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Implementation of an integrated platform of process system operations for education and research
16th European Symposium on Computer Aided Process Engineering and 9th International Symposium on Process Systems Engineering W. Marquardt, C. Pantelides (Editors) © 2006 Published by Elsevier B.V.
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Implementation of an Integrated Platform of Process System Operations for Education and Research Xiuxi Li, Yu Qian*, and Yanbin Jiang School of Chemical & Energy Engineering, South China University of Technology Guangzhou, 510640, P. R. China Abstract Process system engineering is a cross discipline with characteristic of industrial practice. New advances and application of computer and information techniques, including process simulation, virtual reality, interaction courseware, remote network education, help to cultivate critical and creative thinking for students and professionals. In this paper, an experimental platform is implemented for the purposes of PSE education and research. It integrates the main components in chemical process operation to help students to adopt a 'systems approach' to engineering problem solving. Keywords: education and training, process system operation, experimental platform 1. Introduction Process System Engineering (PSE) is concerned with the development of techniques and tools to address the generic manufacturing problems in design, operation and control for the process industries. In the recent years, PSE education has been concerned and discussed widely. The most of chemical engineering departments set curricula of PSE, such as chemical process design, process control, process modeling and optimization etc, for undergraduates and graduates. The aim of these curricula is to help students to adopt a 'systems approach' to engineering problem solving and encourage students to adopt a systematic and practical approach to their entire professional career (John, 2002). However, many existing teaching materials and tools are very difficult for students understanding when there is not an advanced interactive Corresponding author, Tel: +86(20)87113046, E-mail address: [email protected]
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X, Li et al
experimental platform. In this paper, an experimental platform is proposed and implemented for the purposes of education and research in the area of process operation integration. 2. The platform structure The tasks in PSE, such as process design, modeling, optimization, control, scheduling, are correlative rather than alone. It should be considered in systemic approach. The proposed integrated experimental platform in this paper integrates the main components in chemical process operation. The core of the experimental platform consists of five parts: processes equipments and simulators, control system, data acquisition and rectification, database, and advanced application, as shown in Figure 1. Process equipments and simulator are used as experimental objects. The control systems used are CENTUM-CSIOOO and SIEMENS profibus. The data acquisition and rectification and the database work together to realize data exchange among the basic control systems and advanced appHcations. Opening Database Connection (ODBC) and Common Object Request Broker Agent (CORBA) are followed to realize communication among these software systems in the platform. The Standard for exchange of product data (STEP) is used for information integration. Advanced applications include process monitoring, fault diagnose, production planning and scheduling, safety evaluation, online optimization, and steady state simulation of process etc. Fault Detection and Diagnosis G2
Scheduling and Optimization GAMS
f Process Simulation 1 Aspen plus, Pro/II
Safety Evaluation
Process Monitoring
^
Data Acquisition and Rectification, DataCON — •
CZL
i
Z!I Database ^MS SQL server^
Process Control, CS-1000 Process Simulator Aspen Dynamic, Simulink
Process Equipments miniplant
Figure 1 Structure of the experimental platform for process operation system
To imitate the real industrial production process, the miniplant was installed in the products and processes development laboratory, while the advanced application and teaching experiment are implemented in the system integration
Implementation of an Integrated Platform ofProcess System Operations
2107
laboratory in another building. The distance between the two laboratories is about 600 meters. Signals of data and video are transmitted by special light fiber as well as campus network. The physical structure of the platform is shown in Figure 2. The equipment Lab
The system integration Lab 52' plasma display panel
video camera
^^^^F^ s s s ^ s ^ ^ ^
l^^n •f^!
B
Fiber Switch
Campus Network
•r. '"
\
•r:":" ' i |
igiBgpjy
Workstation Control PC
Database server
Figure 2 The platform physical cormecting structure
3. Processes simulators and equipments Process simulation has been widely used in education. Process simulator is designed to represent the characteristic of the real plant productions, with necessary functions of the operation. Tennessee Eastman process simulator was developed by using C++Builder in the platform. Tennessee Eastman process is a typical chemical process found in the industry (Downs, 1993). There are 41 measurements, including 22 continuous process measurements and 19 composition measurements, and 12 manipulated variables. One of the interface of TE process simulator is shown in Figure 3. Besides the process simulator, a miniplant is used and connected to the platform as experimental object. The miniplant includes two batch reactor units, dosing, centrifuge, heating and cooling system, heat exchanger, vacuum pump using for negative pressure operation, and industrial control system operator station, as shown in Figure 4. In this miniplant, the raw material is pumped into the alternative reactor from the supply vessels. Flow rate of the feeding is controlled with dosing valves. The reactor unit consists of a 2 litre and a 10 litre jacked stirred reactors. They are used for batch and semi-batch chemical processes, such as reactions and crystallizations. When finishing reaction, the fluid product goes through the partial condenser and total condenser with heat exchange, and then flows into the product vessels. Meanwhile, the solid product is transported into the centrifiige from the reactor bottom valve. Crystal
X. Li et al
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separation is operated in the centrifuge. The vacuum pump ensures negative pressure operation. There are 16 measurement variables and 7 control variables.
