HYDROCRACKING REACTOR TEMPERATURE CONTROL FOR INCREASED SAFETY, RELIABILITY AND PERFORMANCE

Allan G. Kern, P.E., APCperformance.com, Red Lodge, MT, USA

Introduction
Most hydrocracking reactors in the oil refining industry today are underautomated. Conventional industry practice leaves many gaps in hydrocracking reactor temperature control, quench utilization, and depressure prevention. Refiners pay a large cost for this automation shortfall at all levels safety, reliability, and optimization. Hydrocracking reactor temperature excursions can occur frequently and incur costs of tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars per incident. A complete depressurization event brings acute penalties in refinery availability and operating cost, usually on the order of a million dollars per event, in addition to serious potential safety and environmental concerns. The situation, which is typical across the oil refining industry, is not due to a technology limitation. The necessary automation capabilities and features are readily available in todays distributed control systems (DCS). The current situation is primarily the product of past assumptions regarding safety systems and advanced controls, that have turned out to be incorrect or incomplete. Today, this presents industry with a safety and reliability challenge, and an automation opportunity. Large improvements in hydrocracking unit safety, reliability and optimization, remain available for relatively modest cost and effort, in most cases leveraging significant improvements and additional value from existing resources. This paper presents an updated hydrocracking reactor control paradigm for the refining industry going forward.

About Hydrocracking
Hydrocrackers are among oil refinings most demanding units, because they combine high temperature (ca. 400-800F) and high pressure (ca. 1400-2200 PSIG) with a strongly exothermic reaction. Achieving maximum cracking in the reactor, while avoiding an exothermic runaway reaction, is a particular challenge of hydrocracking unit operation and control. Exothermic runaway reactions, if not successfully brought under control, ultimately result in unit depressurization to flare, when reactor temperatures approach metallurgical design limits. Depressurization may be initiated manually by operators or automatically by the control system. While depressurization is a necessary safety function, it must be avoided to the extent possible from an operation and economic standpoint. Depressurization brings the prospect of a several day unit restart, large and potentially damaging thermal and mechanical equipment stresses, the unsettling prospect of unexpected events during depressurization, environmental and community concerns related to the flaring, and an overall large economic cost penalty, typically in the million dollar range per event. Even

minor temperature excursions that are brought under control can cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost on-target production, due to loss of steady-state hydrocracking conditions and the time it takes to re-establish them. The overall purpose of hydrocracking is to convert (or crack) heavy oils, such as gas oil, cycle oil and coker oil, into lighter higher-value fuels, such as naphtha, kerosene and diesel. Figure 1 shows a typical hydrocracking reactor. Heated oil and hydrogen enter the top of a vertical down-flow reactor with multiple fixed catalyst beds. The catalyst promotes the desired hydrocracking and hydrogenation reactions. Temperature increases as flow passes through the bed, due to the exothermic nature of the reactions. Quench gas is introduced between each bed to cool the reaction mix, such that, ideally, each bed has similar bed inlet and bed outlet temperatures. Due to the nonlinear heat release of exothermic reactions (reaction rates approximately double for each ten degree centigrade increase in temperature), the potential for a runaway reaction is always present. Common excursion initiators include full or partial loss of feed flow, loss of recycle compressor, heater disturbances, change in feed quality to a more readily cracked feed, change in catalyst activity, bed inlet or catalyst bed mal-distribution, overly aggressive start-up operations, and overly large feed rate or temperature adjustments during ongoing operation. Reference 1 describes additional potential initiators. Modern refineries with complex integration can experience these conditions on an essentially ongoing basis, rendering good control and intelligent automation response a necessity. Despite its challenges, hydrocracking is economically very attractive in the modern hydrocarbon market environment, due to increasing global demand for jet fuel and diesel fuel over gasoline, and hydrocrackings ability to effectively convert todays low-cost natural gas into high value fuels. This is accomplished by converting natural gas into hydrogen and converting hydrogen into fuels in hydrocracking units. Hydrocracking unit new construction and upgrade projects are common around the world today. Hydrocracking units are among the more complex refinery units, usually encompassing multiple reactors, recycle and make-up compressors, cascaded pressure let down and separation vessels, multiple feed heaters, high pressure sour gas scrubber, high pressure wash water system, and a complete (albeit low pressure) fractionation section. Figure 1 does not capture this process complexity, but does highlight the essential challenge of high pressure, high temperature and an exothermic reaction. Automation of the quench and temperature controls around this vessel, to control and avoid temperature excursions, is the focus of this paper.

