Project Synopsis
Perform a technical evaluation and preliminary FEL-1 designs for process improvement modifications to correct shortcomings related to the controls of an existing hot oil system providing heat to multiple users within a monomer production plant.
Project Summary
The client, a major producer of PET resins, also manufactures Naphthalene based monomers. A fired hot oil heater is operated within the monomer unit is designed with a variable heat load and supplies multiple user heat exchangers. The existing system design makes it difficult to maintain the hot oil output target temperature without operator intervention. Process Engineering Associates, LLC (PROCESS) was contracted to provide a process controls evaluation to be followed by the development of a process design for an upgraded controls system that can fully meet current operational requirements.
Specific tasks for this project included:
- Validations of available heat and material balances around the unit processes based on recent DCS data for normal operating and upset conditions and on previous design heat and material balance data for normal operating and upset conditions
- An engineering review of the process controls for the hot oil fired heater temperature control system for the process units, which included oxidation, esterification and alkenylation sub-units
- An analysis of the multiple parallel branches and branched-line flow
- Calculations of pressure losses across the primary hot oil flow bypass line
- Validation of design for the hot oil system control valves
- Evaluation of a secondary hot oil flow bypass line
- Generation of flow diagrams with heat and material balances illustrating multiple cases of upset scenarios
- Recommendations to address the process control issues.
Industry Type
Resin Monomer Production
Utilized Skills
- Process troubleshooting
- Process evaluation
- Process controls design
- Preliminary process design development.