A new generic reaction in the form of PCi -> PCm + [i, m] -> PCm+ lambda(i,m) coke+ surplusage has been proposed for describing the catalytic cracking behavior of petroleumnarrowcuts or pseudo- components (PCs), where the rate constant formula is derived fromthe transition state theory and the coking amount is correlated to the properties of the intermediate substance [i, m]. In composing the cracking reaction network for feedstock and product oils, only the product PCm of the proposed generic reaction is used, which together with a criterion for excluding exothermic reactions, distinctly reduces the number of reactions in the network. With the proposed cracking reaction scheme coupled with special pseudo- components, a predictive one- dimensional steady state model for fluid catalytic cracking risers is formulated in the sense that for a given riser and given catalyst, the model parameters are independent of stock oils, product schemes and other operational conditions. The great correlating and predicting capability of the resulted model is tested with production data in different scenarios of four commercial risers. (C) 2017 The Chemical Industry and Engineering Society of China, and Chemical Industry Press. All rights reserved.