Instrumentation Diagrams Research Articles

A Computerized Operator Support System Prototype

A computerized operator support system (COSS) is proposed for use in nuclear power plants to assist control room operators in addressing time-critical plant upsets. A COSS is a collection of technologies to assist operators in monitoring overall plant performance and making timely, informed decisions on appropriate control actions for the projected plant condition. A prototype COSS was developed in order to demonstrate the concept and provide a test bed for further research. The prototype is based on four underlying elements consisting of a digital alarm system, computer-based procedures, piping and instrumentation diagram system representations, and a recommender module for mitigation actions. The initial version of the prototype is now operational at the Idaho National Laboratory using the Human System Simulation Laboratory.

A heuristic framework for inherent occupational health assessment in chemical process design

This paper presents a systematic heuristic framework to assist process designers and engineers in assessing inherent occupational health during process development and design. Different methods for inherent occupational health assessment are available and can be selected based on the availability of the most comprehensive data at the stage of the assessment. A more detailed and accurate assessment can be performed in the process and instrumentation diagrams (P&IDs) stage via the Occupational Health Index method (OHI) due to the availability of more precise data on the process (i.e., detailed piping, instruments and equipment). In the event of P&ID is not available, Health Quotient Index (HQI) method can be adopted to assess chronic inhalative health risk due to fugitive emission from process components (e.g., valve, flange, etc.) in the stage where process flow sheet diagrams (PFDs) are already generated. A qualitative health assessment can be conducted using the Inherent Occupational Health Index (IOHI) if the detailed information is still lacking because it only requires the data from process reaction chemistries and the properties of the chemical substances present. It is worth mentioning that the proposed framework acts as a guideline for design engineers in systematically selecting the appropriate index and methodology to assess inherent occupational health in process industry.

A Tool for the Simulation of Turbo-Machine Auxiliary Lubrication Plants

The reliability and safety of large turbo-machinery systems used in the oil and gas industries are heavily affected by the efficiency of the lubrication plant. In particular, hazard and operability (HAZOP) analyses are often performed using piping and instrumentation diagrams (PI according to regulations in force, ISO 14617). Usually, these analyses are time-consuming and affected by potentially dangerous errors. In this work, a tool for the mono-dimensional simulation of thermal hydraulic plants is presented and applied to the analysis of safety-relevant components of compressor and pumping units, such as the lubrication circuits. Compared to known commercial products, the proposed tool is optimised for fixed step solvers in order to make real-time (RT) integration easier. The proposed tool defines a general approach, and can be used as a SimScape-Simulink library of thermal-hydraulic components (designed according to the P&ID definitions). Another interesting feature of the tool is the automatic sche...

Automata generated test plans for fault diagnosis in sequential material- and energy-transfer operations

Hardware failures are inevitable random events that occur in the operation life of a batch chemical plant. Based on the piping and instrumentation diagram (P&ID) of the given process and the sequential function chart (SFC) of its normal operating procedure, a system automaton and the corresponding “diagnoser” can be built to identify all observable fault propagation traces and, also, their root cause(s). Since the fault origin(s) of a trace may not be unique, there is a need to develop a nonconventional means to further enhance diagnostic performance. For this purpose, a novel approach is proposed in this study to synthesize the test plan of every undiagnosable trace on the basis of discrete-event system (DES) theory. In particular, all components at the failure-induced initial states and the required control specifications are first modeled systematically with automata and, then, an optimal supervisor (test plan) can be assembled accordingly so as to achieve the operation goal of differentiating the fault origins as much as possible. This proposed strategy has been tested successfully in a series of examples and the results of selected case studies are reported in this paper.