Figure 3 The interface of TE process
Figure 4. Structure of the miniplant
4. Software tools It is essential for students and engineers to be familiar with the concepts of applying software design, formal specification methods, programming languages and different software tools. Currently hundreds of software products are available for PSE. In the platform, we select some of the most popular software development tools for PSE education and researching, as listed in Table 1. Table 1. Software tools used in the platform
Software tool G2 Matlab/Simulink LabWindows/CVI Aspen Plus Pro/II SuperPro DataCON GAMS WinCC MSDN Control Station InTouch Rational XDE gPROMS SCA
Usage Real-time expert system development tool Numeric computation and visualization tool Virtual instrumentation programming environment Process simulator Process simulator Process simulator Data rectification MINLP solver Process monitoring Programming and database tools Process control Process control Data modeling Process modeling and optimization Statistical analysis to time series
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5. Applications This platform is currently used in process system engineering teaching activities in South China University of Technology. Up to now, 5 years of graduate students courses of 'simulation and optimization of chemical processes', 'computer integrated process operations', 'chemical processes design', and 'process control' are delivered based on this platform, listed in Table 2. Table 2 courses based on the platform Course name Process control Analysis and synthesis of chemical process Simulation and optimization of chemical processes Design of chemical processes Computer integrated operation
Student
Hour
Undergraduate Undergraduate Graduate Graduate Graduate
40h 40h 60h 40h 40h
A series of research and development projects have been conducted based on this platform (Qian, 2000, 2003). One of the research is to integrate multi-task for chemical process operation using multi-agent technique (Cheng, 2003). The multi-agent system with CORBA as a middle ware of the information exchange of agents is an open architecture, which is essential to the requirements of the process operation system integration. Another research based on this platform is process monitoring and fault diagnosis. For miniplant, operating data are collected from WINCC using OPC technique. Operation monitoring module for miniplant was developed using VB, which 16 measurement variables and 7 control variables of miniplant are monitored, shown as Figure 5. Several control variables, such as temperature, stirring speed, are monitored on loop remotely. Many methods of process fault detection and diagnosis were studied on the platform, such as ART2 (Li, 2003a), PCA (Li, 2003b, 2004), ICA (Yao, 2004)
Figure 5 Operation monitoring for miniplant
Figure 6 TE process fault detection and diagnosis based on PCA
2110
X.Lietal
etc. Shown in Figure 6 is the interface of TE process fault monitoring and diagnosis based on PCA. 6. Conclusion The proposed and implemented integrated experimental platform provides an easily used, systemic educational learning environment for students to solve engineering problems. The platform plays an important role in transferring new advanced technology in research to industry. A number of popular software development tools has been integrated in the platform. It has been used for education and research for several years. Furthermore, the WWW technology will be introduced in the platform to make the platform a virtual experimental environment on the campus so that more students and researchers from different disciplines make maximum use of the platform. Acknowledgments Financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 20225620, 20376025, 20536020), the international cooperation research project from Guangdong Provincial Sci. & Tech. Bureau are gratefiilly acknowledged. References Downs, J.J. and E.F. Vogel, 1993, A plant-wide industrial process control problem. Computers and Chemical Engineering, 17, 245-25 5. John P., 2002, Education in process system engineering: past, present and future, Computers and Chemical Engineering, 26, 283-293. Cheng, H. N., Y. Qian, X. X. Li, and H. H. Li, 2003, Agent-oriented modeling and integration of process operation systems. European Symposium on Computer Aided Process Engineering-13, 599-604. Li, X X, Y. Qian, Q.M. Huang, 2003a, Multi-scale ART2 for state Identification of process operation systems, 8th International Symposium on Process Systems Engineering, 523-529. Li, X.X, Y. Qian, and J. F. Wang, 2003b, Process monitoring based on wavelet packet principal component analysis, European Symposium on Computer Aided Process Engineering-!3, Lappeenranta, Finland, 455-460. Li, X.X.,Y.Qian, 2004, Process Monitoring based on nonlinear wavelet packet principal component analysis, European Symposium on Computer Aided Process Engineering-14, 685-690. Qian, Y., Q.M. Huang, 2000, An object/agent based environment for computer integrated process operation system. Computers and Chemical Engineering, 24, 457-462. Qian, Y., X.X. Li, Y.Q. Wen, 2003, An exper system for real-time fault diagnosis of complex chemical processes. Expert Systems with Applications, 24(4), 425-432. Yao, Z.X, 2003, Statistics Modeling of the state space and monitoring of chemical process systems, PhD Dissertation, South China University of Technology.
