Processing, June 2020
PROCESS CONTROL AUTOMATION Advanced technologies i m p r o v e r e f i n i n g a n d o t h e r p r o c e s s e s Arti cial intelligence machine learning data science and other advanced technologies can be used to predict problems before they interrupt production By Dr Tetsuya Otani Yokogawa Electric Corporation rtificial intelligence AI machine learning ML data science and other advanced technologies have made remarkable progress in recent years saving A time and providing new insights in a variety of applications These technologies are particularly e ective when used to automatically discover problems by examining the vast amounts of data collected and stored in a typical process plant One of the main goals for any process manufacturer is avoiding costly downtime due to unplanned shutdowns In petroleum re ning and petrochemical facilities in particular it is also important to minimize energy consumption for separation and other processes Other leading goals are maintaining product quality and throughput Different issues can hinder progress in reaching these goals Equipment problems require identifying root causes leading to failures and deterioration along with failure predictions Quality problems require investigating conditions leading to o spec product which can often be accomplished by visualizing various quality parameters in real time In this article these and other process manufacturing problems are examined along with solutions relying on the intelligent application of advanced technologies Predicting rotating equipment problems Production facilities in the petroleum re ning and petrochemical industries are systematically maintained by periodic repair However especially with rotating equipment such as compressors and pumps abrasion and deterioration of parts often occurs more quickly than expected due to di erences in raw materials and environmental conditions Predicting these types of problems and taking countermeasures can prevent costly unplanned shutdowns and reactive repair work 14 Processing JUNE 2020 Image credit ID 1163542004 loveguli Dreamstime com
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