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(2013) Question 62: What criteria are used to evaluate the performance of crude pre-heat train exchangers to support a decision to clean any portion?

It is essential to keep crude pre-heat exchangers clean. Cleaning benefits are hard to justify if they negatively affect crude rate. The criteria we use are crude hydraulic throughput, heater firing limits, fuel gas savings, desalter temperature efficiency, or crude or vacuum tower heat balance if you have needs in that area to remove heat.
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(2013) Question 31: What is the threshold concentration of arsenic and phosphorus requiring a dedicated trap system? How are the arsenic and phosphorus trap systems specified,and what are the controlling mechanisms?

Arsenic is a big concern because it is a permanent poison that causes fairly significant activity. We generally see around a 60° Floss per weight percent pickup; so, you will want to pay attention to it. As a side note, it is also common in most fractions of hydrotreating: so anything from naphtha to heavy gas oil.
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(2013) Question 32: What is a typical range of HDM (hydrodemetallization; metals removal) in a gas oil hydrotreater? Can HDM decline rapidly when metals in the feed become excessive relative to catalyst system design? Is there a point when metals in the feed are so high that they “overwhelm” the demet (demetallization) and main bed catalyst, resulting in lower percent of HDM?

Nickel and vanadium contamination generally come in heavy gas oils and resid hydrotreating. It is obviously not very common in diesels and light feeds. We see that it is about a 5°F to 9°F loss per weight percent combined pickup. The reason you will want to pay attention to these metals is because of their ability to actually diffuse onto the catalyst, so you will need a space to deposit them.
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(2013) Question 33: What is the philosophy or criteria for optimizing catalyst bed grading material to prevent high reactor pressure drop from feed containing significant amounts of Fe (iron)?

Certainly, identifying the sources of the iron coming in – whether organic, iron oxides, iron sulfides, or just scale from tanks – is very critical to understanding your best strategy for mitigating pressure drop. Ultimately, when you form iron sulfide, it creates deposits on the bed and coke deposition, and certainly leads to reduced catalyst life.
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(2013) Question 34: When processing cracked naphtha, what is done to ensure that polymerization of the diolefins/olefins will not result in pressure drop problems in a reactor or upstream equipment?

Again, we are trying to prevent the polymerization of the olefin/diolefin. The primary concern is trying to prevent contact with oxygen because that will ultimately lead to gum formation. So, the preference would be, if possible, to feed this hot to all the downstream units and avoid intermediate storage.
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