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Module 3: Liquid Fossil Fuel (Petroleum)

Lecture 25: Refinery Equipments

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Keywords: Pipe still heater, heat exchangers, distillation tower, pumps

Refinery equipments
Introduction
In refinery, there are different types of equipments used for different purposes. It is difficult
to include the description of all the equipments. Here, some of the important equipments are
briefly discussed.
Pipe still heater
Crude oils are heated in pipe still heater before entering into the atmospheric distillation
column. This heater is a special type of furnace which heats crude oil upto about 3500C
depending on the type of feed. A large number of tubes connected through bends are housed
within the furnace in multiple rows. The still is built with two distinct heating sections, a
radiant section, which can receive heat directly from the flame and a convection section,
which takes heat from the hot gases travelling to the stack. The hot flue gases arising in the
radiation section flow into the convection section where they circulate at high speed through
a tube bundle before leaving the furnace through the stack. Shield or shock section separates
the two major heating sections. The tubes in this section are close to the radiation section that
protects the convection section tubes from direct radiation. The shield section normally
consists of two to three rows of bare tubes that are directly exposed to the hot gases and
radiation flame. Fig 1. depicts a pipe still heater.
There are two major types of fired heaters, such as vertical cylindrical or box-type heaters
depending on the geometrical configuration of the radiant section. In box-type heaters, the
radiation section usually is of a square or a rectangular cross section. The tubes in the
radiation section may be arranged horizontally or vertically along the heater walls and the
burners are located on the floor or on the lower part of the longest side wall where there are

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no tubes. Box-type furnaces are mainly used where large capacities and large heat duties are
required.

Fig. 1. Pipe still heater

In the cylindrical-type furnace, the radiation section is of the shape of a cylinder having a
vertical axis and the burners are situated on the floor at the base of the cylinder. The vertical
walls of the furnace are the heat transfer area and therefore exhibit circular symmetry with
respect to the tube bundles. In the radiation section, the tubes may be arranged in a circular
pattern around the walls of the furnace or they may have a cross or octagonal design which
will expose them to firing from both sides.
Crude oil is pumped into the furnace through the tubes at the convection section. At this
section the crude is preheated and then goes to the radiation section to be heated upto 3500C.
Heat transfer at a high rate is obtained by passing the crude with a high flow rate.

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The fired heaters have corrosion and material problems due to the elevated temperatures experienced both on the process side and in the fire-box. The Atmospheric Heater receives
flashed crude at about 260C and sends it to the atmospheric column at about 350C. For
sweet crude, the radiant tubes and lower rows of convection tubes are typically 5% chrome
with carbon steel in the up section.
Heat exchangers
Different types of heat exchangers are used in refinery. If the hot stream is a vapour and is
cooled without much condensation, the heat exchanger is called a vapour heat exchanger. If
the vapour is condensed in the exchanger, then it is called a vapour denser exchanger. The
vapour condensed in this way is then subsequently cooled in a exchanger which is called
cooler or after-cooler. The heating equipment used to heat the bottoms of a fractionator is
called a reboiler. Double pipe heat exchangers are common in refinery. Fins, either in spiral
form or as longitudinal plates on the inside pipe in the double pipe
Viscous or low-heat transfer rate fluids can be passed through the finned tube to get higher
heat transfer area. Jet type condenser has application in refinery. Barometric jet type
condenser is used in vacuum distillation to condense steam as well as create some vacuum.
The working principle of this type of condenser is to mix the vapour and the cooling medium
intimately by high pressure jets and heat exchange is done by mixing of the two streams or
conduction heat transfer.
In heat exchangers, the decision of which material (fluid/slurry) is to be passed through tube
is dependent on different factors. Usually dirty streams are passed through tubes as the tubes
in tube bundles can be cleaned, but sometimes, if the stream contains lots of coke or debris,
then that should be passed through shell and shell may be disposed after certain time. High
pressure fluids are passed through tubes as they can withstand high pressure but shell does
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not. Corrosive fluids and water are usually sent through tubes, as corrosion resistant tubes are
cheap and the cleaning of deposition or water scale is easier in tubes than shell. Normally
large volume liquids are passed through shell.
The metallurgy of heat exchanger varies with temperature and the composition of stream. The
material of construction for majority of the exchangers is 100% carbon steel. Admiralty brass
tubes have been used in fresh water cooled exchangers to prevent water-side fouling and
corrosion. Due to the high cost of the brass bundles and improvements in cooling water
treatment, many brass tube bundles are replaced with carbon steel. In hot hydrocarbon
service, 5% chrome materials in heat exchangers are mostly used. As the sulphur content in
the crude increases, the use of high chrome tubes and 12% chrome shell and channel linings
are required.
Fractionating tower
Fractionating towers are the equipments which separate the components from a mixture.
Crude oil atmospheric distillation tower is the most important fractionating unit in refinery.
Distillation tower with bubble-cap trays is the most conventional and familiar design. The
other types of trays used are sieve tray, perforated tray etc. Small bubble caps are best for
large liquid loads and large caps are for large vapour load. Some designers use small cap for
small tower and large cap for towers of 10 to 20 ft in diameter. Cast ion is largely used for
bubble cap as it is more corrosion resistant than steel. In vacuum towers, pressed alloy steel
caps are becoming important. Many caps are of removable types, i.e, the vapour uptake and
cap are properly assembled on the plate, but sometimes this arrangement is not satisfactory as
bolts rusts and cast iron caps may break.
The atmospheric column is commonly lined more extensively than the preflash column
because the feed, which is at about 3500C, is not only hotter but also contains larger amounts
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of HCl and H2S. The top of the column is often lined with Monel 400 (about 67% Ni 23%
Cu) to protect against condensing HCl. Normally, the lower 2/3 or of the column will be
lined with 12% chrome cladding to protect against high temperature sulfur corrosion. In the
area of the feed inlet, or flash zone, 316 stainless steel may be required in those plants
processing crudes high in naphthenic acid content.

Pumps
Different types of pumps are used in the refinery as per requirements. Asphalts or semi-solid
materials are handled with reciprocating steam pumps. For handling large amounts of
medium viscosity oil, centrifugal pumps may be used. Centrifugal pumps are largely used for
pumping non-viscous fluids because of their high capacity low head characteristics. But more
viscous materials are handled by rotary pumps.

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Reference
1. Petroleum refinery engineering, W. L. Nelson, 4th edition, McGraw-Hill Book Company,
1987.
2. Fired Process Heaters, Matlab - Modelling, Programming and Simulations, Hassan Al-Haj
Ibrahim, Emilson Pereira Leite (Ed.), 327-364, Sciyo, 2010 ISBN: 978-953-307-125-1.
3. Fuels and combustion, S. Sarkar, 2nd edition, Orient Longman Ltd., 1990.

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