Antonio Espuña, Moisès Graells and Luis Puigjaner (Editors), Proceedings of the 27th European

Symposium on Computer Aided Process Engineering – ESCAPE 27

October 1st - 5th, 2017, Barcelona, Spain © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-444-63965-3.50070-2

Fouling Modelling in Crude Oil Preheat Systems

José Loyola-Fuentes*, Robin Smith, Megan Jobson
Centre for Process Integration, School of Chemical Engineering and Analytical
Science, The University of Manchester, M13 9PL, UK.
jose.loyolafuentes@manchester.ac.uk
Abstract
Fouling in the pre-heat system for crude oil distillation has become one of the most
challenging issues within the refinery industry. For a single crude oil distillation unit,
the cost due to fouling can reach magnitudes of millions of dollars per year. Given a
fouling model, deposition can be mitigated through the manipulation of heat exchanger
tube wall temperatures, wall shear stress and cleaning of heat exchangers. However, the
implementation of such strategies requires a mathematical model. Fouling models can
be developed from laboratory tests, but such experimental work involves a significant
amount of time and the controlled conditions during a test cannot be extrapolated to
field processes with confidence. Fouling threshold modelling also presents drawbacks;
since each fouling rate model is developed for a specific mechanism, and each
parameter within these models can change significantly when the type of crude oil is
changed. To overcome these problems, a new methodology for determining fouling
models is proposed from on-line data, eliminating the need for laboratory experiments.
Heat transfer coefficients coupled with different fouling mechanism models for
individual heat exchangers are used to predict thermal and fouling behavior within a
heat exchanger network, using reconciled measured data and parametric fitting. The
model is able to split the fouling contributions of both shell and tube-side. Also, the
reconciled data present no systematic and random errors. Each fitted model can be used
for prediction of fouling conditions for operating decisions or optimization of cleaning
schedules or retrofit.
Keywords: Fouling, Crude oil pre-heat train, Data reconciliation.

1. Introduction
Crude oil distillation is one of the most energy consuming stages within the crude oil
refinery process. Before the crude oil is fed into the distillation column, it is pre-heated
in a heat exchanger network (HEN) known as the pre-heat train. The objective of this
pre-heat train is to heat the crude in order to achieve a certain temperature (most
commonly close in the range from 360 °C to 380 °C) by recovering energy from side
streams downwards the distillation column.
One of the key parameters to assure an effective distillation process is the thermal
efficiency of the pre-heat train, which can be affected by the undesired deposition of
solid material onto the heat transfer surface of each heat exchanger within the network.
This deposition process known as fouling (Epstein, 1983), represents one the most
challenging problems for researchers and industries, since the nature, different
mechanisms and dynamic behavior of fouling is at the moment not fully understood.
In terms of total fouling cost in a crude oil refinery, nearly 50 % of it is attributed to the
distillation column (Lemke, 1999) and the cost of the losses can be as high as 1.5
million of USD in a period of 3 months (Bories and Patureaux, 2003). Fouling can be
410 J. Loyola-Fuentes et al.

mitigated by correcting or manipulating specific process and design parameters; some

examples are providing extra area to the heat exchangers, setting different sets of
operational conditions and using chemical or mechanical cleaning to avoid the
accumulation of fouling deposits. All these alternatives can be applied if the fouling
mechanism is known by either mathematical modelling or empirical data.
When determining a fouling model, the heat transfer process is replicated and the
deposition process is studied in order to identify key parameters that set up the
formation of deposits onto the heat transfer surface. This replication presents several
drawbacks as every test takes a significant amount of time, the changes in crude oil
composition are not accounted for during the experimentation and the fouling
mechanism is not properly extrapolated since the working conditions in the field are not
always similar (Deshannavar et al., 2010) to those of experiments.
At the moment, fouling models are based on the concept of threshold fouling (Panchal
et al., 1999), and each set of parameters presents a direct dependency on the nature of
the crude oil, as well as the operational conditions of the pre-heat train. For this reason,
the accurate description of fouling mechanisms has become a paramount and difficult
task for the crude oil industry.
In the proposed methodology, reconciled simulated field data is to be used for
determining a specific fouling model for both sides of each heat exchanger. The use of
field data provides a direct path for calculating fouling models, eliminating the need for
experimentation. The data reconciliation helps to mitigate the effect of random and
systematic errors in the data, guaranteeing the reliability of each measurement in terms
of physical and thermodynamic feasibility.
The calculation of fouling model parameters is achieved by an optimization procedure
using specific fouling models for tube-side and shell-side and the observed fouling
resistance of each exchanger in the network. By using optimization techniques, the set
of characteristic parameters for a certain fouling model is determined and used to
predict the network outlet conditions, in terms of coil inlet temperature (CIT).

