Repost of an OTS Tip: Internal Phases Free Water

OTS Tip: Internal Phases Free Water

Guest Blogger: Kalpana Garigipati, Senior Consultant -EECOTS, Invensys Operations Management

This Tip is about “Speed improvement and better Flash stability in models where FREE_WATER internal phases are used”


When using the "FREE-WATER" internal phases option in the Thermo tab, it is advisable to check if the water mole fraction is greater than 0.0000003. Free Water flash performs better if the hydrocarbon liquid phase has a nonzero water mole fraction even if the water mole fraction is extremely small (e.g. 0.0000003 mole frac). In the real world, it is unlikely the water mole fraction is exactly zero. If water is in the component slate but exactly zero, the Free Water flash sometimes exhibits erratic behavior.

If using "FREE-WATER" internal phases in your model and there is no water in some parts of it, then a small amount of water can be added safely in sources and you should see a speed improvement (simspd) in the model.

Guest Blogger: Kalpana Garigipati, Senior Consultant -EECOTS, Invensys Operations Management

About Operator Training: Invensys offers a computer-based training method, Operator Training Simulators (OTS), to help give operators the skills they need to run a process or plant. Refineries and other plants are being forced to rely on inexperienced operators due to the aging workforce. Undertrained employees reduce performance and profitability in a refinery and may also risk the safety of other employees. The aging workforce is moving closer to the age of retirement, making it imperative to train younger, less experienced employees. Invensys offers an Operator Training System to aid refineries in educating inexperienced operators, who will soon be relied upon to operate the refinery and perform operational excellence.

Operators learn the ins and outs of a refinery in this virtual control room. DYNSIM is a model that controls the plant response. Trainees learn how to react appropriately when a similar situation occurs in the actual plant. DYNSIM Checkout is the first process dynamic simulation product designed specifically for control checkout. This solution can validate control system design before it is installed in the plant which eliminates many problems that occur during startup.

Technical Support: As always, feel free to reach out to your local technical support team for more information.

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Quick Poll - Are you planning on coming to the SimSci user meeting in Dallas, TX? October 15-17, 2013

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From RefinerLink.com: 10 Steps for Refinery Startup Readiness (By Steve Pagani)

This is a very good article, and I believe illustrate the importance of OTS at a refinery. 

"The most critical and dangerous aspect of refinery operations is unit startup. Safe and seamless unit startup requires all refinery disciplines to work cooperatively.
" Read the full article here

Many of his points can be directly assisted with an Operator Training Simulator (OTS). 

For instance, the following points can all be address with an OTS:

1. People readiness
2. Process readiness
3. Knowing your place
4. Understanding the procedures
5. Understanding process interactions

I am sure there are more, and I would like to hear your opinion. How does an OTS assist in startup?

About Operator Training: Invensys offers a computer-based training method, Operator Training Simulators (OTS), to help give operators the skills they need to run a process or plant. Refineries and other plants are being forced to rely on inexperienced operators due to the aging workforce. Undertrained employees reduce performance and profitability in a refinery and may also risk the safety of other employees. The aging workforce is moving closer to the age of retirement, making it imperative to train younger, less experienced employees. Invensys offers an Operator Training System to aid refineries in educating inexperienced operators, who will soon be relied upon to operate the refinery and perform operational excellence.

Operators learn the ins and outs of a refinery in this virtual control room. DYNSIM is a model that controls the plant response. Trainees learn how to react appropriately when a similar situation occurs in the actual plant. DYNSIM Checkout is the first process dynamic simulation product designed specifically for control checkout. This solution can validate control system design before it is installed in the plant which eliminates many problems that occur during startup.

Technical Support: As always, feel free to reach out to your local technical support team for more information.

Read More

Are you operating as sub-optimal conditions

The global economy and regional regulations are placing greater economic pressures on refiners in the form of increased pricing pressure that affect profitability and require enhanced performance to allow the plant to remain profitable. Additionally, regulatory compliance and adherence to increasing stringent safety standards can adversely affect a refinery’s bottom line. Decreased margin from increased competition is forcing refiners to evaluate means to run more profitably. Refineries have been implementing profit generating activities for years, but the key is implementation and sustainability of a full-scale optimization program.

THE INVENSYS SOLUTION:

Invensys provides several optimization solutions. Invensys has extended its best-in-class solutions under SimSci for refinery optimization through integration of various individual products and applications designed to capture all areas of profit opportunity by providing the best optimization and regulatory compliance solutions for a refinery. These new solutions take SimSci’s leadership in refining optimization to a higher level. The various solutions allow the refinery to choose the level of optimization that is appropriate for their current situation.

Off-sites:  Tank farms make up a large portion of a refining complex. Increased automation and operational performance reduces the cost of terminal operations, while at the same time improving safety compliance and business performance. Invensys Off-sites solutions have been in use in terminal and refinery sites globally for over 25 years, serving all of the major oil companies.

Process Optimization:  ROMeo is the standard for process optimization in refining and can be used for either performance monitoring or process optimization.  During performance monitoring, ROMeo trends the performance of equipment to identify problems and pinpoint equipment operational issues. An example would be the performance monitoring of a crude pre-heat train to monitor exchanger fouling and running case-studies to view which heat exchanger would impact profitability the most when cleaned.   During process optimization, ROMeo automatically imports process data, reconciles that data, and optimizes the process within a set of operational bounds. One example would be to minimize the usage of hydrogen when upgrading heavier crude oil. In this example, ROMeo would be used to monitor hydrogen usage and minimize its consumption by altering the flow and conditions (temperature and pressure) of the various feedstocks.

