Fluid Flow and Heat Transfer Characteristics in a Stirred Cell System for Crude Oil Fouling

M. Yang[1], A. Young[1], and B. Crittenden[1]

[1]Department of Chemical Engineering University of Bath, Bath, United Kingdom
Published in 2009

A small batch stirred cell which is operated at temperatures up to 400 °C and pressures up to 30 bar is used to study fouling behaviors of selected crude oils. COMSOL Multiphysics package is used for the CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) and heat transfer modeling for this stirred cell system. The simulation results are validated against the measured temperature data at various axial positions on the heated test probe. Moreover, with the COMSOL predicted surface temperature profile together with the fouling deposit thickness profile measured by Proscan technique, it becomes possible to correlate, for a fixed surface shear stress, the local fouling rate against the local surface temperature, and hence to obtain an Arrhenius plot from one experimental run.

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