See

discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267263440

Predicting severity, viscosity and yields in fuel

oil visbreaking

Article in Petroleum Technology Quarterly January 2014

CITATIONS READS

0 227

1 author:

Sepehr Sadighi
Research Institute of Petroleum Industry (RIPI)
139 PUBLICATIONS 220 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Using Soft Sensing Approach to Control the Yield of a Vacuum Gas Oil Hydrocracker View project

Upgrading Heavy Crude Oil & Residue View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Sepehr Sadighi on 23 October 2014.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 Predicting severity, viscosity and yields
in fuel oil visbreaking
Neuro-fuzzy technique is used to predict product properties in a
commercial visbreaker
SEPEHR SADIGHI and REZA SEIF MOHADDECY
Research Institute of Petroleum Industry
C
rude oils contain a large frac-
tion of heavy products for
which only few useful outlets
exist. Indeed, world demand for
light and middle distillate continu-
ally increases, while at the same
time the available crude oil becomes
heavier.1 Visbreaking is a non-cata-
lytic thermal process that converts
atmospheric or vacuum residues via
thermal cracking to gas, naphtha,
distillates, and visbroken residue. A
visbreaker thermally cracks large
hydrocarbon molecules in oil by
heating them in a furnace to reduce
their viscosity and to produce small
quantities of light hydrocarbons
(LPG and gasoline). The process
name of visbreaker refers to the
fact that the process reduces the
viscosity of the residual oil.2,3
Two types of visbreaking technol-
ogy are commercially available: the
coil or furnace type and the lumping technique, and then
soaker process. In the coil process,
conversion is achieved by high
temperature cracking for a prede-
termined, relatively short, period of
time in the heater. In the soaker
process, a low temperature/high
residence time process, the majority
of conversion occurs in a reaction
vessel or soaker drum, where the
two-phase heated effluent is held at
a lower temperature for a longer
period of time. Therefore its heater
duty and, in turn, its fuel consump-
tion is only 70% of that for the
coil-visbreaking process.4
Worldwide, about 200 visbreak-
ing units are in operation; Europe
alone accounts for about 55% of
total visbreaking capacity.4 To have
an effective design and perfect
control of any process, a model is
needed to predict product yields
www.digitalrefining.com/article/1000965
and qualities versus variables such
as space velocity and temperature.
However, the complexity of
visbreaking feed and product
makes it extremely difficult to char-
acterise and describe its kinetics at
a molecular level. Modern day
rigorous simulators such as Aspen
Plus or Hysys from Aspen
Technology do not have such
restrictive limits on the total
number of components; therefore, it
is possible to use a unique set of
pseudo components for every
petroleum assay stream.5 This
approach increases the calculation
time, and characterisation of the
streams and subsequent reports
become unnecessarily complicated.5
One approach to simplify the
problem is to consider the partition
of the species into a few equivalent
classes, the so-called lumps or
parameters to obtain a simpler
assume each class as an independ-
ent entity. Developing simple
kinetic models (for instance, power-
law model) for complex catalytic
reactions is a common approach,
Feed characterisation
Property Value
Sp.Gr. 1.006
Sulphur content, wt% 3.19
Va + Ni content, wt ppm 188
Distillation (ASTM D1160)
Vol% Temperature , C
Initial boiling point 303
5 409
10 457
20 503
30 543
50 585
Table 1
and it can give basic information for
reactor design and optimisation. In
this field, many investigations were
reported in which the visbreaking
process was modelled with discrete
two-lump,6-8 three-lump,9 four-
lump, 10,11
five-lump12,13 and
seven-lump14 approaches. In all of
these investigation, the experiments
were carried out in a micro or pilot
scale reactor. However, over the last
two decades, soft computing meth-
ods such as artificial neural
networks and fuzzy logic were
migrated into the realm of refinery
processes for modelling, control,
optimisation and kinetic estimation.
The main advantage of this
approach, named black box model-
ling, is its independence of any
assumption or equation about
kinetic study. Moreover, it is not
needed to ignore the effect of some
mathematical expression.
The aim of this research is to use
the neuro-fuzzy methodology for
predicting the severity, product
yields and viscosity of fuel oil for
an industrial scale visbreaking unit
equipped with a soaker drum. The
performance of the neuro-fuzzy
model with different membership
functions is compared with indus-
trial data obtained from an Iranian
refinery.
Feed characterisation
An industrial soaker-visbreaker
unit was chosen as a case study.