Integrating ROMeo with Planning, Scheduling and Off-sites:  Refiners can now leverage blend operations and optimization practices to improve efficiency and profitability across the entire refinery. Crude blend data available from off-sites blending operations can be used as input to process optimization software. Product properties that are calculated by process optimization software can then be used in off-sites product blending operations.

Visualization:  Wonderware Intelligence provides the visualization technology that allows operators key performance indicator (KPI) visibility and monitoring through interactive dashboards in near real-time.  This provides key information in desired context across Invensys and non-Invensys sources of operations data to achieve on the spot operational decision-making.

Automation:  ArchestrA Workflow is powerful business process management software, a) helping enforce consistent policy and procedural execution from plant automation to Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), b) enabling a reduction in process and response latency c) and providing the open framework to support the necessary governance, including notifications, escalations and approvals of all stakeholders in the collaboration environment.  Mobile Solutions, from Wonderware IntelaTrac, enable workflow, data collection and general task management for plant operations, maintenance management, production tracking and compliance applications. Mobile Solutions result in improved operational discipline and reliability, increased workforce productivity, and enhanced safety and compliance.   Condition Manager, from Avantis, is tied to asset health, reliability and/or availability.  Predicting asset failures before they occur on critical refinery equipment can result in significant costs savings. Condition Manager collects data from any plant floor system which is OPC-compliant, analyzes that data, then acts upon it – letting operators know of any problematic conditions early enough to take corrective action before they escalate into serious upsets or, worse yet, unplanned shutdowns.

Advanced Process Control: While ROMeo is able to optimize operations once they have achieved steady-state, Connoisseur, the APC solution from SimSci-Esscor, offers optimization within a smaller time-frame. APC can help control a process to desired set-points to minimize fluctuation in the controllers and optimize output.

ACA.HF: The ACA.HF is the new standard in safety, simplicity, reliability, and accuracy for analysis of HF alkylation process performance. ACA.HF is a way to safely and simply obtain online measurement of %HF, %Water and %ASO in HF alkylation. This solution is an affordable alternative to FTNIR with highly reliable and repeatable accuracy. In fact, ACA.HF exceeds the precision of HF analysis with FTNIR. ACA.HF is a multivariable analyzer based on the application of proven Foxboro measurement technologies that are long-established in online analysis of process streams. The fact that measurements can be made in real-time with no safety risk allows refineries to enjoy the results without the risk of an accident or plant downtime.

Are you running at peak performance? What do you need help with? Let us know.

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User Added Subroutine (UAS) in PRO/II

What is needed to make a User Added Subroutine(UAS)?
1)  UAS/PDTS version of PRO/II

2)  Fortran compiler appropriate for your
hardware, and compatible with the compiler used to compile PRO/II.

3)  Fortran compiler - see note below

4)  User Fortran code for UAS

5)  Extra disk space for compiling and linking

6)  Process UAS manual

7)  Current Installation Guide for your hardware

An update on User Added Subroutines (UAS).

The post a couple of days ago on User Added Subroutine was a bit confusing about the choice of FORTRAN compiler.  The latest PRO/II version (9.2, released May 2014) uses Intel Visual Fortran version 12.0.  This compiler or newer (standard or profes­sional editions) is a perfect fit for UAS.  This compiler is compatible with Net 2005 and Net 2008 architectures.

UAS is a great way to increase the capabilities of PRO/II by allowing user to create special thermodynamic methods or properties or to create proprietary unit operations.  Do you have an old reactor written in your company in FORTRAN 20 years ago?  You can attach it to PRO/II via UAS. 

For more information read the PRO/II documentation found in your installation: User Added Subroutines User Guide.  Or call our Support group to help you creating your very first UAS.  

About PRO/II: PRO/II is the major product in the Process Engineering Suite (PES). This process simulation software optimizes plant performance by improving process design, operational analysis, and performing engineering studies. It is designed to perform rigorous heat and material balance calculations for a wide range of chemical processes. PRO/II allows users to evaluate the use of heat integration with case studies, rigorously evaluate process improvements with the help of a process flow diagram (PFD), or model crude distillation units. PRO/II offers a wide variety of thermodynamic models to virtually every industry and is incredibly cost effective, decreasing both capital and operating costs.

Technical Support: As always, feel free to reach out to your local technical support team for more information.

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Heavy Oils Video Series

Check out these videos on Heavy Oils

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Whitepaper on Processing Heavy and Extra Heavy Oils

Whitepaper on Processing Heavy and Extra Heavy Oils

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From Refinerlink.com: Refinery Alkylation Basics

I thought this was a great article on the basics of alkylation in a refinery:

Many refiners treat Alkylation like a black box, but it’s actually a fairly straight forward process. I’ll break down some of the reaction fundamentals to explain the importance of key parameters.    read the full content here

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Compressibility factor (Z) calculation in PRO/II

How is the compressibility factor (Z) calculated in PRO/II?

