CFD Optimization For The Performance Of A Catalytic Cracking Industrial Riser Flow And Reaction On The Gasoline Production

Used in petroleum refining as a conversion process,fluid catalytic cracking(FCC)riser reactor transforms heavy oil to more light by products for transportation and petrochemicals.Unfortunately,the complex hydrodynamics and reactions inside the riser reactor pose a barrier for a complete control of its performance.Hence,new modeling followed by a simulation is necessary to well optimize such reactor in order to improve its performance on the production of gasoline and other products.However,the catalyst distribution's investigation into the riser reactor is one of the effective challenges.On the other hand,the models developed in the research laboratories become more and more complete and efficient,and the available computational power continues to grow and currently allows envisaging such simulations.Numerical simulation has thus become an indispensable predictor for the development and optimization of existing industrial processes.The objective of this study is to predict the hydrodynamic conduct and reactions of the process using commercial computational fluid dynamic(CFD)software.A two-phase flow model was used with a five-lump performed in a two-dimensional simulation to characterize the FCC cracking that provides gasoline and other byproducts.The selection of boundary conditions was determined according to this study's objective which is to enhance the performance of the riser reactor in the production of gasoline.Since the particles distribution is not uniform along the riser,a two sided-catalyst inlet riser reactor was proposed to improve their distribution which could play an important role to obtain the envisaged results compared to the one-sided catalyst inlet reactor.In the reactor,the hydrocarbons acceleration due to the gas volume expansion was also considered.The conduct of the reactions,the momentum and heat transfers inside the riser were particularly discussed.The representation of two-phase flow was accomplished by employing an Eulerian description.The results were obtained using a CFD code FLUENT 14.5 which demonstrated the degree of efficiency of designed reactors on the gasoline production.