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.
Mathematical and Kinetic model
development - Methods
A three-dimensional gas-liquid computational fluid
dynamics (CFD) model has been developed to predict
the phase change and the reactions inside the tubes of
the fired furnace. The numerical calculations were made
with the use of the commercial CFD software ANSYS
CFX 16.0 and for mesh generation ICEM used as
shown in Fig 2.
Fig 2 - Geometry model: a) Mesh generation. b)
Geometry and boundary condition.
The kinetic model is based on the model of
Kseolu and Phillips, in which petroleum is
represented by S.A.R.A pseudocomponents as
shown in Fig 3.
Fig 3 - Kinetic net based on Kseolu and Phillips
model.
The model is Eulerian-Eulerian and
all phases have separate transport
equations. The liquid phase model is
treated as a continuous phase and the gas
phase as dispersed. The turbulence model
employed was the k standard model.
Fontoura et al. (2013) used a CFD
model implemented in OpenFOAM
platform that predicts coke formation
through thermal cracking inside a tube of
petrochemical pre-heaters using a three-
dimensional two-phase gas-liquid flow
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.