This unit was designed to visbreak
20 000 b/d of a mixture of vacuum
residuum and slop vacuum gas oil,
both taken from a vacuum tower.
The composition of the fresh feed
can vary slightly with time from
PTQ Q2 2014 1
 start of run (SOR) to end of run
(EOR). The specification of the
combined feed, which was obtained
during this research, is shown in
Table 1.
Process description
The visbreaking feed is charged to
the coil furnace at a temperature of
about 340C. The visbreaking
furnace is constructed in two
sections, fired independently. After
the coil furnace, the two hot
streams are drained into a transfer
line and the mixed product enters
the soaker drum. The specifications
of cells and the soaker drum are
presented in Table 2. The output
product from the soaker drum is
quenched by the cold recycle
stream to stop cracking reactions
and inhibit coke formation. Finally,
the combined stream is transferred
to the fractionation tower and side
strippers to separate the visbreak-
ing products. A simplified process
flow diagram of the described unit
is shown in Figure 1.
During one year of data gather-
ing, 46 sets of data, including
product flow rates, feed inlet
temperature and soaker outlet
temperature, were gathered from
the target visbreaking process.
As Figure 2 shows, light gases
Fractionator
Steam
Feed
Furnace Soaker
Figure 1 Block flow diagram of visbreaking process
2 PTQ Q2 2014
Specifications of the cell and soaker
of the visbreaking unit
Coil specification
Number of tubes 128
Number of convection tubes 76
Number of radiation tubes 52
Tube length, m 18.745
Outside diameter, m 0.114
Soaker specification
Outside diameter, m 2.405
Length, m 16.5
Table 2
including C1, C2 and LPG, gasoline
and tar are the output streams from
the visbreaking plant. Performing
mass balance around the unit
proved that the error for all experi-
ments was less than 5%, mainly
related to the gross error for the
measuring of the gaseous products
and maybe related to the coke
formation. The boiling range of
VGO feed, fuel and gas oil samples
were analysed according to the
ASTM D1160 standard procedure
whilst the one for the gasoline
sample was analysed according to
the ASTM D86 method.
Additionally, the viscosity of the
visbreaking product (fuel oil) was
measured according to the ASTM
D2170 method.
Light gas
LPG
Stabiliser
Gasoline
Light gas
Stripper
Tar
Neuro-fuzzy modelling approach
The connection of fuzzy systems
with an artificial neural network
(ANN) is called a neuro-fuzzy (NF)
system. Similar to neural networks
where knowledge is saved in
connection weights, it is interpreted
as fuzzy if-then rules in NF
systems. The most frequently used
neural network in NF systems is
radial basis function neural
network (RBFNN) in which each
node has radial basis function such
as Gaussian and ellipsoidal.
The popularity of NF systems is
due to the simplicity of structure,
well-established theoretical basis
and faster learning than in other
types of neural networks. There are
many developed fuzzy neural
networks (FNN) as NF algorithms
in the literature, but the adaptive
network based fuzzy inference
system (ANFIS) is one of the best
known. In ANFIS, Takagi-Sugeno
type fuzzy inference system is
used. The output of each rule can
be a linear combination of input
variables plus a constant term or
can be only a constant term. The
final output is the weighted aver-
age of each rules output. In the
forward pass, the ANFIS uses the
least squares method to identify the
parameters in the network layers.
In the backward pass, the errors are
propagated backward and related
parameters are updated using the
gradient descent method. The
ANFIS can be also trained by a
hybrid algorithm to identify the
membership function parameters.15
To create a neuro-fuzzy inference
system for the understudy
visbreaking plant, Matlab Fuzzy
Logic Toolbox version 2010a from
MathWorks and ANFIS syntax
were used. This syntax is the major
training routine for Sugeno-type
fuzzy inference systems. ANFIS
uses a hybrid learning algorithm to
identify the parameters of Sugeno-
type fuzzy inference systems. It
applies a combination of the least-
squares method and the
back-propagation gradient descent
method for training fuzzy inference
system membership function
parameters to emulate a given
training data set. The type of
membership functions associated
www.digitalrefining.com/article/1000965
 with a visbreaking unit was
selected from all supported types in
Matlab. To train the fuzzy model in
an optimised time, two fuzzy rules
were selected from the ANFIS tool-
box, and the training process was
stopped whenever the designated
epoch number (100) was reached.
To compare the simulated and
measured values, mean average
absolute deviations (AAD%) and
mean squared error (MSE) were
calculated as follows:
meas
Nt 5 (Y jn Y jn
meas 2
n =1 j =1 Y jn
AD% = 100
Nt
Nt 5 epoch number of 100 and two
""(Y meas
jn !Y jnpred )2
MSE = n=1 j=1
