0263±8762/98/$10.00+0.

00
q Institution of Chemical Engineers
Trans IChemE, Vol 76, Part A, March 1998

INTEGRATED DESIGN OF A CONVENTIONAL CRUDE OIL

DISTILLATION TOWER USING PINCH ANALYSIS
K. LIEBMANN, V. R. DHOLE and M. JOBSON
Department of Process Integration, UMIST, Manchester, UK

T
he substantial energy requirement of crude oil distillation columns is met partly by
costly utilities, such as steam and fuel for ® red heaters, and partly by heat recovered
from the process, using process-to-process heat exchange. Energy savings, therefore,
demand not only a distillation column that is energy-ef® cient, but also a heat exchanger
network (HEN) which minimizes utility costs by maximizing heat recovery. A new crude oil
distillation design procedure is presented which considers the column, the HEN and their
interactions simultaneously, to minimize utility costs. Pinch analysis is used to determine
minimum utility costs prior to the design of the HEN. In this method, the column is
decomposed into a sequence of simple columns, which enables appropriate distribution of
stages and simpli® es analysis. Modi® cations, which further increase the ef® ciency of the
process, are proposed: these are the installation of reboilers, rather than stripping steam, and the
thermal coupling of column sections. The detrimental effects of these modi® cations on the heat
recovery opportunities of the process are analysed for a distillation tower with side-strippers. A
new step-by-step design procedure is derived from this analysis, and is applied to a case study.
In the case study, the resulting design offers nearly 20% savings in utility costs over the base
case design. The vapour ¯ ow in the column is reduced by a similar amount, offering capital
savings, additional ¯ exibility or the opportunity to increase throughput. The new integrated
design procedure considers the column and its associated HEN simultaneously, aiming to
minimize operating costs by obtaining the best ® t between the process and the available
utilities.
Keywords: pinch analysis; preheat train; distillation design

1. INTRODUCTIO N 1.1 Process Description

Crude oil distillation is an energy-intensive process,
consuming as fuel 1 to 2% of the crude oil processed
(Klenner1 ). The process is highly complex and has changed
relatively little since its inception 70 years ago (Miller2 ).
Crude oil distillation design is usually governed by
experience, design guidelines and simulation trials. How-
ever, published design procedures are not systematic and do
not consider concurrently the design of the heat exchanger
network (HEN).
Energy costs are highly relevant to the crude oil
distillation process, especially since fuel combusted is
product lost from this process. Furthermore, saving energy
has the side bene® ts of reducing site emissions and
stretching further our limited crude oil reserves. The heat
duties of a distillation process can be reduced signi® cantly
by designing an energy-ef® cient system. In addition, crude
oil distillation lends itself to heat recovery through process-
to-process heat exchange since it requires heat addition and
heat removal over a wide range of temperatures. Simply
increasing the energy-ef® ciency of the distillation column
gives smaller utility savings than if the energy-ef® ciency
is improved while also maximizing the potential for energy
recovery in the context of the process and the utility
system.
A typical crude oil distillation column consists of a main
tower with side-strippers. The crude oil fed to the distillation
tower generally comes from storage at ambient temperature
and is heated in a heat exchange network (preheat train) and
a furnace. In the preheat train, heat is transferred from hot
process streams to the crude oil feed, generally raising its
temperature to 270 to 2908 C. The pressurized crude oil is
heated further, using a furnace, to about 350 to 3708 C. This
temperature allows an appropriate amount of the feed to
vaporize at column pressure; however it should not be so
high as to incur excessive amounts of cracking in the
furnace.
The hot crude oil is fed to the lower part of a distillation
tower, the condenser of which is at approximately atmos-
pheric pressure. The feed is partially vaporized at the
column pressure and is further vaporized by the injection of
steam into the bottom of the column. The column, which
usually has 30 to 50 stages and four to eight products, serves
to separate the feed into products with relatively narrow
boiling ranges. The overhead condenser condenses the
stripping steam (as a separate phase) and any condensable
hydrocarbons; some of this stream is returned to the column
as re¯ ux and some is withdrawn as the top product. Liquid
side-streams are withdrawn from the column at various

