Yield estimation and operational parameter evaluation of three crude oils using aspen HYSYS simulation-based

Yield estimation significantly contributes to oil refineries, especially for the newcomer crude oil, and concurrently diminishes the sole dependency on laboratory analysis. Implementing simulation modelling, Aspen HYSYS, for designing distillation unit operations has improved yield prediction. This paper aims to simulate a distillation column using Aspen HYSYS V14 software to estimate the yield of crude oil without specification of product flowrate. Three crude oils from the actual refinery data were applied and compared in understanding the factors affecting yield flowrate and column temperature profiles, such as the crude oil feed flowrate, bottom steam flowrate, and column pressure (top and bottom). The developed model has successfully predicted the yield of crude oil with a comparable error, demonstrating a minimum temperature profile error ranging from 0.07% to 1.04% (except for the bottom column), and deviations of 1.60% to 20.48% for flowrate across three samples. The parameter evaluation found that a higher bottom steam flowrate would reduce the light and medium products by 2% and increase the heavy products by approximately 5%. A higher pressure of the top column significantly affects flowrate of kerosene by the increment of ~ 2.45%, while the increase of bottom pressure slightly reduces the products flowrate, especially, for the heavier range.