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Optimal Design of Heat Exchanger Network in Oil Refineries

Article · January 2010

DOI: 10.3303/CET1021160

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CHEMICAL ENGINEERING TRANSACTIONS Volume 21, 2010
Editor J. J. Klemeš, H. L. Lam, P. S. Varbanov
Copyright © 2010, AIDIC Servizi S.r.l., ISBN 978-88-95608-05-1 ISSN 1974-9791
DOI: 10.3303/CET1021160

Optimal Design of Heat Exchanger Network in Oil

Refineries
Eid M. Al-Mutairi
Chemical Engineering Department, King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals
Dhahran 31261, Saudi Arabia
[email protected]

The performance of the heat exchanger network (HEN) in a plant is an important aspect
of energy conservation. Pinch technology and mathematical programming techniques
offer an effective and practical method for designing the HEN for new and retrofit
projects. The fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) is a dominant process in oil refineries and
there has been a sustained effort to improve the efficiency and yield of the unit over the
years. HEN optimal design in FCC process is an essential element in reducing the cost
and improving the process as a whole. The objective of this work is to introduce a
systematic procedure for designing optimal and flexible FCC-HEN that incorporates
variations in feed flowrates and specs, and on same time considers different schedules
imposed on the process. First, a hierarchical approach consisting of a general
optimization formulation that is accounting for the anticipated schedules and heat
integration during the FCC-HEN design phase will be used in this project. Then, a new
targeting approach will be introduced because of the complexity of the formulation for
heat integration with varying flows and temperatures. Finally In order to synthesize a
flexible configuration of the FCC-HEN, a multiperiod formulation will be developed
and applied on FCC process to account for the variations associated with the anticipated
operational schedules.

1. Introduction
Fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) is an important process in oil refineries. It converts
atmospheric gas oil, vacuum gas oils, certain atmospheric residues and heavy stock
recovered from other refinery operations into high-octane gasoline, light fuel oils and
olefin rich light gases. Heat exchanger network (HEN) in FCC process can be optimized
using pinch technology, mathematical programming, combination of both or stochastic
methods. There are two ways for considering HEN design which are based on either
sequential or simultaneous approaches. The sequential approaches are taking in
consideration fixed supply and target temperatures while the simultaneous approaches
are considering other design aspects simultaneously with the optimal design of HEN.
Over the past 30 years, significant research contributions have been made in developing
design techniques for the synthesis of heat exchange networks (HENs) in general. Much
of this work has focused on heat integration as the overarching goals with objectives

Please cite this article as: Al-Mutairi E. M., (2010), Optimal design of heat exchanger network in oil refineries, Chemical Engineering
Transactions, 21, 955-960 DOI: 10.3303/CET1021160
956

such as minimizing heating and cooling utilities and total annualized cost of the
network. On the other hand, much less work has been done in the area of reconciling
heat integration with other process objectives. Mathematical programming techniques
have been effectively used to address several important categories of HENs. In an
attempt to exploit the interactions between the process operating conditions (i.e. stream
temperatures and flowrates) and the heat recovery network, Papoulias and Grossmann
(1983) developed a strategy for simultaneous optimization of the process and heat
integration based on mixed integer linear programming (MILP). This approach allows
the flowrates to vary as part of optimizing the process and the associated network of
heat exchangers. In order to avoid nonlinear terms in the formulation, fixed temperature
intervals are defined. Duran and Grossmann (1986) introduced a mathematical approach
for the optimization of heat exchange networks where the supply and target
temperatures are allowed to vary. Mathematical constraints are introduced to account
for the unknown temperature and to locate candidate and true pinch points, thereby
ensuring that the final flowsheet will feature the minimum utility target. According to
this approach, bounds on the energy requirements of the process are explicitly included
within the synthesis problem; however, the structure and overall cost of the heat
recovery system are not traded off with process costs. Grossmann et al. (1998)
developed another method for the simultaneous optimization of flowsheet and heat
integration. It is based on introducing integer variables that give a general formulation
for heat loads and composite curves. Yee et al. (1990) proposed a structural
optimization model, where process alternatives are optimized simultaneously with the
heat exchanger network that accommodates the heating and cooling requirements of the
process streams. They introduced a superstructure representation which included many
possible flowsheet alternatives. However, the number of variables and constraints that
are needed to produce the required mathematical representations may be large. Thus,
simplifying assumptions may be required.

2. Scope
Since the scope of this work is related to oil refineries, there are attempts designing
HEN for various units in oil refinery. Some of these consider design or retrofitting for
HEN in crude distillation or cracking units. Querzoli et al. (2003) reviewed the actual
heat integration performance of the existing crude distillation unit (CDU) and residual
cracking unit (RCU) of refining processes and identified potential areas for
improvement. They developed retrofit designs and operating strategies to increase heat
integration also determine the economics of the retrofit designs to assess if any of the
options are commercially attractive. Fraser and Gillespie studied the energy integration
on the whole oil refinery where they identified potential energy savings in the plant. It is
mainly feasibility study rather than actual retrofitting of existing HEN of the oil
refinery.
The contribution of Al-Riyami et al (2001), which is interestingly enough study on
FCC-HEN. They used pinch analysis for the retrofit designs of FCC. The retrofit
objective was to improve energy recovery and performance of the existing network. Al-
Riyami used the incremental area efficiency method for targeting and the network pinch
method for retrofit designs. The existing network had a ΔTmin of 24 °C and an area
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efficiency of 81 %. The incremental area efficiency method produced a target ΔTmin of

12 ºC.
Most of the work done on FCC-HEN design is based on fixed supply and target
temperatures so that HEN is designed based on the most expected heating and cooling
utilities requirement. For example, work by Al-Riyami et al. (2001) where FCC-HEN is
retrofitted with fixed supply and target temperatures and flows. However, that misses
the opportunity to design an optimal HEN that allows flexibility considering different
variations in the process parameters as a result of increase in production or more
stringent environmental regulations. In FCC process, heat integration is typically
included in the base-case design according to the nominal input data.

