Heat Transfer

Petro-SIM 5 builds on the substantial improvements to heat transfer modelling we made in Petro-SIM 4.1 with further updates to the Fired Heater family of unit operations (Fired Heater, Visbreaker, VGO Cracker, Coker Furnace). We have also enhanced Petro-SIM's ability to solve multi-stream heat exchangers and made improvements to the HX Monitor utility.

Fired Heater

• The widely accepted Beggs and Brill pressure drop method for two phase flows is now available as an optional method for calculating tube by tune pressure drop across the Fired Heater and related unit operations. As well as improved accuracy, the method has two new parameters for each tube:
  • Elevation Change for vertical or inclined tubes
  • Tube Roughness to take different tube materials into account. A smooth tube will have a roughness of 0.0 mm: you will find suggested values for other materials in the documentation
• The heat flux profile can now be calculated in the Radiant zone as an alternative to the user-specified profiles used previously, which usually required manual iterations against a separate detailed fire-side furnace model. This profile uses the Stefan Boltzmann-Lobo Evans equations to estimate the Radiant zone heat flux profile based on radiant and convective heat transfer equations. The profile is then adjusted to close the heat balance.
  • You can apply a tube by tube Flame Factor to adjust flue gas temperature relative to the flame
  • The operation will estimate the radiant box flue gas temperature
• Tube by Tube metal thermal conductivity values can now be provided to let you account for changes in metallurgy through the heater

Flux Profile

Pressure Profile