Reducing Risk (and Making Friends) with Proper Application of Electric Heat Tracing

Previous papers presented at the IEEE PCIC have covered certain aspects of Electric Heat Tracing (EHT) design, such as safety factors, process temperature consideration, sheath temperature, energy conservation, and safety. This paper will revisit several of these topics (and a few others) while covering several decades of lessons learned at a Canadian refinery.This paper will give suggestions of what to do, and what not to do, in hopes that it will provide designers and maintainers of EHT with useful information and tools to help apply EHT properly in new or replacement installations. It will also provide a few ways of dealing with existing high-maintenance installations.It should be recognized that several electrical standards now use the term Electrical Trace Heating or Trace Heating, instead of Electric Heat Tracing (EHT). These terms are used interchangeably within this paper.