WATT Winding Annulus TechnipFMC Tube^®

The latest addition to Technip Energies’ extensive portfolio of proprietary radiant coil technologies is the WATT Winding Annulus T.EN Tube, or WATT tube. The WATT is a novel high flux radiant coil inlet tube that can significantly increase cracking furnace capacity.

This proprietary design employs a helically shaped body positioned inside a radiant tube to boost its performance. This new radiant coil geometry features both a very high surface-to-volume ratio as well as a very high internal heat transfer coefficient and is suited for either new installations or for radiant coil revamps in existing cracking furnaces.

The WATT tube is the radiant tube of choice for furnace capacity expansions. Depending on the available spacing between the inlet tubes, the surface area can be increased from 40 - 100 percent, by simply replacing the existing inlet tubes. 40 percent additional surface area represents a 15 percent increase in radiant coil capacity. This, without the need for making modifications to the roof of the firebox.

The first WATT tube prototype has been successfully in operation since February 2020 in an industrial cracking furnace. This first full scale performance test has been set up to demonstrate the WATT tube’s ability to extend radiant tube capacity by as much as 100 percent. For this purpose, two conventional GK5 type radiant coil inlet tubes were replaced by a single WATT tube.

Collected field data on the radiant coil tube skin temperature and the radiant coil pressure drop has demonstrated that the radiant tube capacity could be doubled, while maintaining the same pressure drop and tube skin temperature level as the adjacent conventional inlet tubes throughout the run. It also demonstrated that the mechanical design is suitable for prolonged operation under industrial conditions, including several decoking cycles.

The WATT tube can be manufactured with full compliance on quality control to meet authority requirements.