A Novel Strategy for Simulating the Main Fractionator of Delayed Cokers by Separating the De-superheating Process

doi:10.1016/S1004-9541(13)60472-4

Abstract

Abstract: Delayed coking is an important process in refinery to convert heavy residue oils from crude distillation units (CDUs) and fluid catalytic cracking units (FCCUs) into dry gas, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), gasoline, diesel, gas oils and cokes. The main fractionator, separating superheating reaction vapors from the coke drums into lighter oil products, involves a de-superheating section and a rectifying section, and couldn't be simulated as a whole column directly because of non-equilibrium in the de-superheating section. It is very important to correctly simulate the main fractionator for operational parameter and energy-use optimization of delayed cokers. This paper discusses the principle of de-superheating processes, and then proposes a new simulation strategy. Some key issues such as composition prediction of the reaction vapors, selection of thermodynamic methods, estimation of tray efficiency, etc. are discussed. The proposed simulation approach is applied to two industrial delayed cokers with typical technological processes in a Chinese refinery by using PRO/II. The simulation results obtained are well consistent with the actual operation data, which indicates that the presented approach is suitable to simulate the main fractionators of delayed cokers or other distillation columns consisting of de-superheating sections and rectifying sections.

Key words: delayed coking, de-superheating process, fractionator, simulation

摘要： Delayed coking is an important process in refinery to convert heavy residue oils from crude distillation units (CDUs) and fluid catalytic cracking units (FCCUs) into dry gas, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), gasoline, diesel, gas oils and cokes. The main fractionator, separating superheating reaction vapors from the coke drums into lighter oil products, involves a de-superheating section and a rectifying section, and couldn't be simulated as a whole column directly because of non-equilibrium in the de-superheating section. It is very important to correctly simulate the main fractionator for operational parameter and energy-use optimization of delayed cokers. This paper discusses the principle of de-superheating processes, and then proposes a new simulation strategy. Some key issues such as composition prediction of the reaction vapors, selection of thermodynamic methods, estimation of tray efficiency, etc. are discussed. The proposed simulation approach is applied to two industrial delayed cokers with typical technological processes in a Chinese refinery by using PRO/II. The simulation results obtained are well consistent with the actual operation data, which indicates that the presented approach is suitable to simulate the main fractionators of delayed cokers or other distillation columns consisting of de-superheating sections and rectifying sections.

关键词: delayed coking, de-superheating process, fractionator, simulation

LEI Yang, ZHANG Bingjian, HOU Xiaoqiong, CHEN Qinglin . A Novel Strategy for Simulating the Main Fractionator of Delayed Cokers by Separating the De-superheating Process[J]. Chin.J.Chem.Eng., 2013, 21(3): 285-294.

雷杨, 张冰剑, 侯小琼, 陈清林. A Novel Strategy for Simulating the Main Fractionator of Delayed Cokers by Separating the De-superheating Process[J]. Chinese Journal of Chemical Engineering, 2013, 21(3): 285-294.

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