T.J.N

I think that you are wise to ask for any "lessons learned" form the community. The only issues that immediately enter my mind with hot crude are these:

What is the Ph of the crude? We have been using sour (high acid) crude lately in our East Coast refineries because the good stuff is getting expensive and/or unavailable. The problem is with the piping coming from the furnaces to the combo/crude unit and to the coker. At certain temperatures this crude will eat 5 or even 9 chrome alloy pipe quickly (some abrasion from in-pipe coking products may also occur). We have been changing out carbon steel pipe with ASTM 312 tp. 317 stainless to solve (or slow down) this problem. The stainless has a 25 percent greater coefficient of expansion and that usually finds you with more pump loading and therefore the need for more creative loops and restraints. You probably should try to limit the number of in-line flange connections and do a flange check ("equivelent pressure" due to moments at the flange pair) on the flanges that you MUST live with.

You might also want to have a look at the B31.3 Appendix on Safeguarding.

Can't think of much more.

Regards, John.