Optimization of cracking process parameters, which determine the efficiency of the reaction volume, is the most important problem in creating industrial stages of thermal destruction of "native" petroleum residues - atmospheric and vacuum resids. A simplified approach to design of the reaction apparatus for refining such residues will result in large differences in these parameters during use and is due to insufficient information on the colloidal state of the feedstock mixture, kinetic characteristics of its conversion, and hydrodynamics of the material streams in the reaction volume.