There are two calculations for the compressibility factor Z.  Both can be found in PRO/II output reports, but only one has any physical meaning.  The Z from density calculation is:

Z = PV/ rho T

where rho is actual density.

The Z from K-value is:

Z = PV / rho T

where rho is "density" calculated during the K-value calculations.  This rho is an intermediate result from the EOS calculations and in general is not a good value for the actual density.

About PRO/II: PRO/II is the major product in the Process Engineering Suite (PES). This process simulation software optimizes plant performance by improving process design, operational analysis, and performing engineering studies. It is designed to perform rigorous heat and material balance calculations for a wide range of chemical processes. PRO/II allows users to evaluate the use of heat integration with case studies, rigorously evaluate process improvements with the help of a process flow diagram (PFD), or model crude distillation units. PRO/II offers a wide variety of thermodynamic models to virtually every industry and is incredibly cost effective, decreasing both capital and operating costs.

Technical Support: As always, feel free to reach out to your local technical support team for more information.

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PRO/II and solid-liquid equilibria

How does PRO/II compute and use solid-liquid equilibria?

Van't Hoff  (ideal ) assumes ideal solution in liquid phase to compute
the equilibrium solubility of a solid.  It is useful for mixtures of similar components (xylene isomers for example)

SOLDATA allows the user to input the equilibrium solubility as a function of temperature. 

PRO/II presently uses solid-liquid equilbrium methods only in the CRYSTALLIZER and DISSOLVER units, where the equilibrium solubility determines the driving force for crystallization and dissolution.

PRO/II Electrolytes performs rigorous solid-liquid equilibrium calculations for precipitating salts and minerals in all unit operations for which electrolyte thermo is available.  Multiple solids can be precipitated simultaneously.

About PRO/II: PRO/II is the major product in the Process Engineering Suite (PES). This process simulation software optimizes plant performance by improving process design, operational analysis, and performing engineering studies. It is designed to perform rigorous heat and material balance calculations for a wide range of chemical processes. PRO/II allows users to evaluate the use of heat integration with case studies, rigorously evaluate process improvements with the help of a process flow diagram (PFD), or model crude distillation units. PRO/II offers a wide variety of thermodynamic models to virtually every industry and is incredibly cost effective, decreasing both capital and operating costs.

Technical Support: As always, feel free to reach out to your local technical support team for more information.

Read More

Interested in presenting at the SimSci User Meeting?

The SimSci User Group Meetings will be Oct 15-17 in Dallas, and as usual, we are looking for customers to present 

Interested in presenting - email me at joseph.mcmullen@invensys.com

Interested in a specific topic - let me know!

We will be working on an agenda in the coming months, so now if a great chance to provide feedback on what you want to see. 

Read More

Aligning Business and Manufacturing Objectives: A Quick Guide from Automation.com

By Mark Davidson 

Largely due to the misalignment of goals and objectives, a considerable number of organizations struggle to realize the full business value that manufacturing can generate. There are several steps all organizations that utilize...read full article here

Great article. I think the two most important steps are: 

Understanding and Articulating Strategy your strategy. If you don't have a strategy, what are you doing? You need a strategy to know what you want to achieve!

Mapping Goals and Specific Measures for Success. I have seen many people with great strategies not determine appropriate goals. If you don't have the right goals, I am not sure if you will ever get anywhere.

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Beer and Simulation at WUTAB

Are you going to the WUTAB Conference in Santa Rosa, CA next week?

Come have a beer with Invensys at our WUTAB hospitality suite and get acquainted with some of the finest operator training tools and the Invensys OTS team that delivers them!

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From Hydrocarbon Processing: Imperial Oil to shift Nova Scotia refinery to terminal after no buyer found

The company began shopping the refinery around in May of last year, saying competition in the area had led to weak financial returns. Imperial Oil said the failure to find a buyer illustrates "the challenges of operating a refinery of Dartmouth's scale in the competitive conditions of the Atlantic Basin market." read full article here

Keep hearing of more and more refineries closing, and more super, integrated refineries being built. It is the global trend. What do you think?

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Vapor phase determined in VLLE calculations for DEWPT flashes in PRO/II

How is the vapor phase determined in VLLE calculations for DEWPT flashes?

One vapor is calculated for each liquid phase and the vapors are combined to one vapor phase.

The VLLE flash (no matter if dew-point or bubble-point or any other type)

solves the liquid-liquid equilibrium in the inner loop. This means that

once the equilibrium compositions of the two liquid phases are found, they

are used to calculate the vapor - liquid K-values. A very simplified

logical scheme of this algorithm is as follows:

1. Solve the LLE equations for xliq1(i) and xliq2(i) (i denotes component i).

2. Get two sets of vapor - liquid K-values. One set is obtained by using

xliq1(i) and the other set is obtained by using xliq2(i). Let's call

these two sets K1(i) and K2(i)

3. Combine the two sets of K-values into a single vapor-liquid K-value

according to the relation:

 

        K1(i) * K2(i)

K(i) = ---------------------------------

       frac_liq1*K2(i) + frac_liq2*K1(i)

 

In this way, only one vapor composition is obtained.

