the greatest economic pressures driven in

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XRG’s Xceed™ Case Study – VPR Energy

XRG completed a multi-phase revamp project at Vitol’s VPR Energy refinery in Rotterdam, Netherlands. XRG and VPR worked together to transform the site and equipment into one of Europe’s best environmentally performing sites. PHASE I Background A crude heater in the Netherlands was suffering from the following: Severe tube degradation caused by creep Short run-lengths

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Simultaneous Run Length Improvement and Emissions Reduction in Delayed Coker Heaters

By Matthew Martin, XRG Technologies Introduction For many refineries, the delayed coker unit is a vital component of refinery profitability. The tubes used in delayed coker units foul and must be decoked periodically. The shutdown days used to decoke a heater remove it from service. The burner flames used to deliver heat to the tubes

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10 Ways to Screw Up Your APH Exchanger!

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XRG Technologies and VPR Energy partner to reduce refinery emissions through new Xceed™ system

Tulsa, Oklahoma – XRG Technologies and VPR Energy deploy new technology to halve NOx emissions from a major European refinery and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in a world-first. XRG Technologies installed its proprietary Xceed™ system at VPR Energy’s Rotterdam plant. This resulted in improved heater efficiency, lower energy consumption, and ultimately a drop of NOx

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Increasing Draft from a Natural Draft Stack

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Xceed™ Technology Featured in Chemical Engineering

Achieving Balance in Combustion Read original article here: Chemical Engineering  August 1, 2022 | By Joy Le Pree New hardware combined with monitoring technologies can help optimize combustion now and in the carbon-conscious future Combustion has long been a delicate balancing act. Chemical processors want their combustion systems to be fuel efficient and available for

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An Introduction to Fouling in Fired Heaters – Burner Fouling | Part 3

By Erwin Platvoet, Chief Technology Officer If you didn’t read Part 1 and 2, catch up here! Burner Fouling To keep a fired heater operating optimally it is important to distribute heat as evenly as possible. A maldistribution of heat will result in a poor absorbed heat flux profile and local hot spots. Elevated tube

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10 Easy Hacks for Heater & Combustion Engineers

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XRG Receives ISO Certification

We are excited to share that XRG Technologies is certified to the ISO 9001:2015 standard. We are delighted to serve our customers through the well-defined and documented processes this certification requires. While we’ve always been committed to quality in our products and services, this certification ensures a more productive environment through faster identification and resolution

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What is the brick wall on the heater floor used for?

By: Joe Tleimat, Senior Principal Engineer Fired Heater Features – What’s That For?! There are four main reasons a brick wall (typically 3-5 bricks tall with some space between bricks) is installed on the floor between the burners and tubes: 1. At heater turndown operation, the flue gas recirculation off the tubes can be cool

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A CALL FOR ACTION: unfire your heater for better performance

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What is the cone on top of some heater stacks for? Fired Heater Features – What’s That For?!

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Advice to My Aspiring Engineer

By Adam Henderson, Senior Applications Engineer at XRG Technologies  If you had a time machine, what would you tell your younger self about becoming an engineer? I recently faced this query when my college-bound daughter decided to pursue an engineering degree. This exercise inspired a list of the top “dos and don’ts” for young engineers.

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XRG Celebrates 5th Anniversary!

XRG is celebrating 5 years of service in the oil and gas industry. We are a fired equipment engineering firm specializing in the design and supply of new equipment and the optimization of existing heaters. Our Beginnings The idea that became XRG Technologies was hatched on an airplane during a discussion between the founders about

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An Introduction to Fouling in Fired Heaters – Exterior Fouling

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The Keys to Revamping Fired Heaters

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Xceed: Reducing CO2 and NOx while Increasing Efficiency from Fired Heaters

By Matthew Martin, XRG Technologies Introduction Fired heaters, also called furnaces, use the heat from combustion of hydrocarbons to increase the temperature of a fluid. Direct-fired heaters are common in refining and petrochemicals. In these heaters, flames produced by burners directly irradiate a series of tubes called a coil, which carries the fluid to be

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PODCAST: Smaller, Hotter, more Efficient – XRG Technologies