2. Proposed methodology
2.1. HEN simulation
For this work, the HEN is simulated using the extended approach of Ochoa-Estopier et
al. (2015) for temperature dependent physical properties in the crude oil, based on the
simulation scheme developed by de Oliveira Filho et al. (2007). Flow rates and
temperatures of each stream in the network are calculated by solving a set of linear
equations representing the mass and energy balance for each network component. The
network topology is characterized using graph theory, as it is shown in Figure 1.
2.2. Fouling model
Following the concept of threshold fouling, depending on the nature of the fluid on each
side of a heat exchanger and the process conditions, different expressions can be
obtained for deposition and removal rates. This work assumes the occurrence of
chemical reaction fouling in the tube-side, where the crude oil is flowing; and a constant
Fouling Modelling in Crude Oil Preheat Systems 411

II III

7 9
X IX
1 2 3 4 5
I IV
VII VIII

6
8 10

V VI

Figure 1. HEN example. Cold streams - continuous lines, hot streams - dashed lines, supply units
- white squares, demand units - black squares, mixer - black circle, splitter - white circle.
fouling rate is assumed in the shell-side, where different side products flow across the
network. Tube-side and shell-side fouling are represented by the ESDU model (Polley
et al., 2002) and a constant fouling rate model in Eq. (1) and Eq. (2) respectively.

dR f §  EA ·
D I Re 0.8 Pr 0.33 exp¨¨ ¸  JRe 0.8
¸ (1)
dt © RT W ¹

dR f
D II (2)
dt

Where Rf is the fouling resistance, Re and Pr are the Reynolds and Prandtl number
respectively, R is the universal gas constant and TW is the wall temperature. The
coefficients αI, EA, γ and αII are the specific model parameters that need to be
determined for each heat exchanger within the heat exchanger network.
Fouling deposition is a dynamic process, the accumulation rate in terms of the fouling
resistance increases over time, hindering the thermal performance of the network. To
include this phenomenon in the simulation, a numeric update based on the Euler
forward method is used to integrate the fouling rate, as shown in Eq. (3).

dR f
Rf Rf  't (3)
n 1 n dt n

2.3. Data reconciliation

The data reconciliation problem is solved by an optimization approach, minimizing the
measurements error for each process variable. Mass and energy balances, along with
extra process requirements can be used as constraints. A general expression for a data
reconciliation problem is shown in Eq. (4).

minimize  yˆ  y  V 1  yˆ  y 
T

subject to f ( x) 0 (4)
g ( x) t 0
The difference between the measured values and the reconciled values yɪ are weighted
by the covariance matrix V, and the functions f(x) and g(x) represent equalities and
412 J. Loyola-Fuentes et al.

inequality constraints respectively. Depending on the linearity of the constraints, the

optimization problem is solved using different techniques such as nonlinear
programming, successive linearization or principal component analysis (Romagnoli and
Sanchez, 1999). Successive linearization is used in this work, since the computation
time is faster to that of nonlinear programming solvers and due to the simplicity of the
simulation model based on the matrix approach. The solution of the linearized data
reconciliation problem is represented by Eq. (5), when all the process variables are
measured.

yˆ 
y  VJ y T J yVJ y T  J
1
y y  by  (5)

Where Jy is the Jacobian matrix for the equality constraints, evaluated at an estimation
point yɪL, and by is defined in Eq. (6).

by J y yˆ i  f ( y i ) (6)

The above equations solve the data reconciliation problem using an iterative procedure
until a certain tolerance is satisfied, but is only valid when the data contain no gross
error. When these errors are considered, the above solution is combined with a gross
error detection process, which identifies and estimates the magnitude and location of
single and multiple gross errors by searching through all the possible combinations and
selecting the minimum measurement error (Sánchez et al., 1999).
2.4. Parameter estimation
The set of parameters for each fouling model is determined by solving a minimization
problem. The measured and calculated fouling resistances are used to set an objective
function, represented by the difference of squares of each fouling resistance. Fouling
resistances for all heat exchangers are initialized as inputs for the estimation process,
lower and upper boundaries are also used to guarantee a feasible solution for each set.
The fitted parameters are combined with the simulation model and the network outlet
conditions are predicted for further analysis.