Managing process chemicals, technology and equipment information for pilot plant based on Process Safety Management standard

Injuries, accidents or even fatalities while working in pilot plant are reported worldwide. The OSHA Laboratory Standard and Hazard Communication Standard have been used as a guideline to manage safety of laboratories and pilot plant. In spite of the implementation of these standards, incidents which result in injuries and property loss are continuously occurring. The implementation of OSHA Process Safety Management (PSM) Standard in pilot plant is expected to further reduce the risks of accidents. This paper presents a new system for managing process chemicals, technology and equipment information in pilot plant and the concept is developed based on Process Safety Information (PSI) element of PSM 29 CFR 1910.119(d). It provides organized strategies to manage documentations, communicate information, and written program for maintaining, revising and updating related information. Process and Instrumentation Diagram (P&ID) is used as a foundation for data management. Implementation of this system at the CO2 Hydrocarbon Absorption System pilot plant as a case study is examined and discussed.

DEVS 형식론 기반의 Dynamic Reliability Block Diagram과 GPU 가속 기술을 이용한 신뢰도 분석 방법

전통적으로 신뢰도 분석에 사용되는 Fault Tree Analysis의 경우 관련 분야의 전문가가 필요하고 작성자의 판단에 따라 신뢰도 분석 결과가 달라진다. 반면, Reliability Block Diagram의 경우 시스템 구성도나 Process Flow Diagram (PFD), Piping and Instrument Diagram (P&ID)을 기반으로 하기에 작성에 필요한 비용과 시간이 절감되는 장점이 있다. 본 논문에서는 Dynamic Reliability Block Diagram과 이산 사건 시뮬레이션에 널리 사용되는 DEVS 형식론을 이용하는 신뢰도 분석 방법을 제안한다. 또한 시스템 모델링 방법론 중 하나인 System Entity Structure/Model Base의 개념을 도입함으로써 다양한 설계 대안에 대한 신뢰도 분석 모델을 자동으로 생성할 수 있도록 하였다. 그리고 Reliability Block Diagram을 이용한 신뢰도 분석 시 오래 소요되는 계산 시간을 단축시키기 위해 GPU 가속 기술을 신뢰도 분석 시뮬레이션에 접목하였다. This paper adopts the system configuration to assess the reliability instead of making a fault tree (FT), which is a traditional method to analyze reliability of a certain system; this is the reliability block diagram (RBD) method. The RBD method is a graphical presentation of a system diagram connecting the subsystems of components according to their functions or reliability relationships. The equipment model for the reliability simulation is modeled based on the discrete event system specification (DEVS) formalism. In order to make various alternatives of target system, this paper also adopts the system entity structure (SES), an ontological framework that hierarchically represents the elements of a system and their relationships. To enhance the calculation time of reliability analysis, GPU-based accelerations are adopted to the reliability simulation.

Probabilistic Safety Assessment of Tehran research reactor based on a synergy between plant topology and hierarchical evolutions

Probabilistic Safety Assessment (PSA) is a powerful means in assessing risk and reliability of nuclear plants to complement the achievement of safe operation. A software has been developed in this study to perform failure and reliability analysis (in a PSA context), which are extremely important elements for improving plant operation and safety. This software introduces many advantages such as causal relationships, integrating the analysis tool with plant topology, using plant topology as the basis for explaining the relationships, dynamic navigation through plant model and highlighting fault propagation paths. In the software, plant topology plays the major role. It defines the relationships among plant components, systems and structures and provides the system configurations and causal relationships needed to perform reliability and risk analyses. These advantages are achieved via using some hierarchical evolutions with integrating plant topology (i.e., causal, Part-whole, and Topological hierarchies) and dynamic piping and instrumentation diagrams (DP&IDs). As a case study to verify the software efficiency, PSA of Tehran Research Reactor (TRR) at full power is performed with both the proposed software and System Analysis Programs for Hands-On Integrated Reliability Evaluation (SAPHIRE) (which is used as benchmark software in U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission), and good agreement was found.

