Method and apparatus for determining relative locations of tubes in a heat exchanger bundle

A method comprising:

• installing a tube cleaning device on a tube bundle, wherein the tube cleaning device has at least one lance that advances into at least one of the tubes in the tube bundle to clean an inner surface thereof with at least some fluid;
• generating a computer table having a plurality of cells, wherein locations of tubes in the tube bundle correspond to cells in the table, wherein a first tube is represented by a first cell in the table, and a second tube is represented by a second cell, additional tubes represented by additional cells in the table, and the table has a layout that corresponds to the configuration of the tubes in the tube bundle;
• determining the actual distances that were previously unknown in the computer table by calculating a dimensional distance offset between the first tube and the second tube;
• and
• moving the lance on the tube cleaning device to the additional tubes based on the dimensional distance and relative locations of tubes in the table.

A method for learning a configuration of tubes in a tube bundle while cleaning the tubes, the method comprising:

• manually controlling, via a controller, a first cleaning movement of a lance relative to a first tube in the tube bundle by inserting the lance into the first tube and ejecting fluid to clean the first tube;
• retracting the lance from the first tube;
• manually controlling movement of the lance, via the controller, from the first tube to a second tube in the tube bundle;
• sensing a first distance traveled by the lance from the first tube to the second tube and recording the first distance;
• manually controlling, via the controller, a second cleaning movement of the lance relative to the second tube by inserting the lance into the second tube and ejecting fluid to clean the second tube;
• retracting the lance from the second tube;
• repeating manual control of the lance, via the controller, to subsequent tubes in the tube bundle until a sufficient amount of distances traveled between adjacent tubes are recorded to learn and establish an average distance traveled between tubes;
• and
• ceasing manual control of the lance and automatically moving the lance to further subsequent tubes based on the average distance between tubes.