3. Case study
The proposed methodology is applied to the heat exchanger network analysed by de
Oliveira Filho et al. (2007), illustrated in Figure 2. Cold stream properties were changed
in order to apply the temperature dependent approach. Information about flow rates,
specifications and heat exchanger areas remain the same as the original source. One
year of operation is simulated, considering the dynamic fouling behaviour and random
errors are added to every process variable (flow rates and temperatures) in order to
simulate industrial measured data. This is done by considering that on industrial plants,
random measurement error is approximated by a normal probability distribution with
zero mean (Narasimhan and Jordache, 1999), and is only maintained through time since
the same measurement instruments are used for a specific operational variable. Gross
error is considered by adding a constant bias to several measurements and the data
reconciliation algorithm is assessed by analysing the gross error predictions. Finally, the
reconciled data is used for estimating the fouling model parameters on each heat
Fouling Modelling in Crude Oil Preheat Systems 413

IV

15
12
1 2 3 4
I V
IX X XI
11
13 16
III
5 6 7 8 9
II VI
XV XII XIII XIV
10
14 17

VII VIII

Figure 2: HEN for case study

exchanger and the fitted parameters are incorporated to the fouling models for
prediction of outlet conditions.

4. Results and discussions

Table 1 shows the results and comparison from the parametric regression. The true
values used for all heat exchangers are compared with those obtained from the fitting
procedure. Several differences in magnitudes can be observed from the comparison,
giving that there is more than one set of model parameters that can minimise the
difference between measured and calculated data. Figure 3 depicts the comparison
between simulated and predicted outlet temperatures of each cold stream in the network
(streams 4 and 9 respectively), and the distribution of relative error for such
temperatures. The maximum relative error found in this distribution reaches a value of
3.5%, which represents a maximum of 11 (°C) of difference between reconciled data
and predicted temperatures. The data reconciliation process is able to mitigate the effect
of random and gross error, as it decreases the initial peaks contained in the raw data. A
bias of 16 (°C) is added to the outlet temperature of cold stream 9 (see Figure 3), as well
as in the cold outlet flowrate of stream 1, where the magnitude for this bias is 4 (kg/s).

5. Conclusions
At the moment, traditional strategies for determining fouling models are based on the
developing of empirical correlations carried out during laboratory experiments, which
may take a significant amount of time, and their results may not be in accordance with
field conditions.
Table 1: True and fitted fouling model parameters
αI (m2K/kWh) EA (kJ/mol) γ (m2K/kWh) αII (m2K/kWh)
True 1.00E+06 48.00 1.50E-09 2.0E-03
HEX-1 1.31E+06 47.30 1.41E-09 2.0E-03
HEX-2 2.16E+06 46.03 1.42E-09 1.9E-03
HEX-3 1.96E+06 48.58 1.32E-09 1.0E-03
HEX-4 1.28E+06 46.03 1.46E-09 2.0E-03
HEX-5 1.21E+06 46.39 1.49E-09 2.0E-03
414 J. Loyola-Fuentes et al.

Figure 3: Data reconciliation and prediction results for case study

A new methodology for determining fouling model parameters from reconciled online
data has been developed. The methodology accounts for both, tube and shell-side
fouling of each heat exchanger within a network, measured data is reconciled from
random and gross errors, and the fitted model can be used for prediction of outlet
conditions and operational optimization of cleaning schedules.
The entire methodology depends on the availability of information regarding the
existing instrumentation in the network. If this instrumentation does not suit the
minimum amount of measured data to calculate the fouling resistances, a higher number
of measurements are needed, if an accurate reconciliation procedure is expected. In
order to assess the potential of the proposed methodology, actual on-line data is needed.

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