Abstract
A short-term schedule for crude oil operations in a refinery should define and sequence the activities in detail. Each activity involves both discrete-event and continuous variables. The combinatorial nature of the scheduling problem makes it difficult to solve. For such a scheduling problem, charging tanks are a type of critical resources. If the number of charging tanks is not sufficient, the scheduling problem is further complicated. This work conducts a study on the scheduling problem of crude oil operations without sufficient charging tanks. In this case, to make a refinery able to operate, a charging tank has to be in simultaneous charging and feeding to a distiller for some time, called simultaneously-charging-and-feeding (SCF) mode, leading to disturbance to the oil distillation in distillers. A hybrid Petri net model is developed to describe the behavior of the system. Then, a scheduling method is proposed to find a schedule such that the SCF mode is minimally used. It is computationally efficient. An industrial case study is given to demonstrate the obtained results.
Highlights
With the increasing importance of oil, the development of effective operations of an oil refinery has attracted wide attention
By following the scheduling method given by Proposition 8, the volumes of crude oil that should be transported from storage tanks to charging tanks for feeding distillers DS1, DS2, DS3, and DS4 are V 1 = μ × α1 = 15,504 tons, V 2 = μ × α2 = 14,496 tons, V 3 = μ × α3 = 30,000 tons and V 4 = μ × α4 = 19,200 tons, respectively
By following the scheduling method given by Proposition 8, the volumes of crude oil that should be transported from storage tanks to charging tanks for feeding distillers DS1, DS2, DS3, and DS4 are V1 = μ × α1 = 15,504 tons, V2 = μ × α2 = 14,496 tons, V3 = μ × α3 = 30,000 tons and
Summary
With the increasing importance of oil, the development of effective operations of an oil refinery has attracted wide attention. To reduce the computational complexity, this problem is studied in the viewpoint of control theory by extending the Petri net models applied in discrete manufacturing systems [16,17,18,19,20] By this approach, a two-level operational architecture for the short-term scheduling problem of crude oil operations is proposed to decompose the problem into two sub-problems [21,22,23,24]. A detailed operation schedule is provided, such as charging tank charging/discharging and oil transportation via a pipeline, to realize a refining schedule Based on this architecture, to ensure the feasibility of an obtained schedule, the dynamic behavior of crude oil operations is modeled by a hybrid Petri net (PN).
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
