Estimating fouling and hydraulic debottlenecking of a clarifier piping system in the expansion of a chemical manufacturing plant
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Avinashkumar V. Karre
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Deepak Sharma
Abstract
Debottlenecking and estimating fouling in a clarifier piping system for the expansion of an existing chemical manufacturing facility in the U.S. Gulf Coast was analyzed and modified. The existing clarifier piping system fitting data was gathered for the real-world operation from the field. This data was used in the Applied Flow Technology (AFT) Fathom, a program used to study hydraulic systems. The hydraulic results with and without recommended piping modifications along with changing piping roughness factors were also analyzed. The two piping roughness factor cases tested were roughness of 0.152 mm and fouling of 25.4 mm. The AFT Fathom results showed that without piping modifications and specifying fouling of 25.4 mm, required flow cannot be established due to insufficient driving force for liquid movement. The measured field flow data confirmed that the reduced clarifier capacity was due to high pressure losses in the hydraulic system. Also, it was found that the existing clarifier nozzle was inadequately designed originally, and replacing the nozzle showed an increase in the clarifier capacity due to reduced entrainment of the air. These modifications were further adapted in the plant expansion and operations were validated using the actual plant data. The plant data matched closely with the estimated capacities of the clarifiers. AFT Fathom hydraulic software was effective in predicting a fouling severity in the clarifier piping system and debottlenecking of the clarifier capacity was done. The conclusions derived from this study can be used all over the world where clarifiers are utilized.
Funding source: Charles and Hilda Roddey Distinguished Professorship
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Author contribution: All the authors have accepted responsibility for the entire content of this submitted manuscript and approved submission.
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Research funding: Kalliat T. Valsaraj acknowledges funding from the Charles and Hilda Roddey Distinguished Professorship.
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Conflict of interest statement: The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding this article.
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Articles in the same Issue
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- Performance assessment of high temperature water-gas-shift reaction for hydrogen generation and its purification in a membrane reactor/separator of hydrogen or of carbon dioxide
- Carbon dioxide utilization in methanol synthesis plant: process modeling
- Estimating fouling and hydraulic debottlenecking of a clarifier piping system in the expansion of a chemical manufacturing plant
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- CFD study of heat transfer effect on nanofluid of Newtonian and non-Newtonian type under vibration
- Performance assessment of high temperature water-gas-shift reaction for hydrogen generation and its purification in a membrane reactor/separator of hydrogen or of carbon dioxide
- Carbon dioxide utilization in methanol synthesis plant: process modeling
- Estimating fouling and hydraulic debottlenecking of a clarifier piping system in the expansion of a chemical manufacturing plant
- Robust optimal centralized PI controller for a fluid catalytic cracking unit
- Simulation of direct chlorination of ethylene in a two-phase reactor by coupling equilibrium, kinetic and population balance models