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Implementation of an Integrated Platform of Process System Operations for Education and Research Xiuxi Li, Yu Qian*, and Yanbin Jiang School of Chemical & Energy Engineering, South China University of Technology Guangzhou, 510640, P. R. China Abstract Process system engineering is a cross discipline with characteristic of industrial practice. New advances and application of computer and information techniques, including process simulation, virtual reality, interaction courseware, remote network education, help to cultivate critical and creative thinking for students and professionals. In this paper, an experimental platform is implemented for the purposes of PSE education and research. It integrates the main components in chemical process operation to help students to adopt a 'systems approach' to engineering problem solving. Keywords: education and training, process system operation, experimental platform 1. Introduction Process System Engineering (PSE) is concerned with the development of techniques and tools to address the generic manufacturing problems in design, operation and control for the process industries. In the recent years, PSE education has been concerned and discussed widely. The most of chemical engineering departments set curricula of PSE, such as chemical process design, process control, process modeling and optimization etc, for undergraduates and graduates. The aim of these curricula is to help students to adopt a 'systems approach' to engineering problem solving and encourage students to adopt a systematic and practical approach to their entire professional career (John, 2002). However, many existing teaching materials and tools are very difficult for students understanding when there is not an advanced interactive Corresponding author, Tel: +86(20)87113046, E-mail address: [email protected]
2106
X, Li et al
experimental platform. In this paper, an experimental platform is proposed and implemented for the purposes of education and research in the area of process operation integration. 2. The platform structure The tasks in PSE, such as process design, modeling, optimization, control, scheduling, are correlative rather than alone. It should be considered in systemic approach. The proposed integrated experimental platform in this paper integrates the main components in chemical process operation. The core of the experimental platform consists of five parts: processes equipments and simulators, control system, data acquisition and rectification, database, and advanced application, as shown in Figure 1. Process equipments and simulator are used as experimental objects. The control systems used are CENTUM-CSIOOO and SIEMENS profibus. The data acquisition and rectification and the database work together to realize data exchange among the basic control systems and advanced appHcations. Opening Database Connection (ODBC) and Common Object Request Broker Agent (CORBA) are followed to realize communication among these software systems in the platform. The Standard for exchange of product data (STEP) is used for information integration. Advanced applications include process monitoring, fault diagnose, production planning and scheduling, safety evaluation, online optimization, and steady state simulation of process etc. Fault Detection and Diagnosis G2
Scheduling and Optimization GAMS
f Process Simulation 1 Aspen plus, Pro/II
Safety Evaluation
Process Monitoring
^
Data Acquisition and Rectification, DataCON — •
CZL
i
Z!I Database ^MS SQL server^
Process Control, CS-1000 Process Simulator Aspen Dynamic, Simulink
Process Equipments miniplant
Figure 1 Structure of the experimental platform for process operation system
To imitate the real industrial production process, the miniplant was installed in the products and processes development laboratory, while the advanced application and teaching experiment are implemented in the system integration
Implementation of an Integrated Platform ofProcess System Operations
2107
laboratory in another building. The distance between the two laboratories is about 600 meters. Signals of data and video are transmitted by special light fiber as well as campus network. The physical structure of the platform is shown in Figure 2. The equipment Lab
The system integration Lab 52' plasma display panel
video camera
^^^^F^ s s s ^ s ^ ^ ^
l^^n •f^!
B
Fiber Switch
Campus Network
•r. '"
\
•r:":" ' i |
igiBgpjy
Workstation Control PC
Database server
Figure 2 The platform physical cormecting structure
3. Processes simulators and equipments Process simulation has been widely used in education. Process simulator is designed to represent the characteristic of the real plant productions, with necessary functions of the operation. Tennessee Eastman process simulator was developed by using C++Builder in the platform. Tennessee Eastman process is a typical chemical process found in the industry (Downs, 1993). There are 41 measurements, including 22 continuous process measurements and 19 composition measurements, and 12 manipulated variables. One of the interface of TE process simulator is shown in Figure 3. Besides the process simulator, a miniplant is used and connected to the platform as experimental object. The miniplant includes two batch reactor units, dosing, centrifuge, heating and cooling system, heat exchanger, vacuum pump using for negative pressure operation, and industrial control system operator station, as shown in Figure 4. In this miniplant, the raw material is pumped into the alternative reactor from the supply vessels. Flow rate of the feeding is controlled with dosing valves. The reactor unit consists of a 2 litre and a 10 litre jacked stirred reactors. They are used for batch and semi-batch chemical processes, such as reactions and crystallizations. When finishing reaction, the fluid product goes through the partial condenser and total condenser with heat exchange, and then flows into the product vessels. Meanwhile, the solid product is transported into the centrifiige from the reactor bottom valve. Crystal
X. Li et al
2108
separation is operated in the centrifuge. The vacuum pump ensures negative pressure operation. There are 16 measurement variables and 7 control variables.