 

Therefore, the customer will easily obtain the compositions of the two liquid

phases that are in equilibrium with the vapor (provided that the

liquid - liquid phase splitting occurs at his conditions and the thermo model

is capable of reproducing it). If the same parameters are used for VLE and LLE

calculations, the obtained three phases are exactly in thermodynamic

equilibrium. If different parameters are used for VLE and LLE (which is

frequently done to improve the fit to experimental data), the thermodynamic

equilibrium in the three-phase system is approximate, but the algorithm

gives the best approximation.



About PRO/II: PRO/II is the major product in the Process Engineering Suite (PES). This process simulation software optimizes plant performance by improving process design, operational analysis, and performing engineering studies. It is designed to perform rigorous heat and material balance calculations for a wide range of chemical processes. PRO/II allows users to evaluate the use of heat integration with case studies, rigorously evaluate process improvements with the help of a process flow diagram (PFD), or model crude distillation units. PRO/II offers a wide variety of thermodynamic models to virtually every industry and is incredibly cost effective, decreasing both capital and operating costs.

Technical Support: As always, feel free to reach out to your local technical support team for more information.

Read More

Contest winners

Congrats to our contest winners - it seems like DYNSIM is a popular product!
You can still contact me for copies of the white paper - until Wednesday!

Emerge a Winner in the Refining Industry

All 5 people get a prize pack, so please make sure that you email me your mailing information as soon as possible!

Hinojosa Calvo Aldo Ignacio 

I love to use SimSci software, such as DYNSIM and ROMeo. Actually, I am using them to help me in my doctoral thesis. DYNSIM allowed me to reproduce my process and use it as a virtual plant and ROMeo helped me to optimize the process in this way maximizing profit. Their great flexibility and easy data transfer allow the study of new algorithms and future implementations without real plant tests.

Inderjeet Singh
I have worked on three different software in power industry- The most I liked about DYNSIM is Single user window for Operator/Engineer/Instructor and the ability to write on FSIM values while using FSIM Plus engine and FSIM operator events can be stored in Scenario.

Ahmad El Helaly
I love to use SimSci software, such as DYNSIM. DYNSIM allowed me to simulate a control processor. Everything could be simulated using DYNSIM.

Manu GN
I'm an OTS application engineer, so I use several SimSci software, especially DYNSIM, FSIM Plus, PRO/II. I like the flexibility of the software as much as the reliability of the results. Virtually there is no limit to what you can do with DYNSIM

Sujith Kumar P V
One thing I liked about DYNSIM is the capability send value from other engines through Xref. The strength of DYNSIM I feel is the modelling capability which gives results similar to the real world scenarios. It is like playing puppet show. You have the entire plant with you, like puppets. The more you use the more you like it.

Editor's note. The only thing I changed was some product branding and a few typos. The original comments can be found here. 

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Acceleration methods available in PRO/II

What are the differences between the different acceleration methods?
- The default solution method for recycle is
direct substitution.

- There are two acceleration methods: Wegstein (based on secant approach) and Broyden (based on quasi-newton approach).

- Wegstein can be used to damp, rather than accelerate recycle loops.

- Broyden is often considered to be better than Wegstein.  However, the PRO/II version 3.30 implementation of Broyden is somewhat weak because it accelerates only one recycle stream at a time.


About PRO/II: PRO/II is the major product in the Process Engineering Suite (PES). This process simulation software optimizes plant performance by improving process design, operational analysis, and performing engineering studies. It is designed to perform rigorous heat and material balance calculations for a wide range of chemical processes. PRO/II allows users to evaluate the use of heat integration with case studies, rigorously evaluate process improvements with the help of a process flow diagram (PFD), or model crude distillation units. PRO/II offers a wide variety of thermodynamic models to virtually every industry and is incredibly cost effective, decreasing both capital and operating costs.

Technical Support: As always, feel free to reach out to your local technical support team for more information.

Read More

Interested in presenting at the SimSci User Meeting?

The SimSci User Group Meetings will be Oct 15-17 in Dallas, and as usual, we are looking for customers to present 

Interested in presenting - email me at joseph.mcmullen@invensys.com

Interested in a specific topic - let me know!

We will be working on an agenda in the coming months, so now if a great chance to provide feedback on what you want to see. 

Read More

Yield Accounting at a refinery

Operating companies require reconciled material balance information to make operating decisions and to measure performance and profitability. This is problematic because a material balance on a refinery requires
numerous measurements along with the reconciliation of those plant measurements since small inaccuracies propagated throughout a data reporting system can lead to large year-end reportable monetary losses for the company. The Invensys integrated and bundled yield accounting solution is unique in the market and results in:

• Increased accuracy and reliability of plant data corrects inaccuracies and reduces or eliminates losses
• Consistent, reliable data for performance measures (KPIs)
• Improved instrument maintenance efficiency
• Better feedstock data for process yield simulators and tracking

About Yield Accounting: The Yield Accounting solution from Invensys addresses one of the most stressing issues of a refinery, petrochemical plant, or other processing facility: unaccounted losses. This solution improves the efficiency in a facility with data reconciliation, which finds errors in raw plant data and closes the mass balance and production accounting, which allows the plant to better account for feedstock and products. Material tracking and product yield tracking accounts for inventory and pinpoints losses. 
Technical Support: As always, feel free to reach out to your local technical support team for more information.

