Study on the flare load estimation of the deethanizer using dynamic simulation

A flare system is a very important system that crucially affects on the process safety in chemical plants. If a flare system is designed too small, it cannot prevent catastrophic accidents of a chemical plant. On the other hand, if a flare system is designed too large, it will waste resources. Therefore, reasonable relief load estimation has been a crucial issue in the industry. American Petroleum Institute (API) suggests basic guidelines for relief load estimation, and a lot of engineering companies have developed their own relief load estimation methods that use an unbalanced heat and material method. However, these methods have to involve lots of conservative assumptions that lead to an overestimation of relief loads. In this study, the new design procedure for a flare system based on dynamic simulation was proposed in order to avoid the overestimation of relief loads. The relief load of a deethanizer process was tested to verify the performance of the proposed design procedure.