335
336 LIEBMANN et al.
points and are stripped in side-strippers before being
removed as products. Stripping steam, reboiling or, less
commonly, vacuum, may be used to strip the liquid side-
streams; the volatile material is returned to the main
column. The stripping steam is at a low pressure; to prevent
it from condensing in the stripper, it is superheated.
The cooling requirements of the column consist of
product cooling before storage (to reduce the risk of
explosion), vapour condensation and intermediate cooling
in the column. Without intermediate cooling, the vapour
traf® c in the column would increase up the column; this
could lead to loading problems or would increase the cost of
the column. These intermediate coolers also enhance
control of the column and provide sources of heat at
higher temperatures than the top condenser.
It is complicated and costly to withdraw and condense an
intermediate vapour stream, so a common method of
providing intermediate cooling is to withdraw and cool a
liquid stream. The liquid may be withdrawn from a stage,
cooled and returned to just below the stage (this is known as
a `pump-back’ ) or may be withdrawn from a stage, cooled
and returned to a stage above in a pump-around loop. In both
cases, vapour condensation on the three to four stages below
the liquid return provides heat to the subcooled liquid. On
these stages, since no liquid is vaporized, no separation
takes place. The cooling duty of a pump-back scheme is
limited by the ® nite ¯ ow of liquid in the column.
1.2 Objectives of the New Design Procedure
A design procedure for a crude oil distillation system
should determine the distribution of stages in the column,
the optimum pump-around ¯ ows and duties and the
optimum ¯ ows of live steam for stripping and duties for
reboiling. This work develops a systematic procedure for
the design of crude oil distillation towers. We shall focus on
towers with side-strippers, since these are typically found in
the re® ning industry. The extension of the principles to
consider any sequence of columns is discussed brie¯ y at the
end of the paper.
The literature concerning the design and retro® t of crude
oil distillation systems is relatively scarce and mostly fairly
old. One of the reasons for its scarcity is that much of the
knowledge in this area is kept in-house by the big re® ning
and contracting companies. The literature is heuristic in
nature and often based on case studies. These shortcomings
arise because crude oil distillation is a highly complex
system, which is dif® cult to model and analyse.
Design procedures for the crude oil distillation system
were proposed by Nelson3 , Packie4 and Watkins5 . These
design procedures leave the design of the HEN and feed
preheat train until last, if they consider the HEN at all.
Packie4 and Watkins5 included correlations based on
empirical data to relate the number of stages, the re¯ ux
and the sharpness of separation in a column section.
Watkins5 also presented empirical correlations for the
amount of stripping steam to use.
The interactions between a crude oil distillation tower
and the HEN associated with it are signi® cant; therefore the
design of the column and the HEN should be considered in
the context of the available utilities. The heat exchanger
network includes the preheat train, furnace, reboilers and
stream strippers, condensers and product coolers. The
utilities typically used are hot ¯ ue gas (exhaust gases from
a ® red heater), steam at various pressures and temperatures
and cooling water or air. Various design modi® cations can
improve the separation ef® ciency of a distillation column;
i.e. they can reduce the utilities required to perform a
speci® ed separation in a ® xed number of stages. These
modi® cations often have an adverse effect on opportunities
for heat recovery in the process. The order in which
modi® cations should be considered is derived from an
analysis of the effect of the modi® cations on the heat
recovery potential.
2. CORNERSTONES OF THE NEW DESIGN
PROCEDURE
Four design principles will be presented and used to
develop the new design procedure. The ® rst of these is the
decomposition of a complex column into an equivalent
sequence of simple columns. The second and third are the
use of a reboiler, rather than stripping steam, and the
introduction of thermal coupling to improve the separation
ef® ciency. The last is the use of pinch technology to analyse
the impact of proposed modi® cations on the utility
requirements of the process. These four design principles
are presented below.
2.1 Decomposition of Complex Columns
A complex column can be decomposed into a sequence of
simple columns (Hengstebeck6 , Glinos and Malone7 ).
Figure 1 shows how a column with a side-stripper is
equivalent, in terms of its heat and material balances, to a
thermally-coupled indirect sequence of two columns.
Longer sequences are obtained for columns with more
side-strippers (Carlberg and Westerberg8 ). The focus here is
on the indirect sequence of columns since it is the
decomposition of a typical crude oil distillation tower.
Other complex arrangements can also be decomposed in an
analogous manner (Liebmann9 ), but are not commonly used
for crude oil distillation.
There are several advantages to using these decomposi-
tion techniques to model a crude oil distillation column.
Firstly, it is easier to understand simple columns than a
complex column, and the impact of design modi® cations is
more clearly observed. Secondly, it is easier to simulate a
sequence of simple columns than a complex column.
Thirdly, better design techniques and short-cut methods
exist for simple columns than for complex columns; these
techniques relate the number of stages, re¯ ux ratio, feed
stage location and product purity.
Figure 1. A column with a side-stripper is equivalent to an indirect
sequence of two columns.
Trans IChemE, Vol 76, Part A, March 1998
 INTEGRATED DESIGN OF A CONVENTIONAL CRUDE OIL DISTILLATION TOWER
Figure 2. Comparison of the vaporization achieved by steam stripping and a
steam-heated reboiler.
The equivalence between a complex column and a
sequence of simple columns works in both directions, so a
complex column may be decomposed to a sequence of
columns and any sequence of columns may be `merged’ to
form a complex column. Complex columns are traditionally
used for crude oil distillation, as they are generally more
cost-effective and require less space than a train of columns.
2.2 Alternative Vaporization Mechanisms: Steam
Stripping and Reboiling
Light components are removed from the liquid in a
stripper or side-stripper by vaporization. In a crude oil
distillation column, material is commonly vaporized using a
reboiler or by injecting live steam (steam stripping). The
fundamental principles of vaporization are quite different in
the two cases, so the choice of stripping medium has a
signi® cant impact on the utility requirements of the column.
In a steam-stripped column, superheated low-pressure
steam is used. At these conditions the steam stays in the
vapour phase. The presence of the steam reduces the partial
pressure of the hydrocarbons in the vapour phase and
therefore reduces the vaporization temperature of the
mixture (Gary and Handwerk10 ). Energy for vaporization
is obtained not from the steam, but from the liquid to be
vaporized. This results in an inverse temperature pro® le in
the stripper, where the liquid on the bottom stage is cooler
than the liquid on the stage above it, and the bottoms
product is below its boiling point.
Steam stripping changes the partial pressure of the
