The Open Fuels & Energy Science Journal

2014, 7 : 47-54
Published online 2014 August 05. DOI: 10.2174/1876973X01407010047
Publisher ID: TOEFJ-7-47

Numerical Simulation of Internal Loop Reactor for Heavy Oil Slurry Bed Hydroprocessing

Sun Lanyi , Wang Jian , Bai Fei and Bo Shoushi
State Key Laboratory of Heavy Oil Processing, China University of Petroleum, Qingdao 266580, China.

ABSTRACT

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations of internal loop reactor for heavy oil slurry bed hydroprocessing have been done in commercial code Fluent 6.3 using Euler two-phase flow model and standard k-ε turbulence model. The effects of the physical properties on the flow field in the reactor are investigated. The results show that the gas density has little effect but the liquid viscosity has a significant effect on flow field and gas hold-up. An analysis of the effect of reactor structures and scale-up on the flow field and gas hold-up are also provided, and optimal structure is obtained through simulations. The conclusions obtained in this paper have great significance for the slurry bed hydrocracking process.

Keywords:

Heavy oil, internal loop reactor, numerical simulation.