Evaluation of retrofitting of an industrial steam cracking furnace by means of CFD simulations

•A CFD model of a full scale cracking furnace has been developed and validated with real plant data.•Burner configuration and geometry modifications have been evaluated.•Effect of walls and asymmetric effect in radiant coil heat transfer have been characterized.•Modifications in convection geometry...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Applied thermal engineering 2019-11, Vol.162, p.114206, Article 114206
Main Authors: González Rebordinos, Jesús, Herce, Carlos, González-Espinosa, Ana, Gil, Miguel, Cortés, Cristóbal, Brunet, Francisco, Ferré, Laura, Arias, Alfred
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
CFD
Chemical industry
Coils
Combustion
Computer simulation
Economic models
Energy
Energy consumption
Energy efficiency
Ethylene
Fluid dynamics
formula omitted
Furnaces
Inhomogeneity
Nitrogen oxides
NOx
Organic chemistry
Post-processing
Power efficiency
Reduction
Retrofitting
Steam cracking
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Summary:•A CFD model of a full scale cracking furnace has been developed and validated with real plant data.•Burner configuration and geometry modifications have been evaluated.•Effect of walls and asymmetric effect in radiant coil heat transfer have been characterized.•Modifications in convection geometry can increases a 2% heat recovery.•These measurements present a high retrofitting potential and worldwide replicability. Ethylene is one of the most important building blocks of current chemical industry with a global production of 150 million tonnes in 2016. Most ethylene nowadays is produced via thermal cracking with steam of fossil feedstocks in cracking furnaces. This process accounts for approximately 8% of the sector’s primary energy consumption, making it the single most energy-consuming process in the chemical industry. Therefore, an improvement of energy efficiency in cracking furnaces is both environmentally and economically driven. A CFD model of a full scale cracking furnace, including the radiative section equipped with wall burners and the convective sections, has been developed and validated with plant measurements under six different operation scenarios. Modifications of burner configuration and furnace geometry have been considered and simulated with the CFD model to study their effect on overall energy efficiency. Results show that reduction in the number of operative burners leads to higher inhomogeneity in coil temperatures in the radiant section and that a reduction of 25% in crossover length leads to a 2% increase in energy efficiency. An additional post-processing step has been applied to estimate furnace NOx emissions. The resulting outlet concentrations are slightly underestimated although in the correct order of magnitude (100 ppm).
ISSN:1359-4311
1873-5606
DOI:10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2019.114206