Hydrocracking Reactors are Under-Automated

Most hydrocracking reactors in industry are under-automated from temperature control, excursion control, and depressure prevention perspectives. Figure 1 is a simplified hydrocracking reactor diagram with typical as-purchased temperature controls. Most hydrocracking units are initially designed, commissioned and operated with only these controls. This includes provision for manual, or increasingly automatic, depressurization on high temperature, and simple reactor bed inlet temperature controls. More advanced controls, such as multivariable control or the controls described in this

paper, are usually added after the unit is in production, over the course of several years, and to varying extents. Notably missing from Figure 1 are special temperature excursion controls, which are especially essential given the exothermic nature of hydrocracking reactions. Also missing are advanced auto-quench controls, designed to utilize quench as advantageously as possible to prevent reaching depressure conditions. And also missing are bed outlet controls, which are essential to stable operation and production, especially since equal bed outlet temperatures are one of the main criteria for hydrocracker operation from catalyst management and product quality standpoints, excursions aside. Multivariable control (MPC) has often been applied to hydrocracking reactors to provide average bed temperature (ABT) and constraint control, but MPC does not provide effective excursion control, depressure prevention, and auto-quench. These features are readily accomplished in smart DCS function block control strategies, and are more appropriately applied at the base-layer DCS level for responsiveness, reliability, and the necessary smart functionality. MPC can still be appropriate for ABT, constraint, and conversion control. Especially notable in the controls of Figure 1 is the complete lack of automatic control response to a temperature excursion. Excursions take hold as the hydrocarbon/hydrogen mix passes down through the catalyst bed, and the exothermic nature of the reaction results in a temperature runaway. Quench flow to the bed must be increased quickly and nonlinearly or the excursion can proceed unchecked until it reaches depressure conditions, but the quench controls in Figure 1 lack such a mechanism. The controls will increase quench flow to the subsequent bed, based on high outlet temperature of the excursion bed, but there is no mechanism to increase quench flow where it is needed. This lack of base-layer bed outlet and excursion control, on an exothermic reactor operating at elevated temperature and pressure, is a common situation in industry today, but it no longer passes the sensibility test in modern refineries, or the explicit question, can a runaway reaction occur, which is standard in most Hazop and management of change (MOC) questionnaires today. Hydrocracking reactors are overall under-automated, in the sense that most of the units in industry lack some or all of these essential excursion control, auto-quench, and depressure prevention features, and because it is not due to any technology limitation. The missing control and automation features are readily accomplished in todays DCS control systems, presenting industry with a safety, reliability and performance challenge, as well as an automation opportunity. Achieving appropriate levels of automation is a matter of understanding the shortfalls in the past industry hydrocracker control paradigm, and making appropriate changes.

The Cost of Under-Automation is High

The penalty for hydrocracking reactor under-automation is substantial, and should be cause for concern at all levels safety, reliability, and optimization. A hydrocracking reactor over-temperature depressurization event carries a long list of serious safety concerns, including mechanical and thermal equipment stresses and potential equipment damage, environmental violations and community concerns due to the flaring, and the unsettling prospect of unexpected events or failures in the course of

venting a high-temperature/high-pressure runaway reaction system to a flare. The best way to avoid a safety system failure on demand is to avoid demands in the first place. From a refinery reliability standpoint, an uncontrolled excursion can send products off-specification for several hours, with incurred cost of tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. A complete depressurization can require several days to restart and re-establish on-specification operating conditions, with total cost in the million dollar range for a typical refinery. Moreover, hydrocrackers are usually heavily integrated with other refinery units, thereby impacting overall refinery availability. In addition to these abnormal (but not uncommon) situations, lack of bed outlet control takes an ongoing toll in the form of unnecessary and excessive product variance, the usual target of optimization controls. Common excursion initiators include loss of feed, change in feed quality, heater operations, catalyst bed or quench internals maldistribution, and feed rate or bed temperature changes. Many additional excursion initiators are described in reference 1.

