Furnace Dimensions
Furnace Dimensions
Environmental Effects
To cite this article: Afshin Davarpanah, Mojtaba Zarei, Kamran Valizadeh & Behnam
Mirshekari (2018): CFD design and simulation of ethylene dichloride (EDC) thermal cracking
reactor, Energy Sources, Part A: Recovery, Utilization, and Environmental Effects, DOI:
10.1080/15567036.2018.1549133
Article views: 9
Introduction
From the 1960s up to now, the technology of reactor design and petrochemical furnaces has
gone through ups and downs and reached to the considerable achievements in the field of
design knowledge, arrangement of coils, and layout of the material used. Therefore, increase
of reactor's input heat flux, set of appropriate distribution, temperature reduction of the
reactor shell are considered as the energy consumption parameters in the simulation of
EDC reactor and furnaces. This design is based on the desired amount of converting feed
and selecting different products, and it requires an understanding of complex communication
and simultaneously heat transfer, fluid dynamics, mass transfer, and reaction kinetics in
a complicated mixture of hydrocarbon components. However, due to changes in the price
of each product, it is considered to be more profitable in the units and requires a high
understanding of the relationship between physical phenomena that affects the economic and
operational limits of the system. In this research, by focusing on simulation of reactor of
producing vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) through thermal cracking process, 95% of the
produced material need to produce PVC. Cracking process happened in the furnace that
provides the required heat for this process by burning flare gas in furnace (Andersson, Yuan,
and Sundén 2014; Shirmohammadi et al. 2015; Boudewijns et al. 2015; Cavalcanti et al. 2018;
Charitopoulos et al. 2018; Chen et al. 2017; Chong 2017). VCM is an important raw material
in the production of PVC, that was specifically produced by ethylene dichloride (EDC)
CONTACT Afshin Davarpanah afshindpe@gmail.com Department of petroleum engineering, Science and Research
Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
Color versions of one or more of the figures in the article can be found online at www.tandfonline.com/ueso.
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
2 A. DAVARPANAH ET AL.
thermal cracking process. Thermal cracking is the usual commercial method for producing
VCM. This process is commercially done within a specific temperature and pressure, due to
economic issues, including the small size of the reactors, optimization of heat transfer, and
ensuring the highest conversion rate. By careful study of reaction procedure and its stages, it
can be used as a better thought of reaction procedure and also the system can be moved on
an optimum operation. In thermal cracking, EDC is affected by various factors; in addition to
the original products, no predictable materials such as acetylene, ethylene, methyl chloride,
butadiene, benzene, and chlorinated hydrocarbons would be produced. Some of these com-
pounds were toxic and in addition to impacting on the environment and human health
they imposed high cost when deleted from the system. It is shown clearly in Figure 1
(Razmjoo et al. 2017; Edler et al. 2017; Farokhi and Birouk 2018; Greiner et al. 2015;
Rabbani et al. 2018; Higham et al. 2017; Hopf 2016).
According to this research, during the process, about 20–30 different chemical composi-
tions have been identified. Many of these combinations with EDC arrived in the coils, so it is
very important that the impure component were not included in the feed. For example,
butadiene with the concentration more than 100 ppm was considered as an impure compo-
nent, because removing these impurities from the VCM flow was very difficult (Hosseinpour,
Ahmadi, and Fatemi 2015; Kumar et al. 2016; Li et al. 2015; Pietrowicz, Kolasiński, and
Pomorski 2018; Rodemerck et al. 2016). Actual mechanism of thermal cracking for heavy oil
components are included numerous radical and molecular reaction in the reactor. The use of
all reactions and components in the model is impossible, and even solving equations using
modern computers takes a long time. For this reason, many efforts have been made by
researchers to use simplified reactions with logical methods. In modeling a thermal cracking
reactor, knowing feed specifications, temperature, inlet pressure, and reactor size is not only
enough, but what is important is first to understand the facts that occur during the
reactor. The mechanism of chemical reactions that occur in one thermal cracking reactor
thermal should be evaluated. Only in this way that we will be able to determine the
distribution and concentration of each output component at any point of the reactor, because
by having the reaction mechanisms, balance equations are written for each component and by
using mass and momentum balance equations, mathematical model of reactor will be pro-
posed and by this case effects of several parameters on distributing output products and
amount of conversion feed will be anticipated. In the case of pyrolysis reactions, three models
are proposed up to now (Sanz et al. 2016; Scharfe et al. 2016a, 2016b; Schulz et al. 2015;
Tawai and Panjapornpon 2016; Won, Kim, and Kim 2015): experimental model, radical
model, and molecular model.
