Question
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Can you discuss your experience with using CFD for hydroprocessing reactor troubleshooting?
Mar-2025
Answers
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Louise Jivan Shah, Topsoe, ljsh@topsoe.com
Topsoe recognises the importance of CFD in the design, development, and troubleshooting of our reactors, and we have successfully integrated it into our workflows from an early stage.
Despite the challenges associated with multiphase models in CFD, these limitations have been addressed by validating our CFD models for critical assumptions using in-house measurements and literature information. This validation process ensures that our simulations closely represent the real-world behaviour of our reactors, giving us confidence in the results. Thanks to our in-house 2,000+ central processing unit (CPU) cores high-performance computing cluster for running these computationally demanding CFD simulations.
One of the major benefits we have experienced is the ability of CFD to provide meaningful insights and information that are difficult to obtain through plant-scale measurements. Troubleshooting in hydroprocessing reactors often involves identifying the root cause of observed deviations, such as temperature radials in the reactor beds. With CFD, we have been able to strengthen our hypotheses by analysing the impact of different design and process deviations on the observed deviations.
For instance, when we observed a temperature radial in our reactor, we utilised CFD to understand how various factors contributed to the observed deviations. These included design deviations (for example, as-intended vs as-built) and process deviations (for example, actual operating vs design-basis conditions). By simulating different scenarios and analysing the results, we gained a better understanding of the underlying causes and were able to develop targeted solutions.
Overall, the implementation of CFD for hydroprocessing reactor troubleshooting has been highly beneficial for Topsoe. It has allowed us to address issues more effectively, improve reactor performance, and optimise our processes. The insights and information generated through CFD have proven invaluable in enhancing our understanding and decision-making capabilities.
Mar-2025
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