Design of Multi-Tubular Fixed-Bed Reactor for Gtl-FPSO Process Based on the CFD Simulation

World fuel consumption is ever increasing, together with the crude oil price on continuous rise. Recently, technology for liquid fuel production has been spotlighted in energy industry, and gas to liquid (GTL) process is one of alternative promising methods of petroleum fuel production technologies. For better use of the offshore platform, this research designs the GTL-FPSO process based on a new concept of combining GTL with floating production storage and offloading (FPSO). Laminating a multi-tubular type of compact fixed-bed reactor could be a first-choice solution. But it usually has problems of catalyst, equipment damage and low yield caused by hotspot and pressure drop.

This work is forcused on development of a spatio-temporal model to analyze the dynamic performance of a multi-tubular fixed-bed reactor (MTFBR), and the CFD simulation of the reactor interior is performed on a CFD tool. To prevent of hotspots, the cooling temperature was investigated different inlet temperature of shell side such as, 500, 520, 525, 530, 540 and 550 K. It was found that the optimal cooling temperature is 530 K. In order to reproduce the marine environment, the sloshing effect in this model was applied.

The optimum design of MTFBR for maximizing the heating and cooling efficiency was suggested by using the optimal cooling temperature and the results of sloshing effect simulation.