TechValidate Survey for process simulation design users!

8/21/2013

As I mentioned in a blog post yesterday, the Invensys team is conducting a customer research survey, in conjunction with TechValidate, about real-world usage of SimSci simulation software for process design.

It's a quick 10-question survey. Your participation is important. 

If you have any questions about this survey, please contact me, Joseph McMullen, SimSci Product Marketing Manager at Invensys, at joseph.mcmullen@invensys.com.

Thanks,
Joseph McMullen
SimSci Product Marketing Manager

Click to Take Our Quick 10-Question Survey

Why Participate? 

Reward Drawing
We'll enter you in a monthly drawing for a Visa debit card (or a charitable donation on your behalf). You can read the full rules here.

Anonymity Guarantee
We take your privacy seriously. All responses remain anonymous, unless you specifically say it's ok to use your name.

Provide Direct, Valuable Feedback to Invensys
Your contributions help Invensys improve its product and provide valuable insights into real-world usage for all to see.

Access to Exclusive Research
Survey respondents have access to exclusive TechValidate research about how other organizations are using Invensys SimSci.

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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.



-Note from Joe McMullen, blog owner-
Back in October, 2012 Invensys acquired Spiral Software. Since then we have been actively integrating Spiral technology with SimSci products, and learning more and more about all that Spiral has to offer our customers. I truly believe that Invensys provides unparalleled coverage of the refinery value chain, something that greatly benefits our customers. Spiral Integration with both PRO/II and ROMeo are due to be released in coming months. I look forward to hearing feedback from our customer on how valuable that will be!

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Column initial estimates in PRO/II

Good initial estimates for recycle streams and columns should aid model convergence. From PRO/II 7.1 onwards, users can update their recycle stream estimates, in a solved model, by selecting the Update Recycle Stream Initial Estimates from the Input menu. All recycle streams will be updated with solution data.

Column initial estimates can also be generated/updated from a solved model. The column initial estimates can be updated by either by selecting the Update Column Initial Estimates from the Input menu; or by right clicking on the column and selecting the Update Column Initial Estimates option. If used, the Update Column Initial Estimates option, will use solution data for heater/cooler duty estimates and provide column temperature, net vapor and liquid rate profiles.

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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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