Petrochemical plants usually handle invisible gaseous hydrocarbons that could pose safety issues. Leak detection is of vital importance, especially when these gases are toxic, highly flammable, or have a negative impact on the environment. One petrochemical plant, the Borealis high-pressure, low-density polyethylene (LDPE) plant in Stenungsund, Sweden, produces LDPE products for the cable and wire sector, and delivers ethylene, which is converted into polyethylene in a high-pressure polymerization process. This case study tells about how this company uses FLIR optical gas imaging cameras for gas leak detection at a distance and in hard-to-access locations.
Many types of heating operations require a fast, non-contact method for gathering qualitative and quantitative information to prevent or minimize downtime. A through-flame thermal camera offers thermal and visual imaging capabilities for seeing conditions invisible to the naked eye while in context to a visible world. This application note discusses how through-flame imaging works and how to use these cameras to detect most equipment problems during heating operation — and at an early stage — so that failures can be prevented.
Hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) processes involve injecting sand to keep pores of a well open. When the well is brought back online after fracking, some of that sand burps back up to the surface and into a separator. The unwanted byproducts, paraffin and sand, accumulate in the separator tanks or vessels and must be removed to prevent irreparable damage to the separator’s fire tube. However, removing the sand is a costly process resulting in lost production and man-hours. To address the costly replacement of separators due to sand buildup and improve the efficiency of their separator preventative maintenance plan, Noble Energy created a sand measurement method using intrinsically safe optical gas imaging cameras, specifically, the FLIR GFx320.
Optical Gas Imaging (OGI) technologies enable the oil and gas industry to incorporate a safer and more efficient ‘Smart LDAR’ (Leak Detection and Repair) program where inspectors can detect fugitive emissions and leaks much faster. OGI saves money, not only through efficiency but also by improving the safety of company personnel and assets. This article offers ten tips that will help you get the most out of OGI cameras.
Intrinsically safe equipment can minimize fire risks and potentially remove the need to obtain a hot work permit for hazardous areas. Inspectors can get to work faster and to enter more areas that require checking for fugitive gas emissions. Intrinsically Safe is a protection technique for the design and operation of electrical equipment in hazardous areas. These products are designed to control energy (electrical and thermal) to nonincendive levels so any short circuit or failure will not cause sparks – an important feature in explosive atmospheres. This article discusses the importance of intrinsically safe products and introduces the FLIR GFx320 as an intrinsically safe camera.
This article covers the different methods and scientific techniques behind optical gas imaging including how the detectors operate, cooling methods, and image normalization. Additional topics include spectral adaptation, gas infrared absorption spectra, gas stream visualization, and key concepts for making gas clouds visible.
Inspectahire is a company that helps customers manage the safety, profitability, and environmental impacts of their assets through remote visual inspection technologies and solutions. The FLIR’s GFx320 Optical Gas Imaging (OGI) camera is their preferred technology to use when tasked with the detection of fugitive hydrocarbon emissions.
A power plant must keep up maintenance of the hydrogen-cooled generators for the safety of its workers and the environment, as well as for efficient operation of the plant. Traditional methods for hydrogen leak detection in a cooling system may be able to find the general area where hydrogen is present, but can be unreliable at finding the source of the leak. The introduction of optical gas imaging cameras has greatly improved the efficiency and performance of leak detection. With the addition of a dedicated thermal imaging camera for CO2 leak detection, utilities now have a way to efficiently find hydrogen leaks while using CO2 as a tracer gas.
The oil and gas industry loses an average of eight million metric tons of methane through gas leaks every year. Although this does not equate to some major methane leaks in the past, such as at the Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility in 2015, the industry is still faced with how to best find and repair leaks at potential escape points. As an alternative to the industry standard for leak detection and repair, Optical Gas Imaging (OGI) is being used to make surveys easier and more efficient.
The Al Hosn Shah Gas Processing Plant in Abu Dhabi is a natural gas processing plant that purifies gases by removing certain contaminants in a sweetening process. The gas pipelines and other infrastructures that process sour gases need to be continuously monitored for leaks as the contaminant gases are often dangerous for human exposure. This case study explores the innovative combination of UAV and FLIR optical gas imaging technologies as an efficient way of monitoring vast gas fields from the air.
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