Nt
where Nt, Yjnmeas and Yjnpred are the
number of test runs, the measured
variable obtained from the
visbreaking plant, and the
predicted value using the ANFIS
model, respectively. Moreover, j
designates severity of process (1),
yield of products fuel oil (2),
gasoline (3), and gas (4) and the
viscosity of the fuel oil (5).
Results and discussion
During the field study, 46 sets of
data composed of product flow
rates, composition of gaseous prod-
ucts, flow rates of feed and steam,
distillation curve of cuts, and soaker
temperature were gathered from
the target visbreaking plant. The
Petro-SIM process simulator from
KBC, Version 3.2, was employed to
lump the feed and products into
components with the specific boil-
ing point ranges and properties: gas
(C1-C4), gasoline (180C), gas oil
(180-320C) and fuel oil (320+C).
Due to the low flow rate of gas oil
(<350 kg/h), its yield was not
important for the target refinery
from both economical and opera-
tional standpoints. Moreover, this
product was recycled to the inlet
stream of the reactor and mixed
with the vacuum residue feed.
Therefore its yield was neglected.
www.digitalrefining.com/article/1000965
MSE of different membership functions for data simulated by ANFIS for training data
Cumulative Expenditure,
expressed
Sigmoid as Bell Gaussian Trapezoidal Triangular
a shape
% of total Installed
shape Cost (TIC)
shape shape shape shape
Severity Factored
6.80E-6 off 1.65E-7 2.92E-08 3.71E-7 2.84E-08 9.83E-7
Gas yield, wt% Equipment
6.85E-9 1.35E-10 1.28E-10 4.39E-10 1.51E-11 8.49E-10
Gasoline yield, wt% Factored
7.84E-09 off 3.58E-10 7.47E-11 1.23E-09 3.82E-11 1.75E-9
Fuel oil, wt% Equipment
1.10E-5 7.07E-8 3.46E-08 1.80E-7 1.11E-8 6.07E-7
Viscosity, CSt 5.42E-6 1.12E-07 1.22E-8 1.21E-7 1.91E-8 3.14E-7
Table 3
From a set of 46 data points After training the NF inference
obtained from the visbreaking system using ANFIS, the output
pred 2 plant, 36 points (~78%) were variables for the remaining data,
) selected for training the NF model, unseen data, were predicted by the
and the remaining ones (~22%) for Evalfis syntax of Matlab. The parity
% (1) validating the developed network. plots to compare the measured and
The MSE of trials with different predicted outputs are shown in
membership functions, using the Figures 2-6. As was described before,
for simulating the viscosity of fuel
fuzzy languages, is shown in Table
3. It was found that for the sever-
oil, Gaussian membership function
was used, and triangular function
(2) ity, yields of process and viscosity was applied to simulate the severity
of fuel oil, simulating the results of of process and product yields. As
the triangular function were in can be understood from these
better agreement with measured figures, there is an acceptable agree-
data. Moreover, it was found that ment between the experimental and
Gaussian membership was approxi- predicted values for all visbreaking
mately as accurate as the triangular output variables.
one. But, for simulating the viscos- Additionally, the AAD% and
ity of fuel oil, the Gaussian-shape MSE of predicted variables is
curve was the best choice. presented in Table 4. As can be
Additionally, it was confirmed that observed, the predicted values for
increasing the number of epoch the validating data are in good
numbers and fuzzy languages did agreement with the actual values. It
not considerably decrease the MSE is supposed that the observed devi-
of simulating. But the time of train- ation is caused by some fluctuations
ing was considerably increased. in the property of the feed (such as
Therefore, the epoch number of 100 sulphur, nitrogen and aromatic
and two fuzzy languages were content), reactor pressure and also
confirmed to build and train the NF coke deposition on the reactor
model. tubes. Furthermore, we cannot
120
Validating
115 Training
Predicted severity
110
105
100
95
90
90 95 100 105 110 115 120
Measured severity
Figure 2 Comparison of the measured and predicted data points for severity
PTQ Q2 2014 3
 MSE and AAD% of data simulated by
5.0
Validating ANFIS for validating data
4.9
Training
Predicted gas yield 4.8 MSE AAD%
4.7 Severity 1.15 0.77
Gas yield, wt% 0.002 0.785
4.6 Gasoline yield, wt% 0.003 0.917
4.5 Fuel oil, wt% 0.020 0.103
Viscosity, CSt 0.155 0.373
4.4
4.3
Table 4
4.2
4.1 visbreaker: severity of process,
4.0 yield of products, including gas
4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 4.9 5.0
(C1-C4), gasoline (IBP 180C) and
Measured gas yield fuel oil (320+C), and viscosity of
product. This model considered the
Figure 3 Comparison of the measured and predicted data points for gas yield influence of feed and steam flow
rates, reactor tube outlet tempera-
ture, initial boiling point and
6.0 viscosity of the feed. At first, 36
Validating data points were used to build and
5.8
Training train a NF model using Matlab
5.6
Fuzzy Logic Toolbox and ANFIS
Predicted gasoline

