Fired Heater Modeling

Background
The Fired Heater unit model simulates a general refinery furnace. The model
performs detailed heat balance calculations, pressure drop calculations and
assumes that no cracking takes place.
In refinery processes, fired heaters are used whenever oil needs to be heated. The
outlet temperature and acceptable residence time differ from one fired heater to
another, depending on the task being performed.
Oil is fed into the fired heater and travels through tubing that is exposed to the
heat source. As the tubing heats up, the oil viscosity decreases allowing for ease
of transportation of the oil through the tubing. These key issues are considered
when simulating fired heaters:

Transfer of heat through the tubing: through the metal and any coke
deposits built up on the inside of the tubing.

Transfer of heat through the oil.

Fluid dynamics of the flowing oil: pressure drop, flow regimes, effect of
changing tube cross section, effect of bends in the tubes,

Learning Objectives
Understand how to configure the geometry of the
Furnace model in Petro-SIM
Understand Tube Heat Balance Closure options of the
Fired heater model.

Rev 0 V4.1 November 2012

PFD and Fired Heater Data

Fired heater Operating Data

Fired heater Efficiency
Steam injected mass percent
Steam injected location

%
-

Bare Tube, Numbers

No. of Flow Passes
Bare Tube, Total Exposed
Surface
Tube Spacing, Centre-toCentre

Outside Diameter
Wall Thickness (average)
Overall Tube Length
Heat Absorption
Inlet temperature
Inlet Pressure
Outlet temperature
Outlet Pressure
Flowrate

mm
mm
m
MW
C
bar
C
bar
kg/h

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m2
mm

90
5
Tube no. 14
Convection
Radiant section
Section
4 + 8 + 56
112
4
4
94 + 158 + 918
580 + 500 +
406
324 + 273 +
219
9.5 + 9.3 + 8.2
25 + 22 + 22
31
357
0.9
415
0.67
417000

1082
254
140
8
24
5.8
341
4.5
357
3.4

Transfer line: 36 in diam; 24 mm thickness; 40 m long

Fired heater inlet header: 20 in diam; 17 mm thickness; 15 m long

Model Initial Setup

In this section, the initial setup of the flowsheet up to stream fired heater
feed will be illustrated.
1. Open Petro-SIM. Use the New Case icon to launch a new Petro-SIM
case.

2. Go to the oil manager.

3. Select Import -> Refinery Assay Files

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4. Open the refinery assay Sample Crude A.

5. Leave the XML File Exchange Options at their defaults.

6. Select Import.

7. Select the Enter Simulation Enviornment option to re-enter the

simulation environment.

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8.

Add the following stream to the simulation.

Stream Name
Parameter
Mass Flow Rate
Temperature
Pressure

Crude Feed
RefineryMetric
RefineryField
417.0 tonne/hr
919325 lb/hr
25.0 C
77 F
0.0 bar_g
0.0 psig

9. Go to the Composition page and load the refinery assay Sample

Crude A.

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10. Add a component splitter to the simulation. Setup the Crude Feed
as the Inlets, Q-100 as the Energy Streams, Distillate as the
Overhead Outlet, and Atm Res as the Bottoms Outlet.

11. In the component splitter, go to the Splits/TBP window and set the
Initial TBP Cut Point on Feed (ICP) of the Atm Res to 360 C (680 F).

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12. Go to the Parameters page. Select Use Stream Flash Specifications,

and set both product streams to have a temperature of 330 C (626 F).
Then choose Equalize All Stream Pressures and the component
splitter should converge.

13. Select a Pump from the palette and add it to the simulation. Double
click onto the pump icon to open the design view. Complete the
connections by selecting the Atm Res stream as the Inlet and creating
Furnace Feed for the Outlet and Pump Duty for the Energy stream.

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14. On completion, you should get a PFD as shown below.

Building the Fired heater Model

In this section, the setup of the Fired heater model will be demonstrated
and model parameters will also be discussed. (Note: Plant data is shown
at the beginning of the exercise.)
1. Choose a Fired heater model from the palette and drag and add it to

the simulation. Double click on the icon

and
complete the connection details with Furnace Feed as the Feed,
Injection Steam as the Injection Steam, and Furnace Out as the
Product. Also, specify the Number of Tubes as 47 and the Firebox
Efficiency as 90 %.
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 Number of Tubes =

Bare Tube, Number

+ 1 (optional transfer
Number of Flow Passes

line) + 1 (optional inlet header)

Firebox Efficiency is the percentage of the fuel calorific value that
is transferred to the oil.
2. Go to the Tube Data page and fill in the data as shown below.
Tube
Number