Not Due to a Technology Limitation

The current condition of under-automation and commensurate negative exposures in safety, reliability and optimization, are not due to a technology limitation. Todays distributed control systems (DCSs) are readily capable of meeting the requirements. The current industry-wide under-automation condition is more due to a past paradigm that has proven insufficient in both safety and advanced control aspects. The dominant paradigm from a safety perspective for the past couple decades has been to install automatic over-temperature depressurization systems, with the perception that this addresses most or all critical safety needs from a reactor temperature runaway standpoint. This has been a major focus of hydrocracker automation, as reliance on manually initiated depressurization has been widely replaced with auto-depressure safety functions. This represents significant technological and safety progress, as more reliable thermocouple systems and more powerful safety system logic solvers have combined to provide sophisticated and reliable auto-depressure systems. However, this trend so far has failed to realize the need to include better excursion control and auto-quench features to avoid reaching depressure conditions in the first place. Today, many depressurization events unfold in the absence of any automatic control response. The dominant paradigm from an advanced control perspective has been to install multivariable controllers, with the perception that this addresses all process automation and control requirements. But multivariable control is basically a single broad algorithm for overall gradual constraint management and optimization. It does include the type of smart critical control features needed for effective excursion control, auto-quench and depressure prevention. These past paradigms regarding hydrocracking reactor safety and advanced control have brought important progress. But at the same time, over-reliance on them has resulted in persisting critical gaps. Because these gaps are primarily a matter of industry practice, rather than a technology limitation, closing the gaps is primarily a matter of adapting the industry paradigm to reflect the lessons learned.

Updated Hydrocracker Control Paradigm

Figure 2 is an updated hydrocracking reactor temperature control paradigm that takes into consideration the lessons learned to close the gaps in safety, reliability and performance. Multiple layers at each level bring robust and reliable performance. For example, excursions are addressed by bed outlet control, special excursion control, and auto-quench, before reaching depressure. The calculation package stems from the large number of reactor bed temperature measurements and the need to reduce them to fewer more meaningful values, to apply alarm management principles to prevent alarm floods when excursions occur, to provide more timely smart alarms, to support higher levels of advanced control, and to assure overall data quality. There are important practical benefits to building the calculation package with the overall paradigm in mind. Auto-depressure is now well established best practice, but basic decisions remain for each application, such as how temperature data will be shared between the safety system and control system, and whether to auto-depressure on high temperature rate-ofchange, in addition to high absolute temperature. Key considerations regarding auto-quench include heater and feed implications, achieving timely response without triggering unnecessarily, and striking a balance between robustly reliable logic and a graceful response that facilitates a rapid return to on-target operating conditions. Although auto-quench is a DCS control, conceptually it can be one of the most important functions in a refinery, in terms of economics and safety, because it is the final layer of depressure prevention. The smart bed outlet control layer comprises a number of traditional advanced regulatory control (ARC) techniques applied to the bed inlet, bed outlet, and heater controllers, so that most excursions are handled as normal temperature disturbances and may go completely unnoticed, except perhaps to the console operator. (One purpose of auto-quench is to provide protection if the ARC controls are left in non-normal mode.) Bed outlet control also brings significant additional process and product stability during ongoing normal operations. Average bed temperature (ABT) and constraint control have traditionally been provided by multivariable control (MPC), but in the new paradigm they can also be provided using ARC methods. Because bed outlet control is in the base-layer DCS controls in the updated paradigm, ABT and constraint control is simplified and becomes similar to a traditional ARC-based heater pass balancing algorithm. Conversion control basically means coordinating the reaction and fractionation sections of a hydrocracking unit. This still lends itself to model-based control, due to the long response times involved (hours), although it is also important to include a steadystate algorithm to prevent fractionation section upsets from back-propagating to the reactors. Hydrocracking reactor control and safety systems can be evaluated relative to the updated paradigm (Figure 2) to identify gaps in safety, reliability and optimization, and find solutions to close them. Figure 3 reflects a hydrocracking reactor with the updated paradigm applied, and Figure 4 shows excursion temperature improvement as these controls were deployed on an actual operating hydrocracker. Further discussion of this topic can be found in reference 2.

References
1. 2. EPA Chemical Accident Investigation Report, Tosco Avon Refinery, Martinez California, November 1998 Hydrocracker Controls, By A. G. Kern, Hydrocarbon Processing Journal, October 2012 issue, or online at www.hydrocarbonprocessing.com.

Figure 1: Simplified hydrocracking reactor diagram with as purchased controls.

Figure 2: Updated hydrocracking reactor temperature control paradigm.

Figure 3: Hydrocracking reactor with updated control paradigm.

Figure 4: Temperature excursion improvement as new controls are implemented.