Methodology
Experimental model
This model has been widely administered by olefins producers. In this case that is the simplest
case, only overall mass and energy balance around unit will be done and model illustrated
regardless of reactions occurred within the reactor. Work procedure in this case was using
thermal cracking of a semi-industrial plant to obtain the required information. subsequently, an
experimental rule or semi-theory to obtain data from semi-industrial plant in industrial units
and plants were provided to check the reliability of simulation performances.
Radical model
Hydrocarbon thermal cracking was a highly endothermic phenomenon caused by applying heat between
carbon–carbon bonds and carbon–hydrogen bond of fractured hydrocarbons and as a result of heavy
hydrocarbons break up into hydrogen, methane, olefins, de-olefins, and other compounds. However, if
excessive heat is applied, efficiency was increased and heavy aromatic compounds and more coke were
formed. The steps of radical mechanism are described as follows: (i) beginning reactions: for starting
thermal cracking reactions, a lot of energy is consumed for breaking the carbon–carbon bond and forming
free radicals. (ii) Hydrogen adsorption reactions: one of the most important reactions in the mechanism of
thermal cracking, splitting hydrogen from molecules by an activated radical and as a result small molecules
and heavy radicals were being created. (iii) Isomerization reactions: in these reactions, heavy radicals break
from carbon–carbon bond and change to smaller radicals and unsaturated molecules. The beginning
reactions of isomerization compete with radical decomposition reactions. This reaction is caused by free
radicals in reactive position changes. (iv) The final stage: the final reactions were opposite of the beginning
reactions and conducted in two general ways. In the first stage, clashing of two radicals together forming
a larger molecule that is called combination reactions, and in the next stage by exchanging of hydrogen
between two radicals, two types of molecules appeared that is called disproportionation sharing reaction. (v)
Molecule reactions: in addition to the abovementioned radical reactions, molecular reactions are required
which are critical for the accuracy of the model.
Molecular model
In fact, the easiest way to explain the mechanism of thermal cracking reactions is by using
molecular models. In this way, we can avoid solving a series of problems due to differential
equations. To determine the kinetic parameters in this model, a set of experimental data with
high quality is needed (Tawai and Panjapornpon 2016; Won, Kim, and Kim 2015; Wong 2014;
Yang et al. 2017).
● Coke formation which is caused by the surficial catalytic reactions with the existing hydro-
carbons in the gas phase.
● The formation of heavy aromatic compounds in the gas phase at high temperatures in
the furnace is caused by a chemical reaction, and subsequently, they are settled in a
4 A. DAVARPANAH ET AL.
physical form at low temperature. The compressed droplets are absorbed in the surface
and are converted to the coke in the dehydrogenase processes. This type of coke would
be in the form of film or spherical in the surface.
● Another type of coke is formed according to the temporal reaction of gas component
phases with the active materials on the surface. The gas components are estylene, de
oliphins, free radicals of methyl, ethyl, and vinyl which are considered as the principal
issues in the thermal cracking processes and subsequently leads to formation and
settlement of cokes at internal pipe surfaces.
Simulation analysis
Implementation process
In this section, simulation of EDC pyrolysis reactor by Fluent software is discussed. The first step in the
simulation of an issue by CFD method is to produce a geometrical definition of the proposed reactor.
Finally, to simulate the flow procedure in Fluent software, the properties of utilized mesh in the reactor were
entered in the simulator. Since then, the model was produced by Gambit software to model the mesh system.
Applied gridding in this model including tetrahedral elements in form of T-grid with non-structured type.
The number of used elements were 165,469. Desired model was drawn in Gambit software which is shown
in Figure 2. Furthermore, reactor geometry and mesh production profile are mentioned in Table 1.
have coke settling in the coils. However, due to the low heat transfer coefficient of coke, temperature
values in the thermocouple weren’t similar versus the time. So as we do not accurately measure the
time, there is the possibility of error. The profile of the simulated temperature is clearly shown in
Figure 3. The temperature profile for each coil is measured in the average form to be more matched
with the industrial data and minimize the errors. Moreover, we considered the location of thermo-
couple in the coil and its effects on the temperature measurements. Thereby, the simulation analysis
and industrial data had 50 degrees’ kelvin alteration. In Figure 4, 2D cross-sectional curve of
simulated temperature profile is schematically depicted for the EDC reactor.