hydrocarbons in the mixture, as approximated by Dalton’ s
law:
NHC
pHC = pT (1)
NHC + NSt
Table 1. Summary of the effect of design modi® cations on heat recovery potential for an indirect sequence of columns.
Possible Modi® cation
Install reboiler
Introduce thermal coupling
Trans IChemE, Vol 76, Part A, March 1998
337
where NHC is the molar ¯ ow rate of hydrocarbons in the
vapour phase, NSt is the molar ¯ ow rate of steam (which is
assumed to be entirely in the vapour phase), pHC is the
partial pressure of the hydrocarbon mixture, and pT is the
total pressure of the system.
From equation (1) it can be seen that the effectiveness of
the steam in reducing the partial pressure of the hydro-
carbons diminishes as more steam is added to the column. In
a reboiler, on the other hand, the amount of crude oil
vaporized is roughly proportional to the reboiler duty.
Figure 2 compares the fraction of crude oil vaporized by
steam stripping and a steam-heated reboiler for a range of
steam ¯ ow rates, showing how steam stripping is only more
ef® cient than reboiling where a small fraction of the
material is required to vaporize.
Reboiling is generally more energy-ef® cient than steam
stripping, but its impact on heat recovery opportunities,
product quality and investment costs is also a factor. Since
the temperature of the heat source required is signi® cantly
higher when using a reboiler than when stripping steam is
used, this reduces heat recovery opportunities. The higher
product temperature has a positive side-effect for heat
recovery, since cooling of the product provides a larger heat
source. Table 1 summarizes the effects of using a reboiler,
rather than steam stripping, on the potential for heat
recovery. Furthermore, since there is less steam to condense
when using a reboiler rather than stripping steam, the
condenser duty is decreased.
When a reboiler is used, rather than stripping steam, a
smaller column may be required, since a reboiler results in
less vapour traf® c in the column; however a reboiler is more
costly to install. The product quality may be compromised
when a reboiler is used; more coke formation, cracking and
product decomposition may be incurred as a result of the
higher temperature at the bottom of the column.
Reboiling and steam stripping can be combined, for
example by using a steam-agitated reboiler. The relative
amounts of live steam and reboiling should be selected
according to heat recovery opportunities, utility costs,
column capacity constraints and investment costs.
2.3 Thermal Coupling
In thermally coupled columns, the ¯ ow of material from a
downstream column to an adjacent upstream column
provides some of the necessary heat transfer by direct
contact. Thermal coupling can reduce signi® cantly heat
duties in a sequence of columns (Tedder and Rudd11 , Glinos
and Malone12 ). However, there may be negative conse-
quences for heat recovery.
Figure 3 shows the temperature-enthalpy diagrams for the
indirect sequence of two columns with and without thermal
coupling8 . With thermal coupling, the liquid and vapour
Effect on heat recovery potential
Negative effect Reboiler (sink) T increases
Positive side-effect Product cooler (source) duty increases
Negative effect Condenser (source) T decreases
338
Figure 3. The temperature-enthalpy diagram for an indirect sequence of two columns. (a) No thermal coupling; (b) With thermal coupling; (c) With partial
thermal coupling.
traf® c in the rectifying section of column 2 is far greater
than without thermal coupling. This effectively increases
the re¯ ux ratio in this column section, leading to better
separation, and reduced reboiler and condenser duties
for the same product speci® cations, as indicated in Figure
3(b).
Figure 3(b) shows that the single condenser required by
the system requires cooling at the lower of the two
condenser temperatures of the uncoupled system. The
condenser represents a heat source; the lower temperature
of this heat source reduces heat recovery opportunities
between the condenser and other process streams. Thus,
thermal coupling reduces reboiler and condenser duties, but
decreases heat recovery opportunities and produces higher
internal ¯ ows in the downstream column.
Columns can be partially thermally coupled, as shown in
Figure 3(c). In this case, a condenser or cooler supplies part
of the re¯ ux for column 1, and a liquid side-stream from
column 2 provides the remainder. Partial thermal coupling
can increase the ef® ciency of the separation process, while
minimising the impact on heat recovery opportunities.
It is often taken for granted that thermal coupling saves
energy. However, although thermal coupling reduces
heating and cooling duties in the system, the degradation
in temperature levels and the associated loss of heat
recovery opportunities may lead to higher overall utility
costs, as noted in Table 1. The design procedure should
therefore start with uncoupled sequences of columns
(Smith13 ), and a maximum potential for heat recovery,
and then should investigate where thermal coupling is
bene® cial.
2.4 Pinch Analysis of Distillation Systems
In this work, pinch analysis is applied to the crude oil
distillation system in order to determine the minimum utility
requirements and to identify promising process modi® ca-
tions. The principles of pinch analysis are discussed brie¯ y
before their application to distillation is outlined.
LIEBMANN et al.
(i) Pinch analysis
Pinch analysis concerns the thermodynamic analysis and
design of heat and power systems (Linnhoff et al.14 ). Heat
can only be transferred from a hotter to a cooler substance;
pinch analysis involves grouping process streams that
require heating or cooling into temperature intervals,
where heat transfer is possible in each interval. By
maximising heat recovery (i.e. process-to-process heat
exchange), starting with the high temperature intervals,
external heating or cooling (`utility’) requirements can be
minimised. Thus a minimum (`target’ ) utility requirement
can be established for a given process.
Design techniques have been developed for heat
exchanger networks (HEN) which achieve these targets;
these techniques determine which streams should exchange
energy. The HEN capital costs can be estimated using
`capital cost targets’ , prior to the design of the HEN
(Townsend and Linnhoff15 ). Thus the HEN can be taken into
account during the design of the process as a whole, without
actually performing a detailed design of the HEN.
By grouping the streams requiring heating and cooling
into temperature intervals, the net heat de® cit or surplus in
each interval can be determined14 . The `grand composite
curve’ (GCC) plots the net heat ¯ ow leaving each
temperature internal on temperature-enthalpy axes and
identi® es heating and cooling requirements at different
temperature levels. At the temperature of the `pinch’ , there
is no heat ¯ ow from one interval to another. The pinch
determines how much energy it is possible to recover within
the process.
Where a number of different utilities are available, a
`utility pro® le’ (a temperature-enthalpy plot of heat
transferred by or to the utilities) may be used to determine
the relative amounts of the different utilities needed. Process
modi® cations which change the heating or cooling require-
ments of one or more streams will be re¯ ected by the GCC.
Moreover, bene® cial modi® cations to the process can be
inferred from the GCC and its relationship with the utility
pro® le: those modi® cations that increase opportunities for
Trans IChemE, Vol 76, Part A, March 1998
 INTEGRATED DESIGN OF A CONVENTIONAL CRUDE OIL DISTILLATION TOWER 339

