ABSTRACT
The material selection community can find the most demanding challenges for coating systems in the corrosive environments created by processes and equipment used in upstream oil and gas extraction. Elevated temperatures, high pressures, and harsh chemicals consistently wreak havoc on coating systems used in these environments. Specifically, few services rival the aggressive exposures created by fire tube heaters in process vessels. When seeking to solve the problem of coatings failures in these conditions, understanding the unique performance characteristics of novel technologies is a critical factor in the success of a coating system. Atypical performance criteria that show a solid correlation to field performance include dry and wet glass transition temperature (dry/wet Tg), critical pigment volume concentration (CPVC), heat distortion temperature (HDT), and free volume. When backtested in a laboratory using aggressive autoclave testing, these metrics, while infrequently considered, can indicate a robust performing coating system in the developmental phase of new coating technology. The investigation of a new Multi-Functional Epoxy Terminated Resin (METR) analyzing these uncommonly tested properties led to developing a new coating prototype tailored to withstand the harsh conditions of heater treater fire tubes. The results of two successful field trials of the prototype using the novel resin platform on fire tubes further validate the correlation of a robust performing coating system and the atypical performance criteria considered in the study.
