Modeling refractory concrete lining of fluid catalytic cracking units of oil refineries

This work presents a numerical modeling procedure to simulate the refractory concrete lining in fluid catalytic cracking units of oil refineries. The model includes the simulation of the anchors that reinforce the contact between the refractory concrete and the steel casing. For this purpose, the constitutive relations of an interface finite element are set to values that represent the homogenized behavior of the anchored interface. The parameters of this constitutive relation can be obtained by experimental tests. The model includes also multi-surface plasticity, in order to represent the behavior of the refractory concrete lining Since the complexity of real case applications leads to high computational costs, the models presented here were implemented in a high-performance parallelized finite element platform. A case study representing a riser similar to the ones used by the refinery industry demonstrates the potential of the model.