A Study on Failure Prevention of Radiant Heater Tube

복사전열 가열로 튜브의 파손방지에 대한 연구

Radiant heater tubes with an inside burner are designed to transfer the heat generated from the burner to the outside of the tube by radiation. Hence, tube metal must suffer high temperature of approximately 900-$1000^{\circ}C$. The radiant tube is usually manufactured by centrifugal casting with high Ni-Cr alloys. In this study, failure analysis results of the radiant tube are reported. Failure mechanism of the tube was investigated by visual observation of the foiled tube, metallographic study of the cracked region and chemical analysis of tube metal and oxide scales. It was argued that the main cause of the cracking is repeated oxidation of the tube metal located beneath the thick oxide scale. Oxidation was caused by abnormally high operating temperature which can be verified by aged microstructure and internal void formation.