Read More

Are you operating as sub-optimal conditions

The global economy and regional regulations are placing greater economic pressures on refiners in the form of increased pricing pressure that affect profitability and require enhanced performance to allow the plant to remain profitable. Additionally, regulatory compliance and adherence to increasing stringent safety standards can adversely affect a refinery’s bottom line. Decreased margin from increased competition is forcing refiners to evaluate means to run more profitably. Refineries have been implementing profit generating activities for years, but the key is implementation and sustainability of a full-scale optimization program.

THE INVENSYS SOLUTION:

Invensys provides several optimization solutions. Invensys has extended its best-in-class solutions under SimSci-Esscor for refinery optimization through integration of various individual products and applications designed to capture all areas of profit opportunity by providing the best optimization and regulatory compliance solutions for a refinery. These new solutions take SimSci-Esscor’s leadership in refining optimization to a higher level. The various solutions allow the refinery to choose the level of optimization that is appropriate for their current situation.

Off-sites:  Tank farms make up a large portion of a refining complex. Increased automation and operational performance reduces the cost of terminal operations, while at the same time improving safety compliance and business performance. Invensys Off-sites solutions have been in use in terminal and refinery sites globally for over 25 years, serving all of the major oil companies.

Process Optimization:  ROMeo is the standard for process optimization in refining and can be used for either performance monitoring or process optimization.  During performance monitoring, ROMeo trends the performance of equipment to identify problems and pinpoint equipment operational issues. An example would be the performance monitoring of a crude pre-heat train to monitor exchanger fouling and running case-studies to view which heat exchanger would impact profitability the most when cleaned.   During process optimization, ROMeo automatically imports process data, reconciles that data, and optimizes the process within a set of operational bounds. One example would be to minimize the usage of hydrogen when upgrading heavier crude oil. In this example, ROMeo would be used to monitor hydrogen usage and minimize its consumption by altering the flow and conditions (temperature and pressure) of the various feedstocks.

Integrating ROMeo with Planning, Scheduling and Off-sites:  Refiners can now leverage blend operations and optimization practices to improve efficiency and profitability across the entire refinery. Crude blend data available from off-sites blending operations can be used as input to process optimization software. Product properties that are calculated by process optimization software can then be used in off-sites product blending operations.

Visualization:  Wonderware Intelligence provides the visualization technology that allows operators key performance indicator (KPI) visibility and monitoring through interactive dashboards in near real-time.  This provides key information in desired context across Invensys and non-Invensys sources of operations data to achieve on the spot operational decision-making.

Automation:  ArchestrA Workflow is powerful business process management software, a) helping enforce consistent policy and procedural execution from plant automation to Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), b) enabling a reduction in process and response latency c) and providing the open framework to support the necessary governance, including notifications, escalations and approvals of all stakeholders in the collaboration environment.  Mobile Solutions, from Wonderware IntelaTrac, enable workflow, data collection and general task management for plant operations, maintenance management, production tracking and compliance applications. Mobile Solutions result in improved operational discipline and reliability, increased workforce productivity, and enhanced safety and compliance.   Condition Manager, from Avantis, is tied to asset health, reliability and/or availability.  Predicting asset failures before they occur on critical refinery equipment can result in significant costs savings. Condition Manager collects data from any plant floor system which is OPC-compliant, analyzes that data, then acts upon it – letting operators know of any problematic conditions early enough to take corrective action before they escalate into serious upsets or, worse yet, unplanned shutdowns.

Advanced Process Control: While ROMeo is able to optimize operations once they have achieved steady-state, Connoisseur, the APC solution from SimSci-Esscor, offers optimization within a smaller time-frame. APC can help control a process to desired set-points to minimize fluctuation in the controllers and optimize output.

ACA.HF: The ACA.HF is the new standard in safety, simplicity, reliability, and accuracy for analysis of HF alkylation process performance. ACA.HF is a way to safely and simply obtain online measurement of %HF, %Water and %ASO in HF alkylation. This solution is an affordable alternative to FTNIR with highly reliable and repeatable accuracy. In fact, ACA.HF exceeds the precision of HF analysis with FTNIR. ACA.HF is a multivariable analyzer based on the application of proven Foxboro measurement technologies that are long-established in online analysis of process streams. The fact that measurements can be made in real-time with no safety risk allows refineries to enjoy the results without the risk of an accident or plant downtime.

Are you running at peak performance? What do you need help with? Let us know.

Read More

Call for papers: Interested in presenting at the SimSci User Meeting?

The SimSci User Group Meetings will be Oct 15-17 in Dallas, and as usual, we are looking for customers to present 

Interested in presenting - email me at joseph.mcmullen@invensys.com

Interested in a specific topic - let me know!

We will be working on an agenda in the coming months, so now if a great chance to provide feedback on what you want to see. 

Read More

From the Wall Street Journal: It's Not a Job, It's a Game - Chemical firms need plant operators. One way to draw new talent: put the work into video simulators.

Great Article on taring the operators of the future in today's Wall Street Journal.

Hint: They are using EYESIM!

About EYESIM: Undertrained and inexperienced employees reduce performance and profitability in a refinery while also risking the safety of other employees. The aging workforce is moving closer to the age of retirement, making it imperative to properly train younger, less experienced employees. Invensys offers solutions that aid in educating inexperienced operators, who will soon be relied upon to operate the plant.