5.4
syntax. The training results show
5.2 that the best membership function
5.0 for simulating the severity and
4.8 product yields of the process was a
4.6
triangular shape, whilst the
Gaussian membership function was
4.4
the best choice for predicting the
4.2 fuel oil viscosity. Using these func-
4.0 tions, the NF model could simulate
4.0 4.2 4.4 4.6 4.8 5.0 5.2 5.4 5.6 5.8 6.0
the mentioned output variables
Measured gasoline with an MSE of 2.84E-08, 1.51E-11,
3.82E-11, 1.11E-8 and 1.12E-07,
Figure 4 Comparison of the measured and predicted data points for gasoline yield respectively.
Next, the remaining test runs (10
data points) were applied to vali-
93.0 date the NF model. Results showed
Validating
that predicted severity, product
92.5 Training
yields and viscosity of fuel oil were
in good agreement with actual data
Prdicted fuel oil

92.0
with an average absolute deviation
(AAD%) of 0.77%, 0.785%, 0.917%,
91.5
0.103% and 0.373%. Additionally,
91.0
the mean squared error (MSE) of
prediction for these variables was
90.5 1.15, 0.002, 0.003, 0.02 and 0.155,
respectively.
90.0
90.0 90.5 91.0 91.5 92.0 92.5 93.0
Measured fuel oil References
1 Sadighi S, Arshad A, Rashidzadeh M, 4-Lump
kinetic model for vacuum gas oil hydrocracker
Figure 5 Comparison of the measured and predicted data points for fuel oil yield
involving hydrogen consumption, Korean. J.
Chem. Eng. 27(4), 2010, 1099-1108.
neglect the possibility of error Conclusions 2 Gary J, Handwerk G, Petroleum Refining
measurements in gathering data In this research, a NF modelling Technology and Economics, Marcel Dekker, Inc.,
obtained with some faults such as approach was applied to predict 1984.
signal transmission, calibration and momentous output variables in a 3 Speight J, The Chemistry and Technology of
power fluctuation. commercial scale vacuum residue Petroleum, CRC Press, 2006.

