CorrExpert®-Crude: Corrosion Prediction and Material Selection for Refinery Crude Corrosivity Applications

CorrExpert®-Crude: Corrosion Prediction and Material Selection for Refinery Crude Corrosivity Applications

State-of-the-art Cloud-based Decision Support Model drives enhanced crude processing flexibility and unit mechanical integrity through accurate, simultaneous quantification of naphthenic acid and sulfidic corrosion

Refinery Crude Unit operations, characterized by significant process complexities and crude blend / fraction assay properties, have traditionally remained an area where accurate asset integrity and life prediction have been difficult to achieve. Such difficulty stems from the need to characterize and correlate corrosion across widely varying unit operating scenarios and process conditions; quantifying corrosion has thus become a key factor in ensuring asset integrity, and absence of appropriate corrosion management strategies has often been the cause of some of the most destructive and expensive corrosion failures.

Changing feedstock and process chemistry, coupled with the need to constantly meet demanding production targets, exacerbate the challenges with understanding and managing corrosion, a phenomenon defined at the intersection of process phase behavior and thermodynamics, multiphase fluid dynamics, and metallurgy. One of the primary impediments to overcoming this complexity has been the absence of quantified corrosion data that can be correlated to unit operating / process conditions.

Naphthenic acid and sulfidic corrosion in refinery crude unit operations have often led to conservative decision making in terms of crude selection, crude processing, and unit metallurgy specifications. Additionally, the refining industry has constantly sought, for reasons of improved economics and ROI, to move in the direction of processing heavier, high sulfur, high acid opportunity crudes. Such a directional shift has been a consequence of depleting reserves and declining sweet crudes. Processing of low-cost opportunity crudes available in the market has become imperative to improving refining margin.

Based on decades of fundamental crude parametric analyses and corrosion research as well as extensive experimental simulation and data, Becht has developed the industry’s first ever simultaneous naphthenic acid and sulfidic corrosion prediction and analysis framework, CorrExpert®-Crude, which is foundational to quantifying naphthenic acid and sulfidic corrosion correlated with unit process data and operating data. The model seamlessly correlates unit process/operating data with unit metallurgy as a means to predict metal loss rates and remaining life for CDU/VDU piping exposed to hot oil conditions.

This cloud-based application enables realization of the business need to work with opportunity crudes without risking corrosion damage to CDU/VDU equipment. Leveraging crude assay data and information available through process historian, the framework can also facilitate enforcement of appropriate dynamic (not fixed) Integrity Operating Windows (IOWs) through utilization of corrosion rate as an IOW parameter alongside other key operating variables, such as TAN, sulfur, and temperature. The system’s ability to seamlessly collaborate with other cloud-based process and refinery applications has important implications for the creation of a true digital twin, integrating real-time operating data and automated predictive analytics as a means to achieve crude processing flexibility, improved reliability and enhanced profitability.

CorrExpert-Crude provides an intuitive, browser-based user interface (Figure 1) designed to quickly capture relevant user inputs to predict/quantify corrosion rates for various metallurgies typically utilized in CDU/VDU unit operations.
Have a question regarding CorrExpert®-Crude?  Reach out to a Becht expert regarding your future plans by clicking below.

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Figure 1: CorrExpert-Crude User Interface

Based on the user data for the process environment and piping systems, CorrExpert-Crude will predict corrosion rates and offer a number of corrosivity-related insights, including:

  • Comparison of corrosion rates for commonly used materials of construction and with API 581 (Figure 2)
  • The ability to track cumulative metal loss, instantaneous corrosion rate on a time scale as well as the average corrosion rate (Figure 3)
  • Quantification of batch crude operations over time to assess optimal sequencing of crude blends and the ability to incorporate the effect of any FeS barrier layer protection on subsequent crudes (Figure 4)

 

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Figure 2: CorrExpert-Crude Corrosion Rate View

 

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Figure 3: CorrExpert-Crude Corrosion Analyses Results

 

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Figure 4: Batch Crude Operations Through Optimized Crude Sequencing

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About The Author

Mr. Srinivasan is a globally recognized corrosion / reliability expert and modeling technology consultant with over 30 years of experience in delivering industry-leading predictive analytic modeling software and monitoring sensors for corrosion asset integrity and risk management. Mr. Srinivasan has applied his extensive knowledge to a range of problems related to corrosion, metallurgy and modeling, generating innovative engineering solutions to complex problems related to oil, gas and refinery corrosion mechanisms and unit operations. Mr. Srinivasan also functions as a Corrosion SME with deep expertise in refinery process corrosion as well as training and implementation related to industry best practices related to Integrity Operating Windows (API RP 584) and Corrosion Control Documents (API RP 970). Over the last 21 years, functioning as the leader of Honeywell-led Joint Industry Consortia Programs (JIP), Mr. Srinivasan worked with leading, global operating companies to develop corrosion data and prediction models related to crude oil corrosivity, alkaline sour water (NH4HS) corrosion, crude unit overhead corrosion as well for multiphase sour oil/gas production, HPHT wells and safe use limits for carbon and stainless steels. He is the solution architect for the Predict® suite of refining applications widely utilized by global operators, including models for naphthenic acid / sulfidic corrosion and rich / lean amine corrosion. His recent efforts focused on enhancing process safety through application of real time models integrated with process historians won him an international innovation award from Hydrocarbon Processing. Mr. Srinivasan has also functioned as the Program Manager for a key corrosion modeling effort for International Space Station (ISS) for Boeing/NASA, where he developed a customized phase behavior and speciation model for the ISS. As a leading industry consultant, Mr. Srinivasan has worked with a global base of customers in modeling corrosion, quantifying corrosion mechanisms as well as delivering digitalized solutions for asset and mechanical integrity. Mr. Srinivasan’s has been active in NACE unit committees (STG08, STG 34, STG 62) as well as NPRA and AFPM. He functioned as the chair of NACE STG 62 (Corrosion Monitoring and Measurement, 2016-2020) and is currently the chair of the NACE Task Group on Smart Sensors for Corrosion Monitoring (TEG-100x). Mr. Srinivasan has also served as a member of the Board of Directors at AFPM (2016-2019). He has authored chapters in the Uhlig Handbook as well as ASM Handbook on Corrosion and Cracking. He is widely published and has 100 plus conference and journal papers, technical articles and book chapters in the areas of corrosion, modeling, material selection and predictive analytics. Mr. Srinivasan worked for about 23 years at Honeywell International, Inc., initially leading the development of corrosion and material selection models and later as business leader for Honeywell’s Corrosion Center of Excellence (COE). He also spent eight years early in his career working for Cortest Labs, generating experimental materials / corrosion data as well as building materials and corrosion databases and models for oil/gas applications. Mr. Srinivasan received his BS in Mechanical Engineering from Bangalore University and an MS in Mechanical Engineering from The University of Houston. He has also achieved Six Sigma Green Belt Certification. Mr. Srinivasan is based in Houston, Texas.

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CorrExpert®-Crude: Corrosion Prediction and Material Selection for Refinery Crude Corrosivity Applications

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