Managing process safety information based on process safety management requirements

Many accidents in process industries have occurred because of employees did not recognize the hazards and risk associated with the activities they were undertaking such as when operating, changing, or maintaining processes, plants, and equipment. Recognizing these hazards and risk requires a company to develop and maintain a corporate memory through an effective management of process safety information (PSI). One of the established standards that addressed the above issue is PSI of Process Safety Management (PSM) 29 CFR 1910.119(d). This article presents a PSI implementation technique that could fulfill with 29 CFR 1910.119(d) requirements. It provides organized strategies to manage documentations, communicate information, and written program for maintaining, revising, and updating hazardous chemical, equipment, and technology information. Process and Instrumentation Diagram (P&ID) is used as a foundation for data management. The developed technique has been transformed to computer database prototype known as Process Safety Information Management System (PSI4MS), which articulately demonstrate the concept. Implementation of this technique could help employers manage and control hazards of process plant and compliance with PSM regulation. © 2013 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Process Saf Prog 33: 41–48, 2014

Computer aided estimation of fugitive emission rates and occupational air concentration in process design

European Union directives such as the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) require inclusion of safety, environmental and health analyses in process design as part of strategies towards achieving sustainable process development. In petrochemical and organic chemical industries, which mostly handle volatile compounds, the most significant contributor to atmospheric releases is fugitive emissions that are mainly contributed by piping fittings and components. Fugitive emissions are not only of economic and environmental concern, but also a major source of background inhalative exposure to workers that may lead to various diseases including cancer. More people die every year from occupational diseases as compared to the number killed in industrial accidents. Therefore the estimation of occupational air concentration due to fugitive emission needs to be done early when developing a new process. Several methods for fugitive emissions estimation have been introduced which mostly involve manual calculations. Computer-based tools for such purpose however, are still lacking. Besides, the current methods mainly focus on the emission rates only but not on the process air concentrations. Computer aided methods for fugitive emissions assessment are highly in need, since now most of the design work is done by using computer aided process engineering (CAPE) tools. Therefore in this paper computer aided methods for quantifying fugitive emission rates and occupational air concentration are presented. Three methods are proposed for early design stages based on data available from simple process flow diagrams (PFDs), detailed PFDs or piping and instrumentation diagrams (P&IDs). The method becomes more comprehensive as it progresses from simple PFDs to P&IDs, since more process data are available later, which include plot plan, coordinates of the emission sources and local wind speed. Users however, can choose which method to use depending on the process information available in hand. The methods are demonstrated in a case study of product distillation system of toluene hydrodealkylation.

유향그래프 분석기법을 이용한 화학공정의 신뢰도흐름도 개발에 관한 연구

Abstract - There are PFD(Process Flow Diagram) and P&ID(Piping and Instrument Diagram) for design-ing and managing chemical process efficiently. They provide the operation condition and equipment specifica-tions of chemical process, but they do not provide the reliability of chemical process. Therefore, in this study, Reliability Flow Diagram(RFD) which provide the cycle and time of preventive maintenance has been devel-oped using Directed Graph Analysis methodology. Directed Graph Analysis methodology is capable of assess-ing the reliability of chemical process. It models chemical process into Directed Graph with nodes and arcs and assesses the reliability of normal operation of chemical process by assessing Directed Graph sequential. In this paper, the chemical process reliability transition according to operation time was assessed. And then, Reliability Flow Diagram has been developed by inserting the result into P&ID. Like PFD and P&ID, Reliability Flow Diagram provide valuable and useful information for the design and management of chemical process.Key words : process flow diagram, piping and instrument diagram, reliability, reliability flow diagram, di-rected graph analysis methodology, directed graph

