This article discusses an FCC regenerator revamp at the Suncor Edmonton refinery, aimed to incorporate advanced design features to mitigate operational challenges and improve the mechanical reliability of the internals.
This article highlights the development of TechnipFMC’s spent catalyst distributor design from simple ‘hockey stick’ to ‘compound angle wye bathtub’ distributor.
Surprises are not always a good thing, especially during plant turnarounds. Peter Blaser, Peter Loezos, and Bryan Tomsula, CPFD Software, USA, highlight how simulations can be a critical turnaround risk reduction tool in the September 2019 issue of Hydrocarbon Engineering.
Peter Blaser and Rajat Barua, CPFD Software, discuss the role of simulation in the digital transformation of modern refineries in an article featured in the April 2019 issue of Hydrocarbon Engineering.
This paper is focused on how simulation is used as a tool for knowledge management of lessons learned from current and historical FCCU operations as a means to accelerate the learning process and rapidly deepen the knowledge base of FCC engineers and technologists.
Numerical simulations were performed of a PSRI cold-flow FCC stripper experiment with subway grating baffles. Barracuda Virtual Reactor®, which implements the multi-phase particle-in-cell (MP-PIC) numerical method, was used to perform the simulations. Simulation results were compared with experimental measurements of apparent bed density over a wide range of solids flux conditions, at superficial gas velocities typical of industrial FCC stripper operation. The simulation results were in good agreement with the experimental bed density measurements, and matched the experimentally observed trends of bed density variation as a function of gas superficial velocity and catalyst mass flux through the stripper vessel.