4 PTQ Q2 2014 www.digitalrefining.com/article/1000965

4 Sawarkar A, Joshi J, Pandit A, Kataria K,
Kulkarni K, Tandon D, Ram Y, Petroleum residue 93.0
upgrading via visbreaking: a review, Can J. Validating
Chem. Eng., 85, 2007, 1-24. 92.5 Training
5 Sadighi S, Ahmad A, An optimisation

Prdicted viscosity
approach for increasing the profit of a
92.0
commercial VGO hydrocracking process, Can.
J. chem. Eng., 13, 2013, 1077-1091.
91.5
6 Soufi H.Al, Savaya Z , Moahmmed H, Al-
Azami I, Thermal conversion of heavy Iraqi
91.0
residue, Fuel, 67, 1988, 1714-1715.
7 Krishna R, Kuchhal Y, Sarna G, Singh I,
90.5
Visbreaking studies on Aghajari long residue,
Fuel, 67, 1988, 379-383.
8 Carlo S.Di, Janis B, Composition and 90.0
90.0 90.5 91.0 91.5 92.0 92.5 93.0
visbreakability of petroleum residues, Chem.
Measured viscosity
Eng. Sci., 47, 1992, 2695-2700.
9 Benito A M, Martinez M T , Fernandez I,
Miranda J L, Visbreaking of an asphaltenic coal Figure 6 Comparison of the measured and predicted data points for the viscosity of
residue, Fuel, 74, 1995. fuel oil
10 Del Bianco A, Panartili N, Anelli M, Beltrame
P, Carniti P, Thermal cracking of petroleum C E, Papayannakos N G, Modeling of the Email: Sadighis @ripi.ir
residues 1. Kinetic analysis of the reaction, Fuel, performance of industrial HDS reactors using Reza Seif Mohaddecy is Project Manager,
72, 1993, 75-80. a hybrid neural network approach, Chem. Eng. Catalysis and Nanotechnology Division,
11 Trauth D, Yasar M, Neurock M, Nasigam Process, 44, 2005, 505515. Catalytic Reaction Engineering Department,
A, Klein M, Kukes S, Asphaltene and resid 15 Abonyi J, Babuska R, Szeifert F, Modified RIPI. He holds a MS in chemical engineering
pyrolysis: effect of reaction environment, Fuel Gath-Geva fuzzy clustering for identification from Sharif University of Technology.
Sci. Technol. Int., 10(7), 1992, 1161-1179. of Tagaki Sugeno fuzzy models, IEEE Trans. Syst. Email: Seifsr @ripi.ir
12 AlHumaidan F, Lababidi M, Al-Rabiah H, Man Cybern, 32, 2002, 612.
Thermal cracking kinetics of Kuwaiti vacuum LINKS
residues in Eureka process, Fuel,103, 2013, 923- Sepehr Sadighi is Assistant Professor, Catalysis
931. and Nanotechnology Division, Catalytic More articles from the following
13 Kataria K L, Kulkarni R P, Pandit AB, Joshi J Reaction Engineering Department, Research categories:
B, Kumar M, Kinetic studies of low severity Institute of Petroleum Industry (RIPI), Tehran,
Process Modelling & Simulation
visbreaking, Ind. Eng. Chem. Res., 43, 2004. Iran. He holds a PhD in chemical engineering
Visbreaking
14 Bellos G D, Kallinikos L E, Gounaris from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia.

www.digitalrefining.com/article/1000965 PTQ Q2 2014 5

View publication stats