Air Products and Chemicals, Inc., has requested research into the effects of tube wall thickness and maximum design temperature on the life of hydrogen reformer tubes. The primary source of this research will be the program pcTUBE™. pcTUBE™ is a finite element program specifically written for the prediction of reformer tube life in relation to creep failure.  pcTUBE™ has the ability to take into account operating conditions such as startups, shutdowns and other temperature transients in the reformation process. Five design temperature routines, each with three different tube wall thicknesses and two different startup/shutdown conditions, will be researched in this project.

Analysis has shown that this program does not produce accurate results when used to model temperature transients (as experienced during startups and shutdowns).