Plant Performance Improvements

The goal of plant-performance analysis is to improve understanding, efficiency, quahty, and safety of operating plants. The end use must be... 

Risk-based information provides a foundation for regulation of severe accidents. Early PRAs, with large uncertainties, indicated risk that was above or below the Safety Goals depending on containment performance. Consequently the NRC developed an Integration Plan for Closure of Severe Accident Issues (SECY-88-47) with six main elements to this plan 1) individual plant examinations (IPE), 2) containment performance improvements, 3) improved plant oper itions, 4) severe accident research, 5) external event considerations, and 6) accident management. 

Advanced two- and three-dimensional computer analysis methods are used today in the analyses of all critical components to verify aerodynamic, heat transfer, and mechanical performance. Additionally, the reduction of leakage paths in the compressor, as well as in the gas turbine expander, results in further plant efficiency improvements. At the compressor inlet, an advanced inlet flow design improves efficiency by reducing pressure loss. Rotor air cooler heat utilization and adt anccd blade and vane cooling arc also used. 

To develop and apply assumption-free learning frameworks and methodologies, aimed at uncovering and expressing in adequate solution formats performance improvement. . opportunities, extracted from existing data which were acquired from plants that cannot be described effectively through first-principles quantitative models. 

Bader, F. P., and Tucker, T. W., Real-time data compression improves plant performance assessment. InTech. 34, 53-56 (1987b). 

Bulatovic, S., Bigg, A.C.T., and Yen, T., Improvement in Plant Performance of Seven Concentrators from Shaba Province (Zaire), Report of Investigation LR2550 Vol. 2, pp. 1-250, 1982. 

Chemical process data inherently contain some degree of error, and this error may be random or systematic. Thus, the application of data reconciliation techniques allows optimal adjustment of measurement values to satisfy material and energy constraints. It also makes possible the estimation of unmeasured variables. It should be emphasized that, in today s highly competitive world market, resolving even small errors can lead to significant improvements in plant performance and economy. This book attempts to provide a comprehensive statement, analysis, and discussion of the main issues that emerge in the treatment and reconciliation of plant data. 

The economic treatment discussed so far is hmited to analytical laboratories where samples are received from an outside source it will not apply to laboratories attached to processing plants performing quahty-control analyses. The cost of the automatic equipment, in these cases, wiU be small in relation to the plant cost, and it wiU be the improved precision of analysis and speed of response that wiU have the greatest economic significance. Automatic analysers in production hnes are ideal for quality control, and there is ample scope for additional automation. However, this is an area where the... 

Contino, AV., Improved plant performance with statistical process control, Chem. Eng. (July 1987). 

The standard required a site review, and a head-office level review of all reported occurrences. There was good cooperation between head-office and the plant to get the system underway. Apparent inconsistencies between the definition of the class, and the examples were fairly quickly resolved, with the help of head-office. A data-base of events was established, with an extensive sort facility. The system became very well respected and well used, and much improvement of performance was achieved through experience feedback. Near-misscs were reported freely, from which much information was gained in order to facilitate performance improvement and the development of error tolerant. and error recovery systems. 

Table 4.17 shows that column 2 operates with efficiency as low as 4.1%, while the efficiency of column 1 is 50.6%. The exergy values for the whole separation system of two columns are also low and need to be improved. The individual values of PI show that it is possible to reduce by 13.1% the total loss of 0.834 MW in column 1 and by 19.1% the total loss of 27.813 MW in column 2. Despite the heat integration, the separation section of the methanol plant performs poorly in utilizing the exergy in the distillation columns. 

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