The paper describes a project on crude oil corrosion which is aimed at a better understanding of the mechanisms of damage, for a more reliable and safe processing of aggressive oil blends with different properties: With the cooperation of the Working Group Refinery Corrosion of NACE International, Italy section, the authors collected and examined more than 150 papers dealing with naphthenic acid corrosion, and high temperature crude oil corrosion, which were used to prepare a data base. The knowledge of literature and the analysis of structure can be useful for predicting the behavior of crudes coming from new exploitation fields. The molecular structure and distribution of naphthenic compounds in crude oils were investigated with Atmospheric Pressure Chemical Ionization with Mass Spectrometry detection of positive ions (APCI-MS). An autoclave test methodology was developed with the aim of a better understanding of the relationship between corrosion and the fluid dynamic regime inside the test cell. Preliminary test results were compared with Computational Fluid Dynamic modeling of the situation inside the autoclave.
Key words: Crude oil corrosion, Naphthenic acids, Data Base, Refinery, Computational Fluid Dynamics, Molecular structure