Oil Refinery Structures 1

The refinery’s first job is to remove water and salt from the crude oil. These contaminants are of no use to the refinery. Raw crude oil is pumped from storage tanks to the desalting tank where the process takes place. Salt is dissolved in the water in the crude oil, not in the crude oil itself and since water does not mix with crude oil the process is fairly simple to perform. Model Structures Desalting tank is 9 inches long and 2 ½ inches in diameter. There is a single inlet pipe for crude oil and a duel outlet piping system for desalted crude to use as feedstock for the crude oil furnace. A smaller pipe exiting the bottom of the tank carries waste water (brine) to be disposed of.

The various components of crude oil have different sizes, weights and boiling temperatures; so, the first step is to separate these components. Because they have different boiling temperatures, they can be separated easily by a process called fractional distillation. An Atmospheric distillation tower distills crude oil into fractions. The collected liquid fractions may either pass to condensers, which cool them further, and then go to storage tanks or go to other areas for further chemical processing. There are usually heavy residue left over after atmospheric distillation. These residues are sent to a Vacuum distillation tower which further distills the 'residual bottoms' for more product. Smaller Distillation towers are also located after hydrocracking or treatment units to further refine product before being sent on to storage. Model Structures offers three distillation tower models. Please note that pipe diameters have changed. All towers now use the larger 1/4 OD piping in all locations. The largest is the Vacuum Distillation tower standing 19” tall with a 2” diameter. The overall footprint due to the base is about 4 x 4 “. The tower has one outlet pipe at the top which collects the lightest product from the distillation process and two pipes for intermediate weight product. In the middle is an Atmospheric tower measuring 16 ½ inches tall and 1 ½ diameter with two outlet pipes. The smallest tower measures 14 inches x 1 ¼ inch diameter and has one outlet pipe. All towers have one inlet pipe at ground level.The standard design has all piping ending at the bottom of the tower.

Custom routing of piping is available for multiple product purchase. 
    

The pipe  transfer line has two levels of piping (4 rows of pipes on the top level and 3 rows of pipes on the lower level). All pipe rows are controlled with gate valves. At the back end the pipes are diverted to ground level while at the front all pipes are attached to ground level common pipe run. In the standard configuration this pipe run is diverted into the ground at both ends. Attached to the pipe stand is a maintenance platform allowing access to the top level and the control valves located there. The piping complex footprint is approximately 10 x 9 x 7(H) inches.

Spherical Storage Tanks are primarily used to house petroleum / chemical products stored under pressure such as Benzene, Ammonia, Liquid Propane, Liquid Oxygen or Nitrogen. Shown above is the O Scale double tank option. A single tank option is also available. Each O Scale tank measures 5 inches in diameter. The overall footprint for the double tank version is 19 inches wide x 9 inches deep (including stairs) with a 7 inch height. The single unit tank structure is about 10 inches wide. The tanks are available in different colors. Standard color for the tank complex is light gray with dark gray stairways. Other color options are dark gray, white or black with appropriate color stairways.