Engineering Solutions Division  

     Case Study - Crude Oil Fouling

E.S.D
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TROUBLESHOOTING
FLOW MODELS
AIR COOLED H/Ex
S&T H/Ex
CW NETWORKS
FOULING
TRAINING
PROD RECOVERY


ENQUIRY

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Investigation of maldistribution effects on crude oil fouling in shell and tube exchangers

Presented at the second International Conference on Petroleum and Gas Phase Behaviour and Fouling (August, 2000)

  
Maldistribution is known to reduce the effectiveness of heat exchangers. When hot, low velocity regions are created behind baffles or at the periphery of a tube bundle there can be a significant increase in fouling rate that further reduces performance. By using local, scalar, radial and axial models for heat transfer and pressure drop we can build 3-dimensional CFD models of the shell-side to get a good estimation of exchanger performance. By using the well known and simple fouling model of Ebert & Panchal (1992), we explore the effect of velocity and temperature on shell-side crude-oil fouling. This provides a convenient way of assessing improved geometries for fouling duties, or for customising fouling models based on plant operating data.
  

Contours of fouling resistance in crude oil heater

If you wish you can download a copy of this paper here.

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