The immersive training system (ITS), SimSci Esscor EYESIM, is a technology breakthrough in training. The EYESIM solution connects all operators by a high-fidelity 3 dimensional process simulation and virtual walkthrough plant environment. Operator Training Simulators (OTS) allow operators to train on a computer in an identical environment to the control room. The virtual reality plant feature significantly improves maintenance activities by offering direct feedback once a trainee completes an action. This will provide the knowledge necessary to act appropriately in any given situation.

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Emerge a Winner in the Refining Industry - Whitepaper Preview

Emerge a Winner in the Refining Industry, 

Invest in Simulation and Modeling Solutions

Special thanks to Rajabahadur V. Arcot for writing this white paper illustrating the value of simulation software at a refinery!


For a limited time you can request a free copy of the white paper by emailing me at joseph.mcmullen@invensys.com. All I ask is that you comment on your favorite quote from the paper in this blog post. 


Here are my top 5 quotes from the white paper:

1. "While steady state and dynamic simulation software can help create and test various design scenarios and operational processes, online optimization software provides a higher-level review of plant operating status to overcome operational constraints and identify the optimization opportunities within a given set of constraints and available resources."
2. "Instilling a culture of safety in refineries by imparting proper training to plant personnel about startup procedures, safety precautions, maintenance requirements, and operating procedures could have prevented at least some of these accidents, saving the lives of people, limiting damage to the environment, and lessening fines and financial compensation."
3. "Simulation software gives engineers the ability to understand their plants better and enhance their performance and profitability, whether by designing a plant, checking out the control system, training operators, or optimizing the operations."
4. "Simulation models have the ability to accurately replicate the refinery processes and their responses to external stimuli, making simulators excellent tools to improve performance and profitability."
5. "Winners leverage the simulation and modeling solutions to gain sustainable competitiveness, to enhance their performance both during CapEx and OpEx cycles, and to do the right things and do them right."

Again, if I send you a copy of the white paper, please post your favorite quote in the comment section. 

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From Control Engineering: Beyond Automation: Humans As Process Controllers

While Automated Control Systems Can Keep Our Manufacturing Processes Running Efficiently, New Variables Are Entering Into The Production Equation That Are Beyond What We Can Expect From PID. In An Interview, Peter Martin Explains Forces Pushing A Return To Humans As Controllers To Accommodate These Changes, At Least For A While. See the video and read the whole post

Do you agree that automatic control is much more beneficial than manual control?

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SimSci Training Courses

SimSci Training Courses

SimSci is an Invensys solution that offers applications to give your plant a competitive edge in today’s global economy.  SimSci offers integrated simulation, optimization, training, and process control software and services. For over 45 years, these applications have been improving profitability and performance in plants across the globe.

If you have decided to use SimSci products but you do not where to begin, Invensys Operations Management is now offering training courses. These courses will provide the necessary guidance to use SimSci applications that will allow your plant to reach its full potential and maximize performance and profitability. 

New to SimSci products?  Are you looking to refresh your skills?  Update your skills?

Join us worldwide for a SimSci training course.

To register for the upcoming training course visit http://iomtraining.invensys.com/simsci/public

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Contest winners

Congrats to our contest winners - it seems like DYNSIM is a popular product!

All 5 people get a prize pack, so please make sure that you email me your mailing information as soon as possible!

Hinojosa Calvo Aldo Ignacio 

I love to use SimSci software, such as DYNSIM and ROMeo. Actually, I am using them to help me in my doctoral thesis. DYNSIM allowed me to reproduce my process and use it as a virtual plant and ROMeo helped me to optimize the process in this way maximizing profit. Their great flexibility and easy data transfer allow the study of new algorithms and future implementations without real plant tests.

Inderjeet Singh
I have worked on three different software in power industry- The most I liked about DYNSIM is Single user window for Operator/Engineer/Instructor and the ability to write on FSIM values while using FSIM Plus engine and FSIM operator events can be stored in Scenario.

Ahmad El Helaly
I love to use SimSci software, such as DYNSIM. DYNSIM allowed me to simulate a control processor. Everything could be simulated using DYNSIM.

Manu GN
I'm an OTS application engineer, so I use several SimSci software, especially DYNSIM, FSIM Plus, PRO/II. I like the flexibility of the software as much as the reliability of the results. Virtually there is no limit to what you can do with DYNSIM

Sujith Kumar P V
One thing I liked about DYNSIM is the capability send value from other engines through Xref. The strength of DYNSIM I feel is the modelling capability which gives results similar to the real world scenarios. It is like playing puppet show. You have the entire plant with you, like puppets. The more you use the more you like it.

Editor's note. The only thing I changed was some product branding and a few typos. The original comments can be found here. 

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Reference Equations of State, Custody Transfer provided by NIST Standard Reference Database 23: REFPROP Version 9.1

Guest Blogger John Cunningham, SimSci Technical Support

With Version 9 of PRO/II, a new Thermodynamic option of special interest to those working with LNG, Natural Gas or refrigerants was added to the slate of Thermo Methods available in PRO/II. This method is The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Standard Reference Database 23 or REFPROP.

REFPROP is valid for a relatively small group of around 120 components, most which are in wide industrial usage, where there is enough measured experimental physical property data (see figure below), to justify the development of parameters for reference equations of state. These equations take on a variety of forms, the Bender equation, Modified forms of the BWR equations and others; they can have from 15 to 40 parameters and can often reproduce multiple component properties to within experimental accuracy.