Figure 4. The indirect sequence of columns studied in Section 4 (Design I-0). The GCC and utility pro® le of this process is given in Figure 5, using the data
presented in Tables 2 and 3. (LN: Light Naphtha, HN: Heavy Naphtha, LD: Light Distillate, HD: Heavy Distillate, RES: Residue).

heat recovery will give rise to energy savings, while those (Design I-0) will be discussed and the design procedure
that transfer energy across the pinch temperature or which applied to it. Figure 5 illustrates the concept of a GCC for
reduce heat recovery opportunities will increase utility this example; Table 2 presents the data required to construct
costs14 . the GCC. In principle, the column can be integrated with
any background process by including its temperature and
(ii) Pinch analysis of a crude oil distillation tower heat duty data in the GCC. Table 3 presents the temperatures
In this paper the concern is with designing a crude oil and costs of the available utilities, and shows the minimum
distillation tower which will operate cost-effectively, i.e. utility loads determined by pinch analysis. A minimum
using the cheapest mix of utilities to perform a given approach temperature of 108 C between streams exchanging
separation. The design procedures of Nelson3 and Watkins5 heat has been assumed throughout this work. The tempera-
suggest that the crude oil distillation tower should be ture axis against which the GCC is plotted takes this
designed ® rst, and the HEN designed afterwards. From the approach temperature into account, plotting streams to be
HEN design, some modi® cations to the column may be heated or cooled at 58 C below or above their actual
suggested, which leads to an iterative design process. This temperature, respectively.
method may not produce an optimal solution. The GCC shown in Figure 5 is a composite curve, so,
Instead, the column and HEN should be considered except for a few dominant streams, individual streams
simultaneously in the design of the process. Rigorous generally cannot be identi® ed. Saturated LP steam, both that
simulation of the column is required because of the to be superheated and used for steam stripping and that
complexity of the process, but pinch analysis allows the generated by heat exchange with hotter streams, is
minimum utility requirements and the HEN capital costs to represented by the long horizontal section of the GCC
be estimated without performing a rigorous design of the
HEN. By designing the column and performing pinch
analysis at the same time, the interactions between the
column and the HEN can be accommodated without
resorting to an iterative procedure.
The streams requiring heating (heat sinks) in a crude oil
distillation system include the feed to be heated, streams
vaporized in reboilers and steam for stripping. The heat
sources are streams requiring cooling, including products,
pump-around and pump-back streams and streams con-
densed in condensers. The temperatures at which each
stream is supplied (supply temperature) and to which it
should be heated or cooled (target temperature) and its
heating or cooling duties or heat capacity are used to
calculate the GCC. The supply and target temperatures of
the utilities and their unit costs are used to calculate the
minimum amount of each that is required by the process.
In the case study presented in Section 4, the indirect Figure 5. Grand composite curve (GCC) for the example to be studied
sequence of crude oil distillation columns shown in Figure 4 (Design I-0). Data for constructing the GCC is given in Tables 2 and 3.

Trans IChemE, Vol 76, Part A, March 1998

340 LIEBMANN et al.

Table 2. Supply and target temperatures, duties or enthalpy changes of 3.1 Starting Point of the Design
process streams and stripping steam (Design I-0). (i) Initial sequence of columns
Supply Temp Target Temp Duty D H
The design procedure starts with a sequence of columns.
Stream (8 C) (8 C) (MW) (MJ/kg) A typical crude oil distillation process uses a main tower
with side-strippers, which decomposes to the indirect
Light Naphtha (LN) 48 40 - 0.3 sequence of columns, as discussed in Section 2.1. The
Heavy Naphtha (HN) 100 40 - 1.8 indirect sequence is therefore the focus of this work.
Light Distillate (LD) 158 40 - 7.5 However, the method developed here has been extended to
Heavy Distillate (HD) 209 60 - 4.8
Residue (RES) 316 100 - 46.5 allow any given sequence of columns to be optimized9 .
Pump-around 1 261 201 - 22.0
Pump-around 2 205 145 - 14.3 (ii) Number of stages in each section
Pump-around 3 115 55 - 29.2
Condenser 76 48 - 56.7 The conventional approach to the design of crude oil
distillation columns de® nes the number of stages in each
Feed Preheat 16 140 41.4
140 370 101.3 column section from past experience and trial and error, as
Stripping steam 20 148 11.6 0.539 no reliable methods exist to allow the optimum distribution
148 148 45.6 2.120 of stages to be selected. By using a sequence of simple
148 260 5.1 0.239 columns, the number of stages in each column section may
be determined more speci® cally. Repeated simulation of a
simple column with a known feed, given product speci® ca-
near 1608 C. It is not shown in Figure 5 that ¯ ue gas is tions and a range of stages in the column reveals the
available up to the ¯ ame temperature (15108 C). minimum re¯ ux ratio and the relationship between the
Each modi® cation of the process is simulated using number of stages and the re¯ ux ratio.
commercial software and commercial or customized soft- It is well known that there is a trade-off between capital
ware can then be used to obtain the GCC. The separation and operating costs for a distillation column; the ratio of the
performance of the column is not compromised, as the re¯ ux ratio to the minimum re¯ ux ratio (R/ Rmin ) re¯ ects this
modi® cations are simulated for a ® xed set of product trade-off. All the columns in a particular sequence, with
speci® cations. The next proposed modi® cation can be similar energy costs and materials of construction, will be
analysed in the context of the process and available utilities. subject to similar cost trade-offs, and therefore a similar
The GCC is used to identify the role of a given stream in the R/ Rmin value would be appropriate for all of them. Given the
heat recovery scheme and thus to suggest modi® cations. It is relationship between the number of stages and re¯ ux ratio in
also used to assess the proposed modi® cations, since it each column, and assuming a total number of stages in the
allows us to evaluate the impact of degrading a heat source whole sequence, the number of separation stages in each
to a lower temperature or a heat sink to a higher column (i.e., including reboilers but not total condensers or
temperature. pump-around loops) can be selected such that the ratio
R/ Rmin is approximately the same in each column.
In the case studied here, the total number of stages is
3. A NEW CRUDE OIL DISTILLATION DESIGN assumed to be the same as in the base case design of
PROCEDURE Watkins5 . This assumption attempts to keep the capital costs
The four design principles that were presented in the of the base case and new designs approximately equal. The
previous section are used to derive a new procedure for the operating costs of the two designs can thus be compared, in
design of crude oil distillation towers. The objective of the spite of the lack of detailed capital cost data in the open
design procedure is to develop a practical, energy-ef® cient literature.
distillation system, producing the speci® ed products, with
investment costs which are similar to those obtained using (iii) Start with maximum potential for heat recovery
existing design procedures. The new procedure evolves the Using a reboiler, rather than steam stripping, and
design of a sequence of columns, rather than a complex introducing thermal coupling between columns can reduce
column, as discussed in Section 2.1 The four design signi® cantly heating and cooling duties in the sequence of
principles are used to make step-wise improvements to the columns. However, as discussed in the previous section, the
design of the sequence of columns, given a suitable starting improvement in separation ef® ciency of these modi® cations
point. Finally, the sequence of columns may be merged into also decreases heat recovery opportunities. The design
a complex column. procedure starts using only steam stripping and no thermal
coupling, since at this starting point there is maximum
Table 3. Supply and target temperatures, loads and costs of utilities (Design potential for heat recovery.
I-0).