Startup of Pazflor Giant Offshore Angola Tackles Challenges From Two Reservoirs

This article, written by Editorial Manager Adam Wilson, contains highlights of paper OTC 23176, ’Startup of a Giant,’ by Arnaud Constant and Lionel Ramat, Total E&P Angola, prepared for the 2012 Offshore Technology Conference, Houston, 30 April- 3 May. The paper has not been peer reviewed. The Pazflor development includes four reservoirs in Block 17 deep offshore Angola, which produce to a floating production, storage, and offloading (FPSO) unit through one Oligocene subsea loop and three Miocene lines connected to subsea separation units (SSUs) and subsea pumps, with associated-gas and water-injection facilities (Fig. 1). The startup of the Pazflor field required a response to three simultaneous challenges—startup of a large complex facility; flow assurance for two different reservoirs and oil qualities, an Oligocene field with light oil and Miocene fields with heavy viscous oil; and operating innovative Miocene subsea facilities with gas/liquid separation on the seabed. Startup Preparation Manning and Training. Although most of the production personnel were already experienced with FPSO operations, specific attention was given to training and a local training center at the Total E&P Angola offices was maximized. One of Pazflor’s innovations was the design and use of an immersive training simulator (Fig. 2). This simulator was generated from construction of a 3D model and represents all the topside facilities with realistic rendering. In this 3D environment, operators move virtually through a simple interface, allowing for familiarization with their future facilities. Because all equipment is tagged, the operator can easily link his work documents, such as process flow diagrams and piping and instrumentation diagrams, to the actual FPSO environment before its completion or without actually being there. This simulator also can be used to simulate procedures execution, either individually or in a group, thanks to preloaded scenarios. Startup Milestones and Initial Planning. The precommissioning, commissioning, and startup activities were structured according to milestones defined in the early project stage by field operations teams and included in relevant project-packages contracts. This breakdown by startup milestones was taken into account by the commissioning team from the early onshore commissioning stage and was later used to prioritize offshore construction, commissioning, and startup activities during the offshore campaign. Eighteen startup milestones were considered initially, focusing on utilities, oil production, water injection, gas injection, and export systems and covering prestartup, startup, and normal- operations phases. The facilities were split into systems and subsystems, with a total of 669 subsystems, each linked to a specific startup milestone.

Fugitive emissions in chemical processes: The assessment and prevention based on inherent and add-on approaches

Fugitive emissions are among the major concerns of industrial process releases. The emissions cause problem to various aspects including the environment, health, and economic. Early evaluation of process hazards is beneficial because process can be made inherently benign at lower cost. This paper discusses two important aspects of fugitive emissions assessment during process design – the quantification and the prevention strategies.For the quantification part, three methods are presented for fugitive emissions estimation during the process design. They are tailored to data available in simple process flow diagram (PFD), detailed PFD, and piping & instrumentation diagram (PID). Such methods are needed as early emissions estimation allows production routes and process designs with lower emissions to be selected. The fugitive emissions estimation and methods to abatement are demonstrated on a benzene process case study. Valves are found to be the major emission source with 50% of fugitive emissions of process area in a base case of petrochemical process, in which no fugitive emission reductions are yet made. Pumps without mechanical seals come second with 30% and flanges with 8% of emissions. Inherently safer design keywords can be applied to prevent fugitive emissions in the process plants. Substitution is the most applicable keyword in fugitive emission reduction of existing plants.The emission rate calculations together with estimation of health risk give a sound background for the decision making on elimination of emissions at source through equipment and piping changes. The case study presented reveals that by substituting emission prone components by inherently low-leaking ones, the plant emissions can be reduced over 90% in practice. This is created mainly by replacing rising stem valves with ball valves, installing double mechanical pump seals or hermetic pumps and making changes in sampling and relief systems. Ideally by also changing flanges to welded connections, which is not viable for various reasons, the emissions could be reduced nearly to zero.