1
2
3
5
19
47

Outside
Diameter
RM
[m]
0.9144
0.3240
0.2730
0.2190
0.1400
0.5080

RF
[ft]
3.0000
1.0630
0.8957
0.7185
0.4593
1.6667

Thickness
RM
[m]
0.0240
0.0095
0.0093
0.0082
0.0080
0.0170

RF
[ft]
0.0787
0.0312
0.0305
0.0269
0.0262
0.0558

Pass

1
4
4
4
4
1

Length
RM
[m]
40.0
25.0
22.0
22.0
24.0
15.0

RF [ft]
131.2336
82.0210
72.1785
72.1785
78.7402
49.2126

Spacing
RM
[m]
0.580
0.580
0.500
0.406
0.254
0.580

RF
[ft]
1.9029
1.9029
1.6404
1.3320
0.8333
1.9029

Header
KValues
1.35
1.35
1.35
1.35
0.75
1.35

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The tubes are numbered such that the outlet is tube 1 and the inlet
is n (in this case tube 47).

Passes means number of parallel tubes

Length: total length of combined tubes

Heater K-values: All tubes and two hole plug header = 1.35;
Regular return bends = 0.75 (normally see the P&ID)

When specifying a value of a parameter for a tube, the number will

carry forward for all remaining tubes

Tube 47 is the inlet tube

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Tube 46 to Tube 19 is the convection section

Tube 18 to Tube 2 is the radiant section

Tube 1 is the Transfer Line

3. Go to the Operating Data tab Operations page. Specify the Outlet T

at 415 C (779 F) and the Outlet P at -0.9 bar_g (-13.05 psig) and check
the Simulate Furnace box. This enables detailed fired heater tube by
tube calculations, heat balance and the pressure drop over the fired
heater.

4. Go to the Tube Data page. Select the Specify tube by tube heat flux:
Fixed Values in the Tube Heat Balance Closure option. Give a value
of 0.0 for the heat flux for both tubes 1 and 47. Enter a value of
4612.0 kcal/h-m2 (1700.0 Btu/hr-ft2). Check the Calculate? box in the
radiant section (Tubes 2 to 18).

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5. Intialise the fired heater calculations by inputing an intial guess for

the fired heater intlet temperature of 328 C (622.4 F), tube number 47.
Insure the Inlet T intialisation only button is checked.

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Heat Absorption
( m )= Bare tubes
, total surface area

Heat flux w

6.

Let the radiant section calculate its duty because it contributes the
biggest part of the duty in the fired heater

K1-Values parameter to account for vertical or horizontal heat

flux mal-distribution. Default value is 1.33 which is based on a 40-ft
high fired heater. It is 1 for a 10 ft high fired heater, multiply for 1.1
per every 10 additional ft

The other mechanisms for distributing heat through the Fired

heater and closing the tube heat balance are: 1) Calculate equal
fluxes in all tubes and 2) Specify tube by tube heat fractions

Calculate equal fluxes in all tubes (default) Assumes same flux

in both radiant and convection sections

Specify tube-by-tube heat fractions Allows user to provide heat

distribution pattern as a fraction of total heat needed by the Fired
heater. As a rule of thumb, radiant section will contribute 2/3 of
heat and the convection section will contribute the remaining 1/3.
To reduce the residence time, steam can be injected to the fired
heater. Normally steam will inject just before the convection section
(tube 46). Go to the Steam Injectors page, and enter the following
data.
Tube Number
Mass Percent
Temperature
Pressure

RefineryMetric
232 C
6.5 bar_g

46.0
0.50

RefineryField
450 F
94.25 psig

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Tuning the Furnace Model

There are six typical calibration factors used to tune the Fired heater
The Weld Factor, Friction Factor, K2 Value and K3 Value, Coke thermal
conductivity factor, and the metal thermal conductivity factor.
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The Weld Factor

Based on the number of unwelded coils divided by the total number of
coils. The more unwelded coils there are, the lower the pressure drop.
Friction Factor
Fine-tunes the pressure drop calculation
K2 and K3 value
K2 value The factor is a function of the tube spacing, and whether the
tube is fired on one or both sides.
- For one side firing at 2 diam tube spacing, K2 = 1.76
- For two side firing at 2 diam tube spacing, K2 = 1.17
K3 value A correction factor for the type of flame used in the furnace.
- Gas fired, non luminous = 1
- Oil fired, luminous = 1.06
- Oil + gas combination = 1.06

Coke Therm Cond Factor is a multiplier to the coke thermal

conductivity used in tube wall temperature calculation
Metal Therm Cond Factor is a multiplier to the tube metal thermal
conductivity used in tube wall temperature calculation

Coke Factors
There is also the functionality within the fired heater model fine-tune the
predictions from the fouling operation using the Coke Factors.

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Max Heat Flux = Avg Heat Flux * K1 * K2 * K3

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Appendix: Fired heater Process Data

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