Revamp fired heaters with a common air-preheating system to increase capacity

Sultan Ahamad is a Senior Fired Heater Specialist at Bechtel Corp. in Houston, Texas. He has more than 20 yr of experience in the design, engineering and troubleshooting of fired heaters and combustion systems for the refining, petrochemical and LNG industries. He graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology in Roorkee, India with a degree in chemical engineering. He is a member of the API subcommittee on heat transfer equipment and contributes to the development of API standards and recommended practices. He is also a member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). Mr. Ahamad has published and presented several papers on fired heaters and related subjects.

Rimon Vallavanatt is the Senior Principal Engineer at Bechtel Corp. in Houston, Texas. He has more than 40 yr of experience in the design, engineering and troubleshooting of fired heaters, thermal oxidizers, boilers and flares. He graduated from the University of Kerala in India with a degree in mechanical engineering. He also received a degree in industrial engineering from St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas. Mr. Vallavanatt is a registered Professional Engineer in the state of Texas, and has served on the American Petroleum Institute’s subcommittee on heat transfer equipment for the past 30 yr.