ASSESSMENT OF AVAILABILITY OF A FLUID CATALYTIC CRACKING UNIT THROUGHSIMULATION

This paper presents a systematic approach to estimate the availability of process plants. The study includes a live problem at a Fluid Catal ytic Cracking Unit (FCCU) of a refinery requiring high levels of avail ability for cost-effective operation. The system is modelled as a faul t tree which is often used in the analysis of chemical process industr ies. A numerical evaluation of the fault tree assesses the characertis tic safety parameters such as reliability and availability of the syst em. However, for large and complex systems, such analysis will normall y require enormous computational effort, involving the breakdown of th e fault tree into minimal cut sets. An alternative approach is to simu late the system using the Monte Carlo method. This paper presents an a vailability analysis of the Reactor/Regenerator system of the Fluid Ca talytic Cracking Unit using the Monte Carlo simulation. The results of the simulation are validated by a comparison with the actual system. The method promises to be a useful tool for assessing the availability of complex systems with alternative configurations.