Listen to our podcast with Joe Batir from Energy Transition Solutions at Oil and Gas Global Network (OGGN™). Bailey Hendrix, Matt Martin, and Erwin Platvoet discuss reducing inefficiencies and emissions in fired equipment. They explain one of the first, and arguably the most important step of the refining process, fired heaters warming the feedstock. They outline the process, why

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Introducing Xceed by XRG Technologies: Reducing Emissions from Fired Heaters and Increasing Capacity

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Solving Flame Issues in Fired Heaters: Now That We Have Solved All the Easy Problems…

I was working on a particularly problematic heater in 2001 that had been retrofitted with some of the most advanced low NOx burners of the time. Our previous installation made 6 PPM of NOx in the fielded application and the flames looked great…

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Innovation: Implementing Cutting-Edge Technology Without Getting Cut

In our daily lives, we have become accustomed to the frequent introduction of new technology. Every year, cell phone companies roll out their newest offerings and people line up to replace…

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Follow this 1 Simple Trick to set your CFD Projects on a Path to SUCCESS

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Lateral Torsional Buckling in Industrial Equipment

Structural Analysis Concepts for Beginner Mechanical Engineers – Part 1 Admittedly, this blog post will be geared toward a small audience. It’s for a recent (or maybe not so recent) graduate with a Mechanical Engineering degree who is designing the structural support of some piece of equipment. If this is you, you were probably given

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Vibration Issues in Boilers & Furnaces

There’s a whole lotta shaking going on…. but why? A conversation with a long-time colleague at an industry trade show got me thinking about one of the most confounding problems that occur in boilers and furnaces: vibration. Our discussion revolved around the fact that systems today seemed much more prone to vibration problems than in

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Modeling Thermal Conductivity of Insulation in Excel with Arrays

HOW USING ARRAYS CAN JUSTIFY A RAISE This is a tutorial for some of the newer Excel formulas that manipulate arrays, with heat transfer calculations as the chosen example instead of banana inventory and employee salaries. A large part of performing heat transfer calculations is simply looking up intrinsic properties of the materials you are

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Bolted Flange Prying in Fired Heaters and Supporting Structures – Part 2

Structural Analysis Concepts for Beginner Mechanical Engineers – Part 2   This series of posts introduces concepts that are missing from undergraduate (Mechanical Engineering) curricula but are essential to the safe design of industrial equipment and supporting structures. The first part in the series concerned the beam failure mode of Lateral Torsional Buckling. The second

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Model Based Definition: What is it and Why?

By Tyler Worden, PE   Model Based Definition (sometimes Drafting or Dimensioning or Design) is an iteration to mechanical design that uses a CAD generated 3D model with dimensions, GD&T information, annotations, and other design/fabrication information. The 3D model with the imbedded information becomes the defining document for the design and is the controlling document

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XRG Completes Turnkey Heater Efficiency Project

XRG Technologies recently completed the revamp of a large vertical cylinder (VC) crude heater, solving several operational problems while increasing efficiency from 78% to 91%. Utilizing CFD modeling, XRG discovered that the existing double circle burner layout was causing flame clouds, hot spots on the tubes, and substantial outlet temperature imbalances between the different radiant

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What is a Fired Heater in a Refinery? For Dummies

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An Introduction to Fouling in Fired Heaters – Part 2 | Exterior Fouling

By Erwin Platvoet, Chief Technology Officer Part 3 up next: Burner fouling! If you didn’t read Part 1, catch up here! Exterior Fouling of Radiant Process Tubes The main fouling mechanism on the fireside is corrosion fouling. According to the National Board of Boiler and Pressure Vessel Inspectors, all fossil fuels, with the possible exception

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An Introduction to Fouling in Fired Heaters – Part 1 | Interior Fouling of Heater Tubes

By Erwin Platvoet, Chief Technology Officer Part 2 & 3 up next: Exterior and Burner fouling! Introduction Fouling is the accumulation and formation of unwanted materials on the surfaces of processing equipment. It is an extremely complex phenomenon and considered the major unresolved problem in heat transfer (Bott, 1995). Fouling in refineries and petrochemical plants

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Reducing Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Fired Heaters

By: Matthew Martin, XRG Technologies Fired heaters emit an estimated 400 to 500 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) every year. At least 73% of average refinery CO2 emissions come from combustion [1]. For refineries and petrochemical plants focused on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, it makes sense to target CO2 from fired heaters. Fired heaters

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CFD: Power to the People!