Figure 1, Experimental Methane Liquid Density, from AIChE DIPPR Project 801 DIADEM, 2013

NIST has made this database available for purchase for a nominal fee as a small program or a set of computer subroutines at the following URL: http://www.nist.gov/srd/nist23.cfm   that can be linked to PROII and used effectively to provide an excellent representation of a large number of physical properties:

·    Temperature, Pressure, Density, Energy, Enthalpy, Entropy, Cv, Cp, Compressibility Factor, Joule Thomson Coefficient, Quality, Heat of Vaporization, K value, Molar Mass, Thermal Conductivity, Viscosity, Kinematic Viscosity, Surface Tension, Gross and Net Heating Values

Because NIST 23 is fairly time intensive the method can also be used to verify other faster thermodynamic options to give the benefit of both speed and accuracy.

About PRO/II: PRO/II is the major product in the Process Engineering Suite (PES). This process simulation software optimizes plant performance by improving process design, operational analysis, and performing engineering studies. It is designed to perform rigorous heat and material balance calculations for a wide range of chemical processes. PRO/II allows users to evaluate the use of heat integration with case studies, rigorously evaluate process improvements with the help of a process flow diagram (PFD), or model crude distillation units. PRO/II offers a wide variety of thermodynamic models to virtually every industry and is incredibly cost effective, decreasing both capital and operating costs.

Technical Support: As always, feel free to reach out to your local technical support team for more information.

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Refinery Performance Webinar recordings now available for viewing

Invensys frequently offers live webinars to help viewers gain a better understanding of our solutions.These webinar recordings are now available for you to view on-demand.

This webinar series introduces ways to optimize performance in a refinery. The following webinars address two major issues in today’s refineries.

First, is “Reducing Material Losses with Better Yield Accounting”, which addresses the need for better yield accounting. In order to prevent major monetary loss, refineries must tighten control on their raw material, inventory, and products. Unaccounted for material loss may be due to a number of factors including inaccurate or inconsistent data, coming led ownership of processed materials, environmental (HSE) pressure to report yields and losses, or Joint Venture (JV) pressure to report transactions. Our new Yield Accounting solution has corrected these issues in order to provide refiners with an accurate means of accounting for material losses.

Next is “Aging Workforce and Operator Training – Improve your bottom line with faster, more effective training techniques”.  This webinar explains how so much of the aging workforce is nearing retirement, leaving plant operation in the hands of less experienced, undertrained operators. SimSci-Esscor offers operator training that will optimize performance and improve safety in a plant. Watch this webinar to learn more about these innovative methods that will prepare your workforce in an efficient and effective manner.

In the “Using New Modeling Technology to Help Solve Heavy Oil Processing Issues” webinar, Invensys employees explain the importance of processing heavier feedstock. Today’s refineries were originally designed for lighter crudes.  Since there is an ever-increasing demand for oil and the amount of heavy oils on Earth is greater than twice the supply of lighter crudes, refineries are being forced to utilize them.  Conventional refineries find great difficulty in processing these “molasses-like” substances.  Processing the crude incorrectly leads to operational errors, like equipment failure and process downtime, which can risk operator safety.  This webinar offers insight on how to deal with heavy oils.

“Make better feedstock business decisions in real-time with Assay Knowledge Management” explains how to use this solution to make knowledgeable and profitable decisions based on your refinery’s needs. Invensys has paired up with Spiral Software, bringing you a new technology that properly determines the properties of feedstock, allowing a refiner to evaluate all available feedstocks in real time. This leads to better decisions and improves profitability.

The final webinar on demand is “How to improve refinery profitability with real-time, online, optimization”. Plant and operations managers should take an interest in finding out about the benefits of real-time online optimization. This Invensys solution can assist you in improving performance, making better business decisions, and increasing refinery profitability. If you are already interested in real-time optimization solutions but are not sure which solution is right for your refinery’s needs, this webinar can help!

In case you missed it, you can check out the recordings of the above mentioned webinars and others here: 

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Customizing the PRO/II Toolbar

The Toolbar in PRO/II allows the user to access key data entry windows and other program features quickly and easily. The user can configure the Toolbar to increase or reduce the number of items displayed, or to change the order in which items are displayed to suit personal preference.
This can be beneficial on machines with low screen resolution and where a reduced or re-ordered Toolbar is preferred for clarity. Toolbar Customization is accessed through the View/Toolbar menu option.



About PRO/II: PRO/II is the major product in the Process Engineering Suite (PES). This process simulation software optimizes plant performance by improving process design, operational analysis, and performing engineering studies. It is designed to perform rigorous heat and material balance calculations for a wide range of chemical processes. PRO/II allows users to evaluate the use of heat integration with case studies, rigorously evaluate process improvements with the help of a process flow diagram (PFD), or model crude distillation units. PRO/II offers a wide variety of thermodynamic models to virtually every industry and is incredibly cost effective, decreasing both capital and operating costs.

Technical Support: As always, feel free to reach out to your local technical support team for more information.

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From DOWNSTREAMTODAY: Total CEO Sees More European Refineries Closing in Coming Years

More European refineries, including some in France, are likely to shut down in the coming years, as refined-oil products consumption is falling in the region, Total SA (TOT, FP.FR) Chairman and Chief Executive Christophe de Margerie said Sunday read the full story here

What do you think?
Will your refinery close?
If so, why? Are margins not good enough?

