A modeling and simulation study on a naphtha reforming unit with a catalyst circulation and regeneration system

A steady state and a dynamic flowsheet for a naphtha reforming unit with a catalyst circulation and regeneration system were built using SPEEDUP. A rigorous modeling of reactors, a regenerator, and a catalyst circulation system was achieved in the flowsheets by creating non-standard algorithms. With the steady state flowsheet, we calculated each reactor outlet temperature and obtained more precise temperature profiles than those of previous works with a relative error within 1.2%. The steady state flowsheet was directly used to predict the product yields and operating conditions. Two case studies were provided for an application to the actual plant operations. With the dynamic flowsheet, the best gain value in the first hopper level controller was obtained from the sensitivity analysis of control tuning parameters, and the best tuning parameters were directly used in DCS system of the real process. We could shorten the level stabilization time by half and also get more stable operations.