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Gas Flaring Basic Information

Flaring is the process of burning unwanted flammable gases through combustion at a flare tip. There are three main types of flares: continuous, intermittent, and emergency. Flare design considers factors like multistage flares, flare tip choice, knockout drums, and sonic flares to achieve smokeless operation. Most flares are elevated for safety and environmental reasons, though some pit flares are at ground level with fencing. Flare systems include headers to transport gas to the flare, knockout drums to remove liquids, and seal drums to prevent backflow into headers.

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76 views

Gas Flaring Basic Information

Flaring is the process of burning unwanted flammable gases through combustion at a flare tip. There are three main types of flares: continuous, intermittent, and emergency. Flare design considers factors like multistage flares, flare tip choice, knockout drums, and sonic flares to achieve smokeless operation. Most flares are elevated for safety and environmental reasons, though some pit flares are at ground level with fencing. Flare systems include headers to transport gas to the flare, knockout drums to remove liquids, and seal drums to prevent backflow into headers.

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Friday Ijokgwung
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FLARING BASIC INFORMATION

Flares
Flaring is the process of disposing of unwanted flammable gases and vapors by
combustion into the open atmosphere. The gas is sent along a flare header, mixed
with air, and burned at a flare tip. The unwanted gas must be flammable or inert, and
must not create hazardous or environmentally sensitive products after it has been
burned.
Engineering Standards
Two widely used standards for the design and operation of flare systems are API
521—Guide for Pressure-relieving and Depressuring Systems: Petroleum Petrochemical
and Natural Gas Industries and API 537—Flare Details for General Refinery and Petrochemical
Service.
Types of Flare
There are three types of flare: continuous, intermittent, and emergency. A continuous
flare is one that is operating virtually all the time. A common example of
this type of flare is to be found at oil wells in remote locations. The oil usually
contains dissolved hydrocarbon gases. As the oil is brought to the surface, the
reduction in pressure causes the gases to come out of solution. Since it is frequently
uneconomical to process this associated gas, it is sent to a flare. Also, continuous
flares are often used at chemical plants and refineries that have a low-pressure gas
stream to dispose of.
Intermittent flaring often occurs at facilities during maintenance activities. For
example, if a compressor has to be worked on then the gases to its suction will be
diverted to the flare. Similarly, if it is necessary to enter a vessel for inspection its
contents will be sent to flare before being replaced with air.
Emergency flares handle a situation where all or most of a facility has to be blown
down quickly due to an event such as a runaway reaction, fire, or a large leak of toxic
materials.
Smokeless Operation
It is important to achieve smokeless operation for environmental reasons. In order
to achieve this goal, the flare design should consider use of the following:
• Multistage flares which can handle large swings in flow
• The correct choice of flare tip
• Pressure-assisted flares use the energy from the vent stream’s pressure to
promote mixing within the burner tip
• Knock-out drum—located at or close to the base of the flare—to remove any
liquids present in the vent stream or that may condense out in the collection
header and transfer lines. Liquid in the vent stream can extinguish the flame or
cause irregular combustion and smoking; flaring liquids can generate a spray
of burning chemicals that could reach ground level and cause a fire
• Sonic flares. These cause the flaring gases to go through the multiple tips at
the speed of sound. The effect of this is to cause high turbulence in the gas
stream, which causes excess quantities of air to enter the burners.
Location of Flares
Most flares are elevated, usually to an extent that it is one of the most prominent
features of a refinery or chemical plant. However, many flares—“pit flares”—are
located at grade with fencing around them to prevent people from approaching
them too closely. The following considerations apply to their location.
• Spacing of elevated flares from process equipment or facility boundary depends
on the flare stack height, flare load, and the allowable radiant heat
intensity for personnel, public, and equipment.
• Flare stack locations should be provided with a sterile area.
• The flare should be located to minimize the potential for ignition of vapor
released from the process units.
• Where burn pits or flares at grade are provided, a minimum spacing of 150
meters should be provided to equipment containing hydrocarbons or to the
plant boundary.
Offshore, the flare boom or tower and/or high pressure, cold vent stacks should be
located downwind of the Safe Area. Also, flare and vent systems should be designed
and located to the extent practical to prevent liquid carryover onto the platform or
on normal boat or barge traffic areas.

Flare design
Fig. 1 is a sketch of a typical flare system.

Figure 1. Flare system.


• The flare headers bring flammable gases from the process units to the flare.
These can be continuous or intermittent/emergency flows. There may be
multiple headers that combine just upstream of the knockout drum.
• The gas flowing to the flare often contains entrained liquids, particularly
during an emergency blowdown. If liquids are allowed to flow up the flare
they will catch fire and come down as “burning rain,” creating a very hazardous
situation around the base of the flare. Liquids could also extinguish the flame
or cause irregular combustion and smoking. Therefore there is generally a
knockout drum or pot at the base of the flare. The liquids are collected and
pumped back into the process.
•
It is important that liquids do not accumulate in the flare header itself. Otherwise
liquid slugs could be formed that, when traveling down the header,
could lead to the header being displaced from the pipe rack. (For the same
reason the number of bends in the flare header should be minimized.) One
way of preventing the buildup of liquids is to have the flare header slope gently
downhill toward the knockout pot.
•
The knockout drum can be either horizontal or vertical. •
At the base of the drum is a boot that separates water from the oil and other
hydrocarbons. The oil and water streams are pumped to suitable locations. It is
important to ensure that the pumps are provided with a backup power supply
because they must work during a major emergency.
•
The gas that leaves the drum can go in one of two directions. The first choice
is for it to go to a recovery unit so that it can be used as fuel. Although this is a
desirable practice in principle, it can be difficult to achieve because both the
flow rate and composition of the gas are likely to be very variable. If the gas is
not recovered it flows to the seal drum.
•
The function of the seal drum is to prevent back flow of gas from the flare
stack to the flare headers. It is essential that oxygen not be allowed to enter
the header because it could create an explosive mixture somewhere within the
process equipment. The drum achieves this goal in two ways. First the flare
gases enter the drum through a liquid seal. Second a small, continuous purge
gas flow is added to the drum. This ensures that there will always be a forward
flow of gas to the flare.
•
The gas leaving the seal drum enters the flare stack where it flows upward to
the burner tip at the top. There may be a liquid seal at the base of the stack to
catch any liquids that leave the seal drum.
•
Depending on the quality of the gas that is being burned in the flare it may be
necessary to inject air at the base of the stack.
•
Near the top of the flare is a flashback prevention device􀀀often a molecular
seal. It is critical that this device not be plugged with solids otherwise the flare
system could be put disabled.
•
Also at the top of the flare is a pilot flame that burns continuously. It will have
its own dedicated supply of fuel gas and air, along with a spark ignition device.
•
Because it is important to keep the gas stream turbulent so as to minimize
smoke formation steam or air can be added to im

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