Supply Temp Target Temp Load Cost (iv) Implement modi® cations that improve the separation
Utility (8 C) (8 C) (MW) ($/GJ) ef® ciency
At the starting point of the design, it is still possible to
Flue Gas 1510 150 44.6 3.1 reduce heating and cooling duties by using thermal coupling
HP Steam 211 211 0 3.0
MP Steam 185 185 0 2.5 and reboiling. Reboilers and thermal coupling will be
LP Steam 148 148 37.7 1.9 introduced in a systematic, step-by-step manner, taking into
Cooling water 20 40 60.4 0.19 account both the distillation process and the utility system,
to improve the separation ef® ciency. The objective is to

Trans IChemE, Vol 76, Part A, March 1998

 INTEGRATED DESIGN OF A CONVENTIONAL CRUDE OIL DISTILLATION TOWER
Table 4. Order of design modi® cations.
Order Possible design modi® cation Order of considering columns
1 Introduce reboiler 1, 2, ..., Last
2 Introduce thermal coupling Last, ..., 2, 1
achieve the required separation with a signi® cant reduction
in the utility requirements. Therefore changes should only
be introduced where they do not lead to a net increase in
utility costs.
3.2 Sequence of Design Changes
The proposed modi® cations affect the temperature and/or
duty of heating and cooling required by the process, as
summarized in Table 1. An order for their implementation
has not yet been suggested. Since crude oil distillation
operates entirely above the ambient temperature, heating
utilities are more expensive than cooling utilities, and hotter
heating utilities are more valuable than colder heating
utilities. To maximize savings in utility costs, it follows that
available heat sources in the system should be preserved at
the highest possible temperature level. Therefore:
(i) heat sinks should be satis® ed before heat sources are
used;
(ii) if positive side-effects are to be gained from a
modi® cation, those that increase heat sources are preferred
to those that decrease heat sinks;
(iii) heat sinks should be satis® ed from high to low
temperature; heat sources should be used from low to high
temperature.
These principles allow us to design an order in which
modi® cations should be considered.
Modi® cations that improve the separation ef® ciency of
the process are associated with reduced heat recovery
opportunities. Any side bene® ts of these modi® cations are
listed in Table 1. Table 4 ranks the order in which
modi® cations should be explored, according to points (i)
and (ii) above. Reboilers, which represent hotter heat
sinks than stripping steam, should be considered before
columns are thermally coupled, since thermal coupling
causes heat sources to be degraded to lower temperatures.
Where a modi® cation is applicable to more than one
column, the columns should be considered in the order
dictated by point (iii) above. Therefore reboilers should
beconsidered in order of decreasing temperature, and
Table 5. Summary of utility requirements and total utility costs for the design of Watkins5 and each step of the design evolution.
Design Watkins I-0
Flue gas duty 52.77 44.59
(MW)
LP steam duty 17.86 37.72
(MW)
Cooling water duty 51.20 60.40
(MW)
Total utility cost 6.55 7.00
(MM$/yr)
(% of base case) 100% 106.8%
Trans IChemE, Vol 76, Part A, March 1998
341
thermal coupling should be implemented in order of
increasing temperature.
The design procedure thus consists of choosing an
appropriate starting point for a sequence of columns.
Modi® cations are then implemented, where it is bene® cial
to do so, in the order derived from a thermodynamic
analysis of the modi® cations. In Section 4, a case study
illustrates the design procedure.
3.3 Merging of Sequence to a Complex Column
After all the possible design modi® cations of Table 4
have been explored, the sequence of columns is merged into
a single complex column. The number of stages in each
section of the simple columns gives the number of stages in
the corresponding section of the complex tower and in its
side-strippers.
4. CASE STUDY: INDIREC T SEQUENCE
This case study is based on an example of Watkins5 .
Details of the feed, product speci® cations and process
performance are given in the Appendix. The temperatures
and costs of the available utilities are given in Table 3.
The base case design5 is a column with 32 stages, a
condenser, 2 pump-around loops (from stage 13 to stage 12
and from stage 21 to stage 20), three side-strippers of four
stages each (drawing from stages 10, 18 and 24). The
column and the upper and lower side-strippers are steam
stripped, while the middle side-stripper is reboiled. The total
number of separation stages is 45: 32 in the main column, 12
in side-strippers plus the reboiler. The column produces ® ve
products, namely, light naphtha (LN), heavy naphtha (HN),
light distillate (LD), heavy distillate (HD) and residue
(RES). Equilibrium stages are assumed; the ® nal design
would need to compensate for stage inef® ciencies and the
poor separation below pump-around loop return stages
by using more stages. Table 5 summarizes the utility
requirements of the process.
The new design procedure uses the same feed and product
speci® cations as the base case in an indirect sequence of
simple columns. The initial sequence, design I-0, is shown
in Figure 4. The number of stages and the feed stage for each
column were chosen using short-cut methods, so that the
total number of separation stages in the column was 45 and
the ratio R/ Rmin was approximately equal in all columns, as
discussed in Section 3.1(iii). Thus design I-0 has the same
number of stages as the base case design, but these have
been better distributed in the sequence. The GCC for design
I-1 I-2 I-3 I-4 I-5
45.87 45.79 45.62 45.82 45.33
31.13 25.57 16.37 14.12 10.33
56.06 51.12 42.30 40.23 36.17
6.70 6.33 5.71 5.58 5.28
102.3% 96.6% 87.0% 85.2% 80.6%
342
I-0 is given in Figure 5; details of the ¯ ows and performance
of this design are given in the Appendix. In the initial
design, all columns are steam stripped and there is no
thermal coupling. This design has maximum heat recovery
potential. Not surprisingly, design I-0 is less ef® cient than
the design of Watkins5 , with 7% greater utility costs, as
