debutanizer fouling prediction?

[mrjomar]

hi sir

im jomar an ojt in refinary company and I work as process engineerthey gave me an assignment to predict the fouling in the debutanizer. I dont have any idea on how to predict the fouling in debutanizer I only know is the indication of fouling.

somebody know how to predict the fouling?

i need your idea to solve my problem.

tnx a lot.

 

[MohdKhalil]

Hi Jomar,

I think you need to use Analytics / Statistics to be able to achieve the prediction.

Regards,
Mohd

 

[mrjomar]

hi mohd

thank you sir

 

[don1980]

mjomar,

I'm guessing that you meant to say "track" the fouling rate rather than "predict" it, and I'm guessing you meant to refer to the debutanizer reboiler rather than the column.

Tracking the fouling is easy to do, and after accumulating several plots, from clean to fouled, then you can use this to predict the remaining service life before having to clean the reboiler.

For a given column feed rate and reboiler recirculation rate, the chest pressure of the reboiler is a direct indication of fouling. The chest pressure increases when a higher delta-T is demanded by the system. If you have a pressure transmitter on the reboiler steam-side, then you can easily do a continuous calculation of the fouling factor, and plot this for monitoring. Refer to a heat transfer book for the fundamental heat transfer equations.

You'll likely find that ther rate of fouling is not linear. That's been my experience. As the steam chest pressure increases (higher delta-T) then the fouling rate increases. That makes sense.