Prediction of the ASTM and TBP distillation curves and specific gravity distribution curve for fuels and petroleum fluids

A predictive approach called the six‐point method is developed to construct distillation curves of different petroleum fluids based on the information of six points of the distillation curve at volume percentages (5, 10, 30, 50, 70, and 90). Indeed, six diverse mathematical equations are developed, which establish relationships between the six mentioned distillation temperatures and physical properties (SG and Tb) of petroleum fluids. Having predicted the six points, a third‐order polynomial curve can easily be fitted over these data. Accordingly, the six‐point method is well capable of predicting the distillation curve of both American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) D86 and true boiling point (TBP) data for any arbitrary petroleum fluid using only their physical properties. Two auxiliary relations are also presented to estimate the physical properties that may not be available for a petroleum fraction. These relations enable the model to receive pairs of (Mw,SG) and (Mw,Tb) as input parameters, instead of (SG,Tb). A useful transfer function is also developed to convert the TBP curve predicted by the six‐point method to the specific gravity distribution curve. Furthermore, a new set of experimental data obtained from the distillation test is also presented in this work. The experiment has been performed on the petroleum cuts resulting from the crude oil atmospheric distillation unit and Linear Alkyl Benzene (LAB) production unit. The model performance was carefully evaluated against a wide range of literature data as well as new experimental data provided in this study, and the mean of average absolute deviations (AAD%) values was 1.98% for about 233 samples, including 2039 data points. The prediction of distillation and specific gravity distribution curves for petroleum fluids using the six‐point method.