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Podcast: Purdue Prof Digs Berkeley Prof’s Message about the Cloud | Automation World

Interesting post about the cloud. Where do you want to see the cloud fitting in with simulation software? Would your company want to host their own cloud, or would the allow someone else to host it?

Podcast: Purdue Prof Digs Berkeley Prof’s Message about the Cloud | Automation World

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REPOST: What is assay knowledge management?

Guest Blogger, Emma Price, Customer Relationship Manager for Spiral Software

Spiral was founded with a vision to transform the oil industry’s use of software, helping to maximise the value of every drop of crude oil. The inspiration behind this was twofold.

Firstly, the evolving industry context creates new challenges and opportunities. Refiners are seeing a more diverse feedstock market than ever before—diverse in both quality and pricing. There are now many crude oils available which present some processing challenges in return for a discounted market price. At the same time, product specifications are becoming more stringent and legislation is tightening around safer operational limits. Put together, this makes a confident understanding of feedstock refining behaviour more important than it has ever been.

Secondly, the new capabilities of information technology enable effective collaboration, even across huge global organisations. It is perfectly realistic to gather real-time information from operating sites and provide meaningful analytics that help users collaborate to make the best possible decisions. This is the step from looking at assay data as simply a set of laboratory measurements to seeing it as “assay knowledge”: bringing together assay measurement with operational data, refinery models, past experience, market information and even news feeds.

This is what we mean by “assay knowledge management” and since 1998, our tools span this whole space: from traditional implementations at laboratories that help them validate and work-up assay data, through to oil major implementations with over 2,500 users in a single enterprise, spanning every area of the business, across upstream exploration, feedstock trading, strategy and operations.

This pushes well outside the bounds of legacy assay management software. For example, some of the largest commodity trading companies use our tools to run thousands of cases to understand how markets would react to feedstock and refining capacity changes. In parallel, engineering and consulting companies use our tools to analyse strategic investments, understanding the future value and risk of capital investments and green field developments.

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Join SimSci-Esscor related groups on LinkedIn

Join SimSci  related groups on LinkedIn

• SimSci (245 members - and growing rapidly)
• PRO/II Users Group (1,074 members - our largest and most active group)
• PIPEPHASE Users Group (69 members - our smallest group - but with highly dedicated members)
• DYNSIM Users (336 members - be #337)
• ROMeo Users (668 members - - think of all the insight that is shared in this group)

Which goups are you going to join?

Or connect with me (Joseph McMullen) on LinkedIn - I regularly post updates for all SimSci software!
If you have an idea for a blog post, please let me know!

All groups have discussions from users, new release announcements, and technical tips!

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What are the current versions of your SimSci software?

Want to know what the current release of your favorite SimSci software is?


Click here to vist the blog - look in the upper left hand corner of the blog where the current versions will always be listed!

As always, feel free to reach out to your local technical support team for more information.

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SimSci Training Courses

SimSci Training Courses

SimSci is an Invensys solution that offers applications to give your plant a competitive edge in today’s global economy.  SimSci offers integrated simulation, optimization, training, and process control software and services. For over 45 years, these applications have been improving profitability and performance in plants across the globe.

If you have decided to use SimSci products but you do not where to begin, Invensys Operations Management is now offering training courses. These courses will provide the necessary guidance to use SimSci applications that will allow your plant to reach its full potential and maximize performance and profitability. 

New to SimSci products?  Are you looking to refresh your skills?  Update your skills?

Join us worldwide for a SimSci training course.

To register for the upcoming training course visit http://iomtraining.invensys.com/simsci/public

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Predicting Transport Properties for Aqueous Electrolyte Streams

Guest Blogger John Cunningham, SimSci Technical Support

The default transport Property methods in SimSci software are essentially an assortment of mixing rules for the transport properties stored for each component in the library.

As shown in this Table from our Reference Manual, the mixing rules are quite simple:



While this approach is quite suitable for organic liquids you can run into trouble for components that dissociate in water. Consider a mixture of NaCl, with a melting point of 1073K and water. It would be inappropriate to extrapolate the properties of liquid or molten NaCl nearly 800 K then attempt to mix this extrapolated value with the water value and expect a meaningful number.

OLI Systems a long term SimSci technology partner has addressed this concern with their new mixed solvent electrolyte (MSE) approach. They have validated methods to predict viscosities, thermal conductivities and surface tension for these types of mixtures. Shown here for example are the values for a 5 molal KOH solution at atmospheric conditions:

MSE licenses are available from your Invensys commercial representative.


About PRO/II: PRO/II is the major product in the Process Engineering Suite (PES). This process simulation software optimizes plant performance by improving process design, operational analysis, and performing engineering studies. It is designed to perform rigorous heat and material balance calculations for a wide range of chemical processes. PRO/II allows users to evaluate the use of heat integration with case studies, rigorously evaluate process improvements with the help of a process flow diagram (PFD), or model crude distillation units. PRO/II offers a wide variety of thermodynamic models to virtually every industry and is incredibly cost effective, decreasing both capital and operating costs.

Technical Support: As always, feel free to reach out to your local technical support team for more information.



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