One of our forced draft air cooler developed leak from a tube and regeneration gas started to leak in the atmosphere. This exchanger has a cyclic exposure to high temperature of 300 degree C and it cools down to 50 degree C. There were 02 problems we faced.
Simple solution will be remove the tube and replace with a new one but the tube is in the middle rows and we may have to cut out many tubes to replace the leaking one.
1. Correctly identify the leaking tube as it is in the middle of the tube bundle
2. What method to be used to plug the tube as normal plug insertion has failed due to cyclic temperature exposure as mentioned earlier.
Please inform of techniques to identify finned tube bundle leaking tubes and then to plug or isolate the leaking tube from process side.
Best Regards
EUH