DYNAMIC SIMULATION OF DISTILLATION COLUMN UNIT TO STUDY OPERATIONAL FAILURES

Authors

  • N. Ramzan Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore, Pakistan
  • S. Naveed Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore, Pakistan
  • M. Faheem Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore, Pakistan
  • N. Feroze Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore, Pakistan
  • W. Witt Lehrstuhl Anlagen und Sicherheitstechnik, Brandenburgicshe Technische Universität, Burger Chaussee 2, Lehrgebäude 4/5, Cottbus 03044, Germany.

Abstract

Distillation column units present special safety hazards because of their large inventories, which often involve flammable solvents. Thus study of operational failures, which may results into incidents or accidents, in a distillation column unit by simulation is of value. In such cases, a mandatory condition in safety assessment is the detailed disturbance analysis through simulation to cover a wide range of operation. In this paper, scenarios such as loss of cooling, more or less steam flow rate, high or low feed flow rate etc. are simulated to evaluate control structures and for safety examination. This is achieved through introduction of small and large disturbances. The distillation column unit, which is part of a hydrocarbon recovery plant, from a real chemical plant is taken for case study. The operational failures in distillation column unit under study were identified through simulation with two different inferential configurations and a dual composition control scheme. Simulation results illustrates that the condenser level controller, sump level controller, temperature controller and vent to atmosphere keeps the process controlled variables at the set point for these disturbances except for the case where 20% reduction in feed was introduced.

References

A. C. Dimian,.Integrated design and

simulation of chemical processes, Eds. 1st,

Elsevier Netherlands, (2003) pp. 1-30,113-

N. Ramzan and W. Witt, Revista de Chimie,

, No. 4 (2007) 379.

G. Deerberg, S. Schluter, A. Stief and W.

Witt, Chem. Eng. Sci. 51, No. 11, (1998)

U. Can, J. Jimoh, Steinbach and G. Wozny,

Separation and Purification Technology 29

(2002) 163.

S. Esenberg, N. Brauner and M. Shacham,

Combining Hazop with Dynamic Simulation

process model development for safety

analysis, Proceedings of 16th ESCAPE and

th PSE-Germany (2006).

N. Ramzan, Systematic methodology based

on multiobjective decision analysis/

optimization for integrating multiple

conflicting objectives, Promotion Dissertation

at Brandenburgicshe Technische Universität

Cottbus Germany (2007).

Downloads

Published

29-06-2020

How to Cite

[1]
N. Ramzan, S. Naveed, M. Faheem, N. Feroze, and W. Witt, “DYNAMIC SIMULATION OF DISTILLATION COLUMN UNIT TO STUDY OPERATIONAL FAILURES”, The Nucleus, vol. 46, no. 3, pp. 147–152, Jun. 2020.

Issue

Section

Articles