Figure 3 The interface of TE process
Figure 4. Structure of the miniplant
4. Software tools It is essential for students and engineers to be familiar with the concepts of applying software design, formal specification methods, programming languages and different software tools. Currently hundreds of software products are available for PSE. In the platform, we select some of the most popular software development tools for PSE education and researching, as listed in Table 1. Table 1. Software tools used in the platform
Software tool G2 Matlab/Simulink LabWindows/CVI Aspen Plus Pro/II SuperPro DataCON GAMS WinCC MSDN Control Station InTouch Rational XDE gPROMS SCA
Usage Real-time expert system development tool Numeric computation and visualization tool Virtual instrumentation programming environment Process simulator Process simulator Process simulator Data rectification MINLP solver Process monitoring Programming and database tools Process control Process control Data modeling Process modeling and optimization Statistical analysis to time series
Implementation of an Integrated Platform ofProcess System Operations
2109
5. Applications This platform is currently used in process system engineering teaching activities in South China University of Technology. Up to now, 5 years of graduate students courses of 'simulation and optimization of chemical processes', 'computer integrated process operations', 'chemical processes design', and 'process control' are delivered based on this platform, listed in Table 2. Table 2 courses based on the platform Course name Process control Analysis and synthesis of chemical process Simulation and optimization of chemical processes Design of chemical processes Computer integrated operation
Student
Hour
Undergraduate Undergraduate Graduate Graduate Graduate
40h 40h 60h 40h 40h
A series of research and development projects have been conducted based on this platform (Qian, 2000, 2003). One of the research is to integrate multi-task for chemical process operation using multi-agent technique (Cheng, 2003). The multi-agent system with CORBA as a middle ware of the information exchange of agents is an open architecture, which is essential to the requirements of the process operation system integration. Another research based on this platform is process monitoring and fault diagnosis. For miniplant, operating data are collected from WINCC using OPC technique. Operation monitoring module for miniplant was developed using VB, which 16 measurement variables and 7 control variables of miniplant are monitored, shown as Figure 5. Several control variables, such as temperature, stirring speed, are monitored on loop remotely. Many methods of process fault detection and diagnosis were studied on the platform, such as ART2 (Li, 2003a), PCA (Li, 2003b, 2004), ICA (Yao, 2004)
Figure 5 Operation monitoring for miniplant
Figure 6 TE process fault detection and diagnosis based on PCA
2110
X.Lietal
etc. Shown in Figure 6 is the interface of TE process fault monitoring and diagnosis based on PCA. 6. Conclusion The proposed and implemented integrated experimental platform provides an easily used, systemic educational learning environment for students to solve engineering problems. The platform plays an important role in transferring new advanced technology in research to industry. A number of popular software development tools has been integrated in the platform. It has been used for education and research for several years. Furthermore, the WWW technology will be introduced in the platform to make the platform a virtual experimental environment on the campus so that more students and researchers from different disciplines make maximum use of the platform. Acknowledgments Financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 20225620, 20376025, 20536020), the international cooperation research project from Guangdong Provincial Sci. & Tech. Bureau are gratefiilly acknowledged. References Downs, J.J. and E.F. Vogel, 1993, A plant-wide industrial process control problem. Computers and Chemical Engineering, 17, 245-25 5. John P., 2002, Education in process system engineering: past, present and future, Computers and Chemical Engineering, 26, 283-293. Cheng, H. N., Y. Qian, X. X. Li, and H. H. Li, 2003, Agent-oriented modeling and integration of process operation systems. European Symposium on Computer Aided Process Engineering-13, 599-604. Li, X X, Y. Qian, Q.M. Huang, 2003a, Multi-scale ART2 for state Identification of process operation systems, 8th International Symposium on Process Systems Engineering, 523-529. Li, X.X, Y. Qian, and J. F. Wang, 2003b, Process monitoring based on wavelet packet principal component analysis, European Symposium on Computer Aided Process Engineering-!3, Lappeenranta, Finland, 455-460. Li, X.X.,Y.Qian, 2004, Process Monitoring based on nonlinear wavelet packet principal component analysis, European Symposium on Computer Aided Process Engineering-14, 685-690. Qian, Y., Q.M. Huang, 2000, An object/agent based environment for computer integrated process operation system. Computers and Chemical Engineering, 24, 457-462. Qian, Y., X.X. Li, Y.Q. Wen, 2003, An exper system for real-time fault diagnosis of complex chemical processes. Expert Systems with Applications, 24(4), 425-432. Yao, Z.X, 2003, Statistics Modeling of the state space and monitoring of chemical process systems, PhD Dissertation, South China University of Technology.