shown in Table 5.
4.1 Installing Reboilers
The design is evolved according to Table 4. The ® rst step
involves installing reboilers, in order of decreasing
temperature. The ® rst column in the sequence has the
highest temperature, but a reboiler should not be added to
this column since it would raise the temperature of the
bottoms product to an unacceptable level, resulting in
coking, cracking and other quality problems.
Consider the second column in the sequence, the bottoms
product of which is the next hottest in the sequence. The
bottoms product temperature of column 2 is suf® ciently low
that a reboiler would not lead to unacceptable product
quality, so a reboiler could substitute stripping steam in this
column. However, simulation results showed that if a
reboiler completely replaces the stripping steam, in the
column, the bottoms product temperature increases from
2098 C to around 3208 C. At this temperature, no process heat
source is available for heating, so a hot utility would be
required to supply the duty; this would not result in an
overall reduction in utility costs.
The GCC in Figure 5 shows a heat source available within
the process at around 2608 C. The pump-around loop of
column 1 is such a heat source, and can provide heat to a
reboiler where the bottoms temperature is close to 2508 C. A
mixture of steam stripping and reboiling may be used such
that the total utility cost of the system is minimised. A few
simple simulations of the column using different combina-
tions of steam and reboiling showed that when using 2 MW
of reboiler duty, the bottoms temperature is approximately
2508 C. The stripping steam that is required is 63% of the
steam ¯ ow used previously (12 MW of LP steam, compared
to 19 MW with steam stripping only). The savings in
stripping steam compensate for the small increase (2.8%) in
the ¯ ue gas requirement. The reduction in stripping steam
decreases the condenser duty of columns 2 and 3, and leads
to savings in cold utility. This is design I-1, the GCC for
Figure 6. GCC for design I-1 (solid line), in which a steam-agitated reboiler has been added to column 2. The GCC for design I-0 (dashed line) is shown for
comparison.
LIEBMANN et al.
which is shown in Figure 6; the utility costs are summarized
in Table 5.
The next column to consider is column 3. The GCC of
design I-1 indicates available heat sources in the tempera-
ture range of 150 to 2408 C which could be used to heat a
reboiler. In order to use only process heat sources, and no
additional hot utilities, a combination of stripping and
reboiling is required for column 3. The mixture of steam and
reboiling is chosen so that there is no change in the ¯ ue gas
requirements of the process; that is, the reboiler duty causes
the GCC to just touch the utility pro® le. The reboiler duty is
5.6 MW and the stripping steam duty is 6.4 MW, compared
to 15.7 MW with no reboiler. The cooling utility is reduced
accordingly. The temperature of the column 3 bottoms
product increases from 159 to 2258 C. This gives design I-2,
the GCC of which is shown in Figure 7.
The last column to consider is column 4. In this case a
reboiler can be used on its own. The stripping steam (duty
13.3 MW) is completely substituted by 4.5 MW of reboiling.
As shown in Figure 8, the reboiler duty may be entirely
satis® ed by process heat sources. The steam savings are
again accompanied by cold utility savings. This is design
I-3.
4.2 Introducing Thermal Coupling
At this point, all the potential heat sinks in the process
have been reduced by increasing their temperatures as far as
is possible without increasing utility costs. In the next stage,
the temperatures of excess heat sources are decreased by
introducing thermal coupling. In the indirect sequence,
thermal coupling will move the heat source of the upstream
column to a lower temperature in the downstream column,
and can reduce the heating and cooling duties of the
columns. Thermal coupling is bene® cial if the lower
temperature of the heat source does not reduce heat
recovery opportunities. According to Table 4, thermal
coupling opportunities are explored starting with the lowest
temperature heat sources.
The ® rst columns to be investigated are columns 3 and 4.
The duty of the pump-around loop of column 3 (PA3) is
20 MW between 117 and 578 C. In Figure 8, the supply
temperature (TS) and target temperature (TT) of PA3 show
that this heat source is rejected to cooling water, suggesting
that the entire heat load could be shifted to the lower
Trans IChemE, Vol 76, Part A, March 1998
 INTEGRATED DESIGN OF A CONVENTIONAL CRUDE OIL DISTILLATION TOWER 343

Figure 7. GCC for design I-2 (solid line), in which an agitated reboiler has been added to column 3. The GCC for design I-1 is shown as a dashed line for
comparison.

temperature of the pump-around loop of column 4. As the
duty of PA3 is reduced, the temperature of this heat source
increases, and some of the heat becomes useful for heat
recovery. Complete thermal coupling of columns 3 and 4
would not be bene® cial, as heat recovery opportunities
would be lost. Various degrees of thermal coupling were
simulated and the effect on utility consumption assessed.
Partial thermal coupling gives the best savings in utility
when the heat duty of PA3 is 2.9 MW. This results in design
I-4, shown in Figure 9. Thermal coupling reduces by
2.2 MW the overall duty of columns 3 and 4, including the
column 4 reboiler; this increases the availability of heat
within the process.
The next pair of columns that might be thermally coupled
is columns 2 and 3. The heat source associated with the
column 2 pump-around loop (PA2) is available in the
temperature range 209 to 1498 C (mainly above the pinch
temperature, as shown in Figure 9) and may be used to
generate steam and heat cold process streams such as the
column 4 reboiler. The pump-around loop of column 3

Figure 8. GCC for design I-3 (solid line), in which a reboiler replaces steam stripping in column 4. The GCC for design I-2 is shown as a dashed line. PA3
(TS) and PA3 (TT) mark the supply and target temperatures, respectively, of the pump-around loop of column 3.

