(410b) Mathematical Modeling, Simulation & Optimization of Atmospheric Crude Oil Residue

Various experiments were conducted in a continuous flow trickle bed reactor at the following moderate operating conditions: reaction temperature (380 - 420 °C), liquid hourly space velocity (0.3 - 1.0 hr^-1) and hydrogen pressure (60 - 100 bar) at constant hydrogen to oil ratio of (1000 L/L). In this work, a discrete kinetic model of the hydrocracking process developed based on experiments. The reduced crude residue is assumed to have five lumps: naphtha, kerosene, light gas oil, heavy gas oil and vacuum residue. An optimization technique based upon the minimization of the sum of the squared error between the experimental and predicted composition of distillate fraction is used to obtain the best value of kinetic parameters of the hydrocracking process. The predicted product composition showed very good agreement with the experimental data for a wide range of the operating condition with absolute average errors less than 5%.