Since 2016, ”democratization” has been the buzzword in the simulation industry and is projected to become the new reality. Meintjeis (2016) defined democratization as “making engineering simulation accessible and usable to a much wider audience in a way that supports how they get their work done.” Since then, there has been a huge push to

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Excess Air: When is Too Much Really Too Much?

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CFD: When Good Models Go Bad

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XRG Technologies
1855 E 15th Street
Tulsa, OK 74104
info@xrgtechnologies.com
+1 918-201-2656

          

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ERWIN PLATVOET
As CTO of XRG, Erwin is a true innovator, whose career spans more than three decades in heat transfer and combustion industries. Erwin is a graduate of Twente University in the Netherlands with a MS in Chemical Engineering. Erwin has served the industry around the globe in a variety of roles including Research and Development Engineer, Cracking Furnace Specialist, and Director of Engineering, and now CTO. Erwin holds eight patents in fired heat transfer and emissions control technology, has published numerous papers, and co-authored the John Zink Combustion handbook and Industrial Combustion Testing book. Erwin has been an active member of the API 560 and API 535 subcommittees and taken an active role in revising these standards.
BAILEY HENDRIX
Bailey graduated from Oklahoma State University with a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering. Upon graduation, she joined the private sector as an Applications Engineer in Tulsa, OK at a local combustion company where she managed the sales activities for the process burner refining market. She quickly accelerated her career, becoming the Refining Account Manager responsible for all business development and sales of process burners in North and South America. Her strong leadership skills and interpersonal qualities led her to a position as the Western Hemisphere Sales Director for the process burner business, leading a group of sales engineers in the areas of new equipment, retrofits and burner management systems. Her financial and commercial acumen drives the success of XRG Technologies’ business development.
ALLEN BURRIS
Allen’s background includes 10 years of experience in designing and selling process burners. Allen is a graduate of Oklahoma State University with a BS in Mechanical Engineering and is a licensed professional mechanical engineer in the State of Oklahoma. His knowledge and superior customer focus led him to a career change to process design, custom-engineered fired heater sales, and associated sub-systems for the petrochemical, refining and NGL industries. With more than two decades of experience in the combustion and fired heater industry, Allen has what it takes to overcome challenges associated with complex projects and possesses.
TIM WEBSTER
With over 25 years of experience in the combustion industry, Tim brings a wealth of industry experience and technical expertise to XRG. Tim graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from San Jose State University and received a Master of Engineering from the University of Wisconsin. Tim began his career engineering custom combustion systems for a wide range of applications including boilers, heaters, furnaces, kilns, and incinerators. Tim is a licensed professional mechanical engineer in the states of California, Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma, has authored numerous articles and papers, and has co-authored several combustion handbooks.
matt martin
As the Lead Scientist at XRG, Matt has over 30 years of experience in the combustion industry. He specializes in CFD of fired equipment, including UOP platforming heaters, burners in process heaters, thermal oxidizers and flares with over 300 simulations of installed, field-proven equipment. Matt received a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science with a minor in Mathematics from the University of Tulsa. He has written numerous publications, is listed as inventor or co-inventor on 27 patents and was awarded the title of Honeywell Fellow in 2011 for technical excellence and leadership.
gina briggs
Gina is a native Oklahoman and attended the University of Tulsa, graduating with a BSBA in Accounting. She is a Certified Public Accountant and Chartered Global Management Accountant. Gina began her career with the Tulsa office of Deloitte Haskins and Sells, providing audit and tax services. Since leaving Deloitte, she has held CFO positions with privately held companies in the manufacturing, construction and distribution industries. In 2013, she began a consulting practice providing contract CFO services to companies, one of which was XRG and joined XRG as CFO in 2019. Gina has always enjoyed working in the small business arena, helping business owners to profitably grow and manage their businesses.