Figure 9. GCC for design I-4 (solid line), in which columns 3 and 4 are partially thermally coupled. The dashed line shows the GCC of design I-3.

Trans IChemE, Vol 76, Part A, March 1998

344
Figure 10. GCC for the ® nal design, I-5, in which columns 1 and 2 are partially thermally coupled. The dashed line shows the GCC of design I-4
operates between 151 and 918 C (entirely below the pinch, as
shown in Figure 9), so thermal coupling would move heat
(from the PA2 heat source) from above to below the pinch
and would not lead to utility savings. Thus columns 2 and 3
should not be thermally coupled. In general, if the GCC has
a process pinch, there will be at least one pair of columns for
which heat sources lie on either side of the pinch and
therefore when the pair is thermally coupled, utility costs do
not decrease.
The last columns to be investigated for thermal coupling
are columns 1 and 2. The pump-around loops of columns 1
and 2 operate between 261 and 2018 C and between 209 and
1408 C, respectively. Part of the heat source represented by
column 1 pump-around loop (PA1) operates in the same
temperature range as the column 2 (PA2) pump-around
loop. Therefore part of the PA1 duty can be transferred to
PA2, without compromising heat recovery opportunities, by
partial thermal coupling of columns 1 and 2. The thermal
coupling reduces the heating and cooling duty of the pair of
columns and decreases the overall utility requirements. The
pump-around duties of columns 1 and 2 are 21.9 and
13.9 MW, respectively, in design I-4 and 13.9 and 20.1 MW,
Figure 11. (a) Base case design of Watkins5 ; (b) Merged column from the ® nal stage of the new design procedure (design I-5).
LIEBMANN et al.
respectively, in design I-5. The ® nal design obtained is I-5,
the GCC for which is shown in Figure 10.
At this point the sequence of columns can be merged to
the complex column shown in Figure 11(b). The total
number of separation stages in column is 45, including 3
reboilers, 8 stages in side-strippers and 34 stages in the main
column. Since columns 2 and 3 of the indirect sequence are
not thermally coupled, no liquid ¯ ows from above stage 16
to below it, as represented by the solid line at stage 16 in
Figure 11(b).
4.3 Comparison of the New Design with the Base Case
Design
The base case design of Watkins5 and the ® nal design
derived from the indirect sequence of simple columns have
the same general con® guration, as shown in Figure 11. The
total number of stages in the two designs are equal, but the
distribution of the stages between the various sections of the
column is slightly different; another pump-around loop and
two more reboilers are required in the new design. Only
the operating costs of the two alternatives can be properly
Trans IChemE, Vol 76, Part A, March 1998
 INTEGRATED DESIGN OF A CONVENTIONAL CRUDE OIL DISTILLATION TOWER
Figure 12. Vapour ¯ ow rates in the main column for the base case design
(Watkins5 ) and design I-5, evolved using the new design procedure.
compared, given the lack of capital cost data available in
the open literature, but the operating costs would be
expected to dominate in a crude oil distillation tower10 .
Since the total number of stages are equal in the two
designs, it can be concluded that the improvements stem
from a better design and are not simply the result of using
additional stages.
The energy costs of the two designs are summarized in
Table 5. Signi® cant savings in ¯ ue gas (14%), LP steam
(42%) and cooling water (29%) lead to a reduction of nearly
20% in total utility costs. These savings result from
improved tray distribution and from optimizing the ® t of
the process with the utility system.
A second advantage of the new design is the reduced
vapour traf® c in the column, as shown in Figure 12. The
maximum vapour ¯ ow in the new design is 82% of the
maximum ¯ ow in the base case design. This reduced
vapour ¯ ow could be translated to capital savings if a
column of smaller diameter than the base case design were
used, or could allow the throughput of the column to
increase.
5. EXTENSION OF THE DESIGN PRINCIPLES TO
OTHER SEQUENCES OF COLUM NS
This paper is concerned with the integrated design of a
crude oil distillation column with side-strippers. This
column con® guration decomposes to an indirect sequence
of simple columns. This sequence is only one of the 14
feasible sequences which can separate a mixture into ® ve
products (King16 ). Any of these sequences can be merged
into a complex crude oil distillation column. Which
sequence is used may have a signi® cant impact on the
performance of the distillation system.
Some previous research has developed methods for
identifying the best heat-integrated sequence for a given
mixture of chemical components (e.g. Stephanopoulos
et al.17 ; Porter et al.18 , and Isla and Cerda19 ). However, to
the knowledge of the authors, continuous mixtures, such as
crude oil, have not been considered. It is noted that an
additional constraint applies where a sequence of columns is
to be merged to a single complex column, since large
Trans IChemE, Vol 76, Part A, March 1998
345
pressure differences between columns cannot be used to
promote heat integration. In the absence of methods of
identifying the optimum sequence, the best solution might
only be found by designing and comparing all column
sequences.
The design principles presented in Section 2 have been
extended for other sequences of columns9 . A column with a
side-stripper is equivalent, in terms of heat and mass
balances, to the indirect sequence of columns. By analogy,
a column with a side-recti® er is equivalent to two simple
columns in the direct sequence. While thermal coupling of
the indirect sequence of columns transfers cooling duty
from a higher to a lower temperature, thermal coupling of
the direct sequence of two columns transfers heat duty
from a lower to a higher temperature. As in the case of the
indirect sequence, the heating and cooling duties of the
process can be reduced by using a reboiler, rather than
steam stripping, and the thermal coupling of columns, but
these modi® cations will also usually reduce opportunities
for heat recovery. The design procedure can be extended
for any sequence of columns, since all sequences are
comprised of pairs of columns in either the direct or the
indirect sequence.
An analysis of the impact on heat recovery opportunities
of these modi® cations was presented in Section 2 for an
indirect sequence of columns. This analysis was used to
develop a design procedure that ensured the best heat
recovery opportunities at each stage of the design. A similar
analysis was performed for columns arranged in the direct
sequence9 . The combined analysis produced a design
procedure for sequences containing both indirect and
direct sub-sequences of columns.
Such a comprehensive design procedure allows alter-
native distillation sequences to be compared. In the absence
of adequate capital cost information, sequences with equal
numbers of separation stages, and therefore with similar
investment costs, can be meaningfully compared, and the
best sequence can be selected.
6. CONCLU SIONS
A new methodology has been presented for the design of
crude oil distillation systems. Instead of developing a design
around the complex column, which is typical of crude oil
distillation systems, the design uses a sequence of simple
columns. This allows optimal distribution of stages in the
complex column that is ® nally merged from the sequence of
columns.
Two methods of improving the separation ef® ciency of
the process have been considered: using reboilers, rather
than, or in conjunction with, steam stripping, and thermally
coupling columns in the sequence. Both of these methods
decrease the heating and cooling requirements of the
process, but both reduce heat recovery opportunities.
These modi® cations have been considered in the context
of the overall utility requirements of the process by using
pinch analysis. The procedure starts with the best heat
recovery potential and all modi® cations are considered in
the context of the HEN and available utilities. Thus, to
evolve the design, only modi® cations that lead to utility
savings are implemented.
The design procedure approaches the problem in a
systematic way, starting with maximum heat recovery
346 LIEBMANN et al.

