The pulverized coal injection (PCI) is widely utilized in the iron-making blast furnaces for its economic and environmental advantages. However, due its complexity, flow dynamics and chemical kinetics of PCI inside the raceway has not been well understood. Combustions of PCI and coke inside the raceway can be influenced by tuyere operation parameters. In this paper, a comprehensive three dimensional (3-D) multiphase flow computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model was utilized to investigate the PCI and coke combustion in the lower part of a blast furnace. Systematic parametric studies were conducted to analyze the effects of the natural gas injection, coal injection, PCI rate, and oxygen enrichment on the combustion performance, which include coal burnt-out rate, coke consumption rate, raceway shape, raceway temperature and etc.

A hydrogen reformer furnace is a combustion chamber which is used to supply heat for the catalytic process that converts natural gas into hydrogen. The reforming reaction that happens inside the catalyst tubes is endothermic, requiring high levels of heat input. The combustion process in the hydrogen reformer furnace provides the heat to maintain the chemical reaction inside the catalyst tubes. Temperature control of the catalyst tubes is a fundamental design requirement of the hydrogen reformer furnace, as the temperature should be maintained in the range which could maximize catalyst reactivity while minimizing any damage to the catalyst pipes. As the furnace has two complicated chemical systems, the heat effect inside the tubes has been simplified by estimating the heat flux based on industry operation. Utilizing the multiphase and non-premixed combustion model using CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamic), the temperature and velocity distribution in the hydrogen reformer furnace have been investigated. Results show that parts of the catalyst tubes are overheated causing hot spots which could lead to premature aging of the pipes. Both the location of burners and maldistribution of the hot flue gas have a great impact on this issue.

Electric submersible pumps (ESPs) provide artificial lift within oil wells. ESPs commonly fail from mechanical vibrations that increase as bearing clearances increase from debris, gas, and liquid pumped through the ESP. In order to understand journal bearing wear within an ESP, three stages of a mixed flow electric submersible pump were subjected to hydraulic fracture sand slurry in water. One hundred seventeen hours were conducted with sand and water, followed by 68 h with air added at 15% inlet gas volume fraction. The journal bearings were severely worn by the end of testing, and pump vibrations increased with increased bearing clearances. Bearing vibrations and clearances became significantly larger than the impeller labyrinth seal vibrations and clearances, indicating that the labyrinth seals became the dominant rotor support once the bearings were worn. Adding air increased the wear and rotor vibration orbit variability. Rotor vibration orbits were entirely independent of gas void fraction by the end of testing, indicating that the lubricant composition no longer directly impacted vibrations. Fine axial cracks from heat checking were observed on the journal of the bearings. Results indicate that controlling journal bearing wear is a critical factor for increasing operating lifetimes. Alternative bearing geometry and materials should be investigated to prevent the occurrence of three-body abrasion, limit the resultant wear rate from three-body abrasion, and limit the damage from heat checking.

The petroleum refining industry involves many capital and energy intensive processes. Due to complex phenomena and the difficulties in taking measurements, the knowledge needed for process optimization can be most readily obtained through the development of high fidelity computational fluid dynamics (CFD) numerical simulations. CFD has become a powerful simulation technology used in industrial process design and optimization for productivity enhancement, energy efficiency optimization, environmental management, and quality assurance. With increasingly complex CFD capable of simulating and analyzing ever-larger amounts of data, interpolating and presenting the numerical data in a meaningful fashion is a key for effective communication between CFD experts and plant engineers. Traditionally, CFD experts frequently develop two-dimensional pictures and animate their results to help make the information easily digestible. Recently, virtual reality (VR) technology made it possible for people to analyze huge amounts of CFD data in a virtual environment. VR creates a computer-generated world in which people who are not analysis experts can see the results in a context that they can easily understand. Even people who are familiar with interpreting analysis results can gain insights that make it possible to understand the root causes of observed problems and plan design changes in much less time. The integration of CFD with VR is a growing and emerging research field which can provide virtual engineering (VE) systems. In the present study, several VE applications in the petroleum refining industry have been discussed. The VE environment has greatly enhanced the value of CFD simulations and allows engineers to gain much needed process insights in order to make sound engineering decisions.

The uniform flow rate is a fundamental requirement in the design of air distributors for the hydrogen reformer furnace. Constraints of flow rate primarily demands on configuration of air distributors. Particularly for the air with different temperature, velocity and pressure, an even distribution of air distributors is especially important. Air distributors containing one inlet and eleven outlets are connected with burners so that uniform flow rate of each outlet is required. Based on CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) method, temperature, velocity and pressure distribution in the air distributors are simulated. The results show that flow rate is sensitive to the rate of pressure and velocity change but not for temperature change. The maldistribution of each outlet cannot accord with engineering standard. So, it is necessary to take some methods to decrease the maldistribution of each outlet. The dampers exist at each outlet are controlled individually. Hence, the flow rate can be constrained by adjust pressure according to the proportion of maldistribution.