Knowledge Based Design of Piping and Instrumentation Diagrams

AbstractDer Designprozess des Rohrleitungs‐ und Instrumentierungsfließbildes (R&I‐Fließbild), das aufgrund seiner auftragsspezifischen Unikaterstellung einen enormen Aufwand und hohe Kosten für jedes Chemieanlagenprojekt bedeutet, bietet ein erhebliches Einsparungspotenzial innerhalb des Planungsprozesses chemischer Anlagen. Der Beitrag thematisiert die Verkürzung von Projektdurchlaufzeiten durch Beschleunigung der Entwicklungsphase von R&I‐Fließbildern. Es wird ein modulbasierter Ansatz zur Erstellung wissensbasierter R&I‐Fließbilder in der frühen Basic‐Engineering‐Phase vorgestellt und gezeigt, wie eine verfahrenstechnische Anlage systematisch aus vorgefertigten, flexiblen Planungseinheiten rechnergestützt zusammengesetzt werden kann.

Structural and Dynamic Studies of Amino Acids, Proteins and Nucleic Acids By Chemical-Hyperspectral Imaging, FT-IR/NIR, Vibro-Rotational Spectroscopy, Plasma, Microwave and Neutron Spectroscopy

AbstractA detailed review of structural and dynamic studies of amino acids, proteins and nucleic acids by spectroscopic techniques: microwaves, near infrared, UV, X-rays and neutrons, including also EXAFS, chemical-hyperspectral imaging and fluorescence correlation spectroscopy and FLIM, FRAP imaging with references, instrumentation diagrams and application examples for several related areas.

Signed directed graph based modeling and its validation from process knowledge and process data

Signed directed graph based modeling and its validation from process knowledge and process data This paper is concerned with the fusion of information from process data and process connectivity and its subsequent use in fault diagnosis and process hazard assessment. The Signed Directed Graph (SDG), as a graphical model for capturing process topology and connectivity to show the causal relationships between process variables by material and information paths, has been widely used in root cause and hazard propagation analysis. An SDG is usually built based on process knowledge as described by piping and instrumentation diagrams. This is a complex and experience-dependent task, and therefore the resulting SDG should be validated by process data before being used for analysis. This paper introduces two validation methods. One is based on cross-correlation analysis of process data with assumed time delays, while the other is based on transfer entropy, where the correlation coefficient between two variables or the information transfer from one variable to another can be computed to validate the corresponding paths in SDGs. In addition to this, the relationship captured by data-based methods should also be validated by process knowledge to confirm its causality. This knowledge can be realized by checking the reachability or the influence of one variable on another based on the corresponding SDG which is the basis of causality. A case study of an industrial process is presented to illustrate the application of the proposed methods.

Integrated Graph Transformations in Automation Systems

AbstractA crucial part of the automation system engineering consists of the reconciliation of engineering models. Hence, information from a source model is used to generate instances of a target model. For example, for each element in the plant and instrumentation diagram (P&ID) a corresponding representative is generated on the operator screen of the human machine interface (HMI). Most of those reconciliations follow simple rules. Nevertheless, due to the lack of tool support, most of this work is done manually. On the other hand, well studied transformation techniques exist, whichin the field of model driven development. The paper combines the concept of model transformation with the help of triple graph grammars (TGGs) and the approach of an integrated rule-based system to gain a formal background for the model transformation at runtime of an automation system. It will be demonstrated that TGGs are suitable to formulate the transformation rules in automation system engineering and that the rules can be generated by the system engineer without additional knowledge. Further, the paper proposes the adaption of the existing rule-based system ACPLT/RE to the concepts of bidirectional TGG rules to benefit from the possibilities of the TGG concept for model transformation at runtime. Finally the potential of model transformation at runtime with special focus on automation system engineering is demonstrated with the help of the flow analysis example.