opportunities and decreasing the utility requirements of the

process in such a way that heat recovery is compromised Light ends analysis
the least. This avoids iterating between the design of the Component Mass % of assay
crude oil tower and the design of the heat exchanger
network. The algorithm lends itself to automation of the C2 0.02
design procedure. C3 0.22
i-C4 0.18
A case study was developed and compared with the n-C4 0.60
textbook design of Watkins5 , which had the same number of Total 1.02%
stages and the same basic con® guration. Table 5 shows how
each successive step leads to an improvement in the design. s.g. (608 F/608 F): 0.5554.
The ® nal design offered nearly 20% savings in utility costs Mean molar mass: 58.477.
and a similar reduction in vapour ¯ ow rates in the column.
This demonstrates the power of the new design method. Product speci® cations:
In the case studied, an indirect sequence of columns was
considered. This sequence is equivalent to a complex tower
with side-strippers, such as is found in crude oil re® neries. Product Speci® cations
Although this paper focuses on the indirect sequence of
columns, corresponding to a distillation tower with side- Light Naphtha (LN) ASTM end-point: 1358 C
Heavy Naphtha ASTM end-point: 1938 C ASTM 5-95 gap: 14.0 8 C
strippers, the method is quite general. The method has Light Distillate (LD) ASTM end-point: 2938 C ASTM 5-95 gap: 19.5 8 C
been applied to a direct sequence of columns9 and was Heavy Distillate (HD) ASTM end-point: 3558 C ASTM 5-95 gap: 5.5 8 C
found to offer savings in utility costs over both the base Residue (RES) TBP cut-point: 3438 C
case design (24%) and the new design developed in this
work (5%).
The new design method considers crude oil distillation Base case design and new design stream ¯ ow rates and
towers, assuming that the column con® guration and the temperatures.
number of stages required in any section can be selected
freely. The principles have also been applied to existing Watkins (1979) New design (I-0)
columns, in retro® t situations9 , yielding substantial capacity
Flow (kg/s) or Temperature Temperature
improvements and/or energy savings. Stream duty (MW) or D T (8 C) Flow (kg/s) (8 C)
The design procedure has only been considered for the
crude oil distillation process, but could be extended for the Feed 159.3 370 159.3 370
distillation of chemical mixtures. Underlying the methodol- LN 18.6 49 17.45 48
HN 12.22 146 13.47 100
ogy is an assumption that hot utility is more valuable than LD 28.56 267 28.38 158
cold utility, which is appropriate to an above-ambient HD 13.93 260 13.86 209
process. Below-ambient processes lend themselves to a RES 85.99 309 86.44 316
similar approach. HN-steam 0.207 260 3.907 260
LD-steam 0 260 5.437 260
HD-steam 0.989 260 6.560 260
RES-steam 8.653 260 5.592 260
APPENDIX Lower PA 48.48 101 (D T)
Upper PA 42.47 97 (D T)
Example taken from Watkins5 . Crude oil assay of Tia LD reboiler 5.6 MW 257±267
Juana Light (Venezuela), run by Humble Oil and Re® ning
Company in 1969.
Feed properties: Base case design: Data for construction of grand composite
curve

Supply Target
Temp Temp Duty D H
True boiling point curve Stream (8 C) (8 C) (MW) (MJ/kg)
Liquid volume % Temp (8 C) Light Naphtha (LN) 49 40 - 0.4
Heavy Naphtha (HN) 146 40 - 3.0
0 -3 Light Distillate (LD) 267 40 - 15.6
5 63.5
10 101.7
Heavy Distillate (HD) 260 60 - 6.7
30 221.8
Residue (RES) 309 100 - 44.6
50 336.9
Condenser 103 49 - 64.7
70 462.9
Lower pump-around 252 151 - 12.6
90 680.4
Upper pump-around 172 75 - 9.8
95 787.2 Feed Preheat 16 140 41.4
100 894.0 Feed Vaporisation 140 370 101.3
LD Reboiler 258 267 5.6
Stripping steam 20 148 11.6 0.539
Feed density: s.g. (608 F/608 F): 0.8675; 148 148 45.6 2.1205
8 API: 31.6. 148 260 5.1 0.2386
Feed ¯ ow rate: 100 000 bbl/day =
159.3 kg/s.

Trans IChemE, Vol 76, Part A, March 1998

 INTEGRATED DESIGN OF A CONVENTIONAL CRUDE OIL DISTILLATION TOWER
Figure A1. The grand composite curve and utility pro® le for the base case
design (Watkins5 ).
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ADDRESS
Correspondence concerning this paper should be addressed to Dr M.
Jobson, Department of Process Integration, UMIST, PO Box 88,
Manchester M60 1QD, UK.
The manuscript was received 4 August 1997 and accepted for publication
after revision 9 February 1998.