780
770
TEMPERATURE( K )
760
750
740
730
720
710
700
690
0 50 100 150
LENGHT OF REACTOR(METER)
Figure 3. Simulated temperature profile of process fluid in the length of reactor.
8 A. DAVARPANAH ET AL.
1
EDC mass fraction
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
0 30 60 90 120 150
lenght of reactor(M)
Figure 5. EDC mass fraction in the length of reactor.
ENERGY SOURCES, PART A: RECOVERY, UTILIZATION, AND ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS 9
Figure 6. 2D cross sectional curve of EDC mass fraction in the length of reactor.
0.25
VCM mass fraction
0.2
0.15
0.1
0.05
0
0 30 60 90 120 150
lenght of reactor(M)
Figure 7. VCM mass fraction in the length of reactor.
Figure 8. 2D cross sectional curve of VCM mass fraction in the length of reactor.
10 A. DAVARPANAH ET AL.
0.08
coke concentration
0.07
0.06
0.05
0.04
0.03
0.02
0.01
0
0 30 60 90 120 150
lenght of reactor(M)
Figure 9. Coke concentration profile in the length of reactor.
2. The total pressure drop due to nine bends in the processing system is considerable enough.
Pressure profile was shown in Figure 11.Furthermore, 2D cross sectional curve of process fluid
pressure profile is shown in Figure 12.
Figure 10. 2D cross sectional curve of coke concentration profile in the length of reactor.
ENERGY SOURCES, PART A: RECOVERY, UTILIZATION, AND ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS 11
2950
2900
pressure (KPa)
2850
2800
2750
2700
2650
2600
0 30 60 90 120 150
lenght of reactor(M)
Figure 11. Process fluid pressure profile.
3.5
velocity (meter per
3
2.5
second)
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
radius of coil(centimeter)
Figure 13. Process fluid velocity vectors along the radius of the reactor.
Simulate different coil outlet temperature (COT) in the EDC conversion factor
To simulate the coking model in the EDC reactor, different COTs and concentrations of cokes are
considered. The assumed COTs are 760, 770, and 780, and their impact on the temperature is schematically
12 A. DAVARPANAH ET AL.
Figure 14. 2D cross sectional curve of process fluid velocity vectors along the radius of the reactor.
800
COT=790 K
790
COT=780 K
780
COT=774 K
770
COT=770 K
Temperature
760
COT=760 K
750
740
730
720
710
700
690
0 30 60 90 120 150
Reactor Length
Figure 15. Effects of different COTs on the temperature.
depicted in Figure 15. As it is evident in Figure 15, for high values of COTs, the temperature has witnessed
higher values. In Figure 16, the influence of COTs on the EDC conversion factor is shown, and it is
illustrated that in the high values of COTs, the conversion factor has higher values, The results of this study
ENERGY SOURCES, PART A: RECOVERY, UTILIZATION, AND ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS 13
0.7
0.65
0.55
0.5
0.45
0.4
755 760 765 770 775 780 785 790 795
COT
0.016
0.014
Coke concentration
0.012
0.01
0.008
0.006
0.004
0.002
0
755 760 765 770 775 780 785 790
COT
Figure 17. Effects of different COTs on the coke concentration.
would be considered as the efficient technique to propose economic issues of reactor designation. The effect
of COTs on the coke concentration is shown in Figure 17.
Conclusion
In this research, by using FLUENT software for simulating the EDC, thermal cracking process was studied
in two-dimensional mode. According to proposed profiles, it was determined that by improving cracking
reaction and increasing inside temperature of the reactor, conversion factor will be increased and so the coke
settling in the sidewall of the coil will be increased. As described earlier, one of the effective factors in the
optimum operation of the system is to apply appropriate thermal profile on the coil area, because with
misappropriation of this profile or lower conversion factor than the anticipated amount, the amount of
formed coke was more than the allowable limit. Profound impacts of non-ideal assumptions in the fluids
processing were considered and it is concluded that measured conversion factor from the simulated analysis
is closer to the industrial data.
14 A. DAVARPANAH ET AL.
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