الفهرس 
Chapter 1: IntroductionOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
In oil and gas sector, fractionation is a vital part of any plant because it is the most common and efficient method to separate various mixed component into commercial final product. Splitters are special type of fractionators which are used to split narrow boiling point mixed components (Ethane-Ethylene, Propane-Propylene …) into high purity products. Sometimes purity reaches up to 99.5%. Egyptian Propylene and Polypropylene Company (EPPC) located in Port Said city, Egypt is the first Egyptian company to make use of the propanepropylene splitter (C3 Splitter). Basically, propane feedstock is being fed to propane dehydrogenation plant (PDH) consisting of reaction section to convert propane partially into propylene beside some side products, also PDH consists of other downstream process equipment in order to extract the propane-propylene mixture out of the other side products. The extracted propane-propylene mixture is fed to C3 splitter where the propane and propylene are separated into high purity products. Usually the splitter is designed at specific feed composition and condition with a safety factor to compensate with any difficulties upstream, but due to less available information for such columns specially those which are operated by assistance of heat pumps, the operating conditions of reflux flow, heat pump discharge pressure and column top pressure remain fixed at whatever flow composition or condition. At EPPC, if the reaction section fails to produce the same selectivity and conversion ratios that were claimed to be in initial design of the plant, consequently the propane-propylene mixture composition upstream C3 splitter will change sharply from the design conditions resulting in actual utility consumption around 129% of design utility consumption. IX Initial investigation was carried out to determine the root causes of the increased utility consumption in the splitter system. Mechanical and process malfunction reasons were investigated in order to solve the plant bottleneck utility consumption. Design basis condition was simulated using Aspen HYSYS 8.6® to verify the vendor claims regarding the utility consumption according to the As-built process equipment data. Multiple feed composition scenarios were simulated also to determine the effect of changing the major parameters on system utility consumption and consequently the operating costs. Optimum operating conditions were found for each feed composition scenario. Criteria of choosing the optimum operating condition was presented to be applied in any other heat pump assisted splitter system worldwide.