Background
The Fired Heater unit model simulates a general refinery furnace. The model
performs detailed heat balance calculations, pressure drop calculations and
assumes that no cracking takes place.
In refinery processes, fired heaters are used whenever oil needs to be heated. The
outlet temperature and acceptable residence time differ from one fired heater to
another, depending on the task being performed.
Oil is fed into the fired heater and travels through tubing that is exposed to the
heat source. As the tubing heats up, the oil viscosity decreases allowing for ease
of transportation of the oil through the tubing. These key issues are considered
when simulating fired heaters:
Transfer of heat through the tubing: through the metal and any coke
deposits built up on the inside of the tubing.
Fluid dynamics of the flowing oil: pressure drop, flow regimes, effect of
changing tube cross section, effect of bends in the tubes,
Learning Objectives
Understand how to configure the geometry of the
Furnace model in Petro-SIM
Understand Tube Heat Balance Closure options of the
Fired heater model.
%
-
Outside Diameter
Wall Thickness (average)
Overall Tube Length
Heat Absorption
Inlet temperature
Inlet Pressure
Outlet temperature
Outlet Pressure
Flowrate
mm
mm
m
MW
C
bar
C
bar
kg/h
m2
mm
90
5
Tube no. 14
Convection
Radiant section
Section
4 + 8 + 56
112
4
4
94 + 158 + 918
580 + 500 +
406
324 + 273 +
219
9.5 + 9.3 + 8.2
25 + 22 + 22
31
357
0.9
415
0.67
417000
1082
254
140
8
24
5.8
341
4.5
357
3.4
6. Select Import.
8.
Crude Feed
RefineryMetric
RefineryField
417.0 tonne/hr
919325 lb/hr
25.0 C
77 F
0.0 bar_g
0.0 psig
10. Add a component splitter to the simulation. Setup the Crude Feed
as the Inlets, Q-100 as the Energy Streams, Distillate as the
Overhead Outlet, and Atm Res as the Bottoms Outlet.
11. In the component splitter, go to the Splits/TBP window and set the
Initial TBP Cut Point on Feed (ICP) of the Atm Res to 360 C (680 F).
13. Select a Pump from the palette and add it to the simulation. Double
click onto the pump icon to open the design view. Complete the
connections by selecting the Atm Res stream as the Inlet and creating
Furnace Feed for the Outlet and Pump Duty for the Energy stream.
Number of Tubes =
1
2
3
5
19
47
Outside
Diameter
RM
[m]
0.9144
0.3240
0.2730
0.2190
0.1400
0.5080
RF
[ft]
3.0000
1.0630
0.8957
0.7185
0.4593
1.6667
Thickness
RM
[m]
0.0240
0.0095
0.0093
0.0082
0.0080
0.0170
RF
[ft]
0.0787
0.0312
0.0305
0.0269
0.0262
0.0558
Pass
1
4
4
4
4
1
Length
RM
[m]
40.0
25.0
22.0
22.0
24.0
15.0
RF [ft]
131.2336
82.0210
72.1785
72.1785
78.7402
49.2126
Spacing
RM
[m]
0.580
0.580
0.500
0.406
0.254
0.580
RF
[ft]
1.9029
1.9029
1.6404
1.3320
0.8333
1.9029
Header
KValues
1.35
1.35
1.35
1.35
0.75
1.35
The tubes are numbered such that the outlet is tube 1 and the inlet
is n (in this case tube 47).
Heater K-values: All tubes and two hole plug header = 1.35;
Regular return bends = 0.75 (normally see the P&ID)
4. Go to the Tube Data page. Select the Specify tube by tube heat flux:
Fixed Values in the Tube Heat Balance Closure option. Give a value
of 0.0 for the heat flux for both tubes 1 and 47. Enter a value of
4612.0 kcal/h-m2 (1700.0 Btu/hr-ft2). Check the Calculate? box in the
radiant section (Tubes 2 to 18).
Heat Absorption
( m )= Bare tubes
, total surface area
Heat flux w
6.
Let the radiant section calculate its duty because it contributes the
biggest part of the duty in the fired heater
RefineryMetric
232 C
6.5 bar_g
46.0
0.50
RefineryField
450 F
94.25 psig
There are six typical calibration factors used to tune the Fired heater
The Weld Factor, Friction Factor, K2 Value and K3 Value, Coke thermal
conductivity factor, and the metal thermal conductivity factor.
Fired heater Modeling
15
Coke Factors
There is also the functionality within the fired heater model fine-tune the
predictions from the fouling operation using the Coke Factors.