3. FCC industrial unite (heat recovery)

Fluid Catalytic Cracking unit in oil refinery in Saudi Arabia is taken as a base case
design for the study on efficient use of energy in oil refining industry. Figure 1 shows
the HEN in the FCC plant where that covers energy use in the reactor-regenerator
section and the fractionation section as well.

Figure 1: FCC industrial case in Saudi refinery

The heat exchangers in the FCC plant are divided into data are both Shell & Tube Heat
Exchangers and Air Cooled Heat Exchangers. The Shell & Tube HE heats mainly the
feed stream where the air cooled HE are mainly cooling the products. There are utility
HEs as well as in process HEs. The streams and temperature data are extracted and
shown in Table 1.
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4. Analysis and Results

The analysis of HEs streams are shown in Table 1 where the HEs flows as well as the
heat capacities of various streams are calculated by TBP curves using ASPEN
simulation software. The properties of the light cycle oil, heavy cycle oil and other
heavy products are calculated at the associated temperatures by the analysis using
ASPEN.
The objective function of maximizing the gross profit of the FCC process is given by:
Maximize Gross Profit =
 C product
p ,t 
P   POCt   Chot.t HHU ztotal  Ccold ,t HCU ztotal
p ,t 
t p t t z

where C pproduct
,t is the unit selling price of product p during period t, POC t represents the

plant operating cost (e.g., feedstocks, utilities, etc.) during period t, Chot.t is the price
of the heating utility and Ccold ,t is the price of cooling utility during period t. (Al-
Mutairi and El-Halwagi, 2009).
Mathematical programming methods are used to optimize the production scheduling
and maximizing the heat recovery from the FCC process. The problem is mixed integers
programming where the branch and bound methods are used to solve it by the optimizer
software.
Table 2 shows the results when the scheduling effects are considered for the FCC HEN
design.

5. Conclusions
Simultaneous process scheduling and heat integration has been introduced and applied
on FCC process. This approach includes design modifications, heat integration, and
anticipated schedules. This approach determines the optimal production while
considering heat integration of the process. Trade-off between the two competing
objectives has been established in this approach. The results show the merits of
including scheduling of production effects in the design phase of HEN in the oil
refining industry

Acknowledgement
The author thanks King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals (KFUPM) for the
financial support for funding the project JF090015 under Deanship of Scientific
Research (DSR) in the university.
Heat Flow rate in. Temp out. Temp. Flow rate in. Temp out. Temp.
Exchanger # Fluid Name (kg/s) (o C). (o C) Fluid Name (kg/s) (o C). (o C)
E - 04 (A-H) Main Column Overhead 118.1 68 40.5 Cooling Water 214.1 33.3 50
E - 05 (A/B) 5 atm. Steam 4.9 K 137.8 170 Light Cycle Oil 140.7 219.8 190.6
E - 07 Stripped L..C.O 29.1 227.1 176.7 L.P Boliler Feed Water 38.4 138 160
E - 09 M.P Steam 44.9 192 192 H.C.O 50.5 336.6 218.3
E - 10 M.P Steam 13.95 192 192 Stripped H.C.O 17.9 323.2 218.3
M.C Bottoms+Catalyst
E - 12 (A/B) H.P. Steam 98.5 261 261 Fines 308.6 360 315.6
MCB Product+Catalyst
E - 13 Water 26.6 38.3 49 Fines 4.44 260 138
Table 1: Shell & Tube Heat Exchangers

M.C.Bottoms+Catalyst
E - 14 (A/B) Vaccum Gas Oil 112.3 187.8 271.5 Fines 212.2 360 315.6
M.C.Bottoms+Catalyst
E - 15 High Pressure Steam 25.45 261 261 Fines 63.9 360 304.4
M.C Bottoms+Catalyst
E - 16 (A/B) M.P Steam 44.1 192 192 Fines 63.9 304.4 212.8
E - 17 (A/B) Interstage Fluid 18.73 77 40.5C Cooling Water 112.4 33.3 40.5
E - 18 (A-D) High Pressure Fluid 118.8 73 40.5 Cooling Water 184 33.3 50
E - 19 20% wt Amine Soln. 70 60 46.1 Cooling Water 71.8 33.3 46.1
M.P.Bottoms+Catalyst
E - 20 (A/B) M.P Steam 122.8 192 192 Fines 308.6 315.6 260
E - 21 MCB Product 4.44 149 82 Water 26.6 33.3 38.3
E - 22 Cooling Water 4.14 33.3 49 Vaccum Gas Oil 20.4 204 149
E - 25 (A/B) Light Cycle Oil - 79.4 37.8 Cooling Water - 30 41.1
959
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Table 2: FCC-HEN base and optimum cases

Value Base Case Optimum Case
Feed (BPD) 27,000 45,000
Gasoline Pdn (BPD) 29,845 41,766
QHmin (MW) 9.1 7.6

QCmin (MW) 42.7 35.3

Gasoline Profit Annual ($MM) 12.5 18.6
Utilities Annual Cost ($MM) 2.2 1.88
Annual Profit ($MM) 8.4 15.2

References
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Scheduling in Design of Heat Exchange Networks, Applied Thermal Engineering
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