CFD model for the flow of crude oil inside preheating furnace
tubes with thermal cracking
M. G. VALUS1, D. V. R. FONTOURA1 , R. SERFATY2 and J.R. NUNHEZ1 1 State University of Campinas 2 Cenpes - Petrobras
Introduction a The reaction mechanisms are
considered to follow the equation of Arrhenius to predict the coke deposition Petrochemical furnaces are widely used in the and gas formation. Frequency factors and Petrochemical Industry for the preheating of the crude Activation energies were determined for load before undergoing refining operations. At the same each reaction model proposed and are time the oil is heated, thermal cracking occurs inside the shown in Table 1. The rate of gas pipe. generation is estimated according to The cracking process leads to lighter fractions Equation 1. and coke generation, as shown in Fig 1. This is highly undesired, since it adheres to the walls of the tubes, increasing its size and decreasing the flow area, heat = 0 transfer capacity and increasing the pressure drop. U = 0 During the heating the load can be vaporized, forming a b = 0 = = 6 (1) gas-liquid two-phase flow. = 0 A model for the simulation of the thermal cracking b and gas generation inside these tubes is proposed in this work. The thermal cracking is represented by a Table 1 - Kseolu and Phillips kinetic parameters kinetic net of six pseudocomponents.
a b
Fig 1 - Coke formed during the operation of a
preheating furnace. a) Coke adhered to the walls. b) Tube after cleaning the coke. Fig 2 - Geometry model: a) Mesh generation. b) Geometry and boundary condition. The model is Eulerian-Eulerian and all phases have separate transport Mathematical and Kinetic model The kinetic model is based on the model of equations. The liquid phase model is Kseolu and Phillips, in which petroleum is treated as a continuous phase and the gas development - Methods represented by S.A.R.A pseudocomponents as phase as dispersed. The turbulence model shown in Fig 3. employed was the k standard model. A three-dimensional gas-liquid computational fluid Fontoura et al. (2013) used a CFD dynamics (CFD) model has been developed to predict model implemented in OpenFOAM the phase change and the reactions inside the tubes of platform that predicts coke formation the fired furnace. The numerical calculations were made through thermal cracking inside a tube of with the use of the commercial CFD software ANSYS petrochemical pre-heaters using a three- CFX 16.0 and for mesh generation ICEM used as dimensional two-phase gas-liquid flow shown in Fig 2. Fig 3 - Kinetic net based on Kseolu and Phillips model. model.
Results and discussion
Figure 4 (a, b, c and d) shows profiles for the Athabasca bitumen after a real time simulation of 26 seconds. The results show radial plots for the liquid and gas velocity as well as coke and gas mass fraction 5 m after the entrance of the tube. At the upper part of the tube, gas flows at a higher speed. The kinetics for the coke formation is strongly influenced by the temperature. The higher the temperature, the greater the formation of coke. Figure d shows the volumetric gas fraction along the tube. The generated gas, as expected, was accumulated in the upper part of the pipe due to the difference in density between the phases.
a b c d
Fig 4 - Simulated contour plots of a) Superficial velocity of crude oil b) Superficial velocity of gas c) Coke mass fraction d) Gas volume fraction.
Conclusions Acknowledgement References
It was possible to use a kinetic net for the thermal cracking of ANSYS INC, ANSYS CFX-16.0 User Manual, 2015. crude load in a fired furnace with the use of a three-dimensional two-phase The authors gratefully acknowledge FONTOURA, D,V,R; MATOS, E,M,; NUNHEZ, J,R, A three-dimensional two-phase model with phase CFD model to predict the coke formation during the thermal craking. the financial support of the Brazilian change inside a tube of petrochemical pre-heaters, Fuel, 110, p, 196-203, 2013. Coke formation increases along the tube with the increasing of the Educational sponsoring agency CNPq and KSEOGLU, R,O,; PHILLIPS, C,R, Kinetic models for the non-catalytic hydrocracking of Athabasca average temperature of the oil. PETROBRAS. bitumen, Fuel v, 67(7), p, 906915, 1988.