engleski

Process Control Performance Improvements at INA Rijeka Refinery

Process control optimization and advanced process control (APC) are important opportunities for the process industry. Very few plants use dedicated software tools for process control performance monitoring, PID control tuning and APC design. Furthermore, existing distributed control system (DCS) functions in industry are not fully utilized. The most common reasons lie in the absence of practical process control knowledge, new and inexperienced personnel, expensive and complex software tools, fast changing technology and running plants conservatively on account of fear to cause shutdowns and plant problems. This paper presents process control performance improvement project implemented in the crude distillation unit (CDU) at the INA Refinery Rijeka with the application of the control monitoring, system identification and optimization based on available process data, engineer and process control expert knowledge. The project involved several crucial steps for efficient process control optimisation. On-line process control monitoring and diagnostics software has been installed and adapted in order to analyse the control loop performances. For each control loop, dynamic process model was identified and controller tuning parameters were optimized. As the final step, improved controller parameters have been implemented in DCS and fine tuning was carried out through the plant. The undertaken project resulted with decrease of control loops in manual operating mode which facilitates process engineer and operator efforts. The stability of control loops is significantly improved and the oscillation and disturbance effect are reduced to minimum within the process limits. Excessive movement and fluctuation of control valves are reduced as well, providing longer service time and reducing unwanted shut-downs. Finally, it can be pointed out that overall process control performance is improved with consequently positive impact on overall plant operation.

Process control; monitoring and diagnostics; system identification; PID optimization

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