Procedimiento de modelado ISA S88 para ejecución de órdenes de producción basadas en récipes

<span>Este documento propone y desarrolla un procedimiento organizado para realizar el modelado de la norma ISA S88, partes 1 y 2, en la ejecución de órdenes de producción basadas en récipes, aplicado a un caso de estudio. Dicho procedimiento proporciona pautas para editar los modelos físico y de control procedimental en las herramientas del software industrial, de manera que dicha edición se haga de una forma adecuada, precisa y organizada. Además, se incluyen pasos que permiten construir diagramas de tuberías e instrumentación (P&ID), de tal forma que tanto los modelos de proceso, físico y de control procedimental, establecidos en ISA S88, así como el diagrama P&ID sean diseñados con la misma información y sean coherentes entre sí.</span>

An automaton-based approach to evaluate and improve online diagnosis schemes for multi-failure scenarios in batch chemical processes

Online diagnosis has been considered as an important measure for improving operational safety in many batch chemical plants. Specifically, the state transition behaviors of all hardware items (components) in the given batch process and their failure mechanisms are modeled systematically with automata. The system model is then assembled by connecting the component models on the basis of a generic hierarchical structure. A “diagnoser” can be constructed accordingly for the purpose of determining various qualitative and quantitative performance indices. Guided by these indices, two performance enhancement approaches can be effectively applied: (1) installing additional sensors which are not included in the piping and instrumentation diagram (P&ID) and (2) executing extra operation steps which are not specified in the sequential function chart (SFC). Three examples are presented in this paper to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed approach.

Development of Pilot Plant for Bio-Ethanol Processing

The paper outlines achievements obtained in developing a pilot bio-ethanol plant at the Department of Chemical and Mining Engineering (CME), University of Dar es Salaam. The pilot plant consists of: 30 L inoculums tank; 1,700 L fermenter; 1,500 L/day distillation column; and ancillary equipment. The prototype is a platform intended to be used for technology demonstration and research by graduate and undergraduate students studying the production of bio-ethanol using traditional and non-traditional raw materials like coffee mash, cashew fruit, and sisal inulin. The equipment has been developed using locally available engineering resources and the distillation column with 18 sieve tray measures 0.5m diameter 7 m high operates at atmospheric pressure. The condenser is cooled by 15 o C chilled water from utility lines and the reboiler is powered by 63 kW boiler installed at CME. Although the system includes biological, chemical and mechanical engineering details, only the important design issues are presented. A MATLAB code was developed forestimating the number of theoretical plates using the Mc Cabe-Thiele method. The water- ethanol vapour liquid equilibrium VLE data was obtained using relative volatilities estimated by Antoine equations for vapour pressure. The process design was done using various simulation packages and custom programs like Microsoft Excel for mass balance,Microsoft Visio for process and instrumentation (P&I) diagram AutoCAD software for mechanical engineering drawings. After performing hydraulic leak tests, the prototype was tested using blackstrap molasses 80 o brix which was prepared for fermentation using ilution and inoculums formulations developed in Microsoft Excel for water dilution, yeastand nutrients like (NH 4 ) 2 SO 4, KH 2 PO 4, MgCl 2. A batch mash boiling test conducted on the column showed that the response of tray temperatures exhibited first-order delay behavior with an average lag of 17 minutes and a delay of 50 -65 minutes depending on tray distance from the reboiler. Due to lack of feedback control equipment specifically on-linecomposition analyzers and suitable actuators, continuous control of ethanol composition could not be undertaken. It is planned to procure pertinent control hardware during the next phase of the project. However the batch test gave initial ethanol purity of 80% which decreased as the ethanol content in the still was continuously depleted.

The integration of HAZOP expert system and piping and instrumentation diagrams

The main purpose of hazard and operability (HAZOP) analysis is to identify the potential hazards in the process design which nowadays is generally developed through a computer aided design (CAD) package. Due to the time and effort consuming nature of HAZOP, it is not done in every engineering firm for every design project. To make HAZOP an integral part of process design, an integration framework is proposed in this paper to seamlessly integrate the commercial process design package Smart Plant P&ID (SPPID, Intergraph) with one of the HAZOP expert systems (named as LDGHAZOP) developed by authors. This integration makes it possible to perform HAZOP analysis easily at anytime of the whole lifecycle of a chemical plant as long as the process design is available, which might help the improvement of design quality. One industrial case study is used to illustrate the ability of the integrated system.