Method for improving the homogenization of the temperatures in a steam methane reformer by adjusting the power distribution

A method of improving an endothermic process in a furnace:

• the furnace containing
• tubes filled with a catalyst for the chemical conversion of a gaseous feed and positioned vertically in rows inside the furnace, and
• burners fed with primary and secondary fuel streams and oxidizer stream and mounted in rows with rows of inner burners placed between two rows of tubes and rows of outer burners placed between a row of tubes and a side wall parallel to the rows of tubes,
• with heat being transferred from the burners to the tubes and with flow rates associated,
• wherein the method improves the homogenization of the temperatures of the tubes by throttling part of the burners,
• the method comprising the steps of:
• step a) calibrating a simplified physical model of step c3) by measuring one or more real tube temperature for at least a tube impacted by the throttling of a burner in standard and in throttled state,
• step b) acquiring information on a real tube temperature for the tubes present in the furnace with all the burners present in the furnace under standard non-throttled conditions,
• step c) getting a map of burners to throttle including:
• c1) choosing at least one parameter representative of the performances of the furnace with a target of improvement,
• c2) choosing at least one or more power ratio for the burner throttling,
• c3) utilizing the information of step b) and the simplified physical model of the impact of throttling a burner on the tube skin temperature for the tubes in the furnace to individually know the impact of the throttling of a burner on the chosen target of step d), and individually identifying burners to throttle, and
• c4) getting a map of burners of the furnace where the burners to throttle are individually identified, and
• step d) throttling the burners according to the map got in step c4),
• wherein the at least one parameter of step c1) is chosen among the following:
• Maximum Tube Skin Temperature, Tube Skin Temperature Spread, Syngas Collector Temperature Spread with the target of improvement being the reduction of the parameter value.