Get insights into your processes in order to train your workforce, increase process safety, and reduce energy and water consumption, at the same time ensuring a profitable production in every case

Operator Training Simulators and Dynamic Models for the Fertilizer Industry

Develop the skills of your control room operators. Get a more in-depth knowledge of your plant.

ChallengeAs in any other industry, safety, reliability and profitability rely to a great extent on a sufficient level of knowledge, skills and aptitudes of the plant’s workforce. In such an energy-intensive industry, such as fertilizers, having the personnel properly trained is key to achieving corporate targets and KPIs.

SolutionControl Room Operators’ skills developmentis better achieved with rigorous, high-fidelity Operator Training Simulators. Inprocess has been developing and commissioning several OTSs for many of the producing processes in the fertilizers industry, involving in this development most of the process simulators in the market and many of the available Distributed Control Systems

BenefitsApart from the classic OTS benefits in terms of professional skills acquisition, the development of an OTS based on a first-principles simulator also means that clients can have a dynamic digital twin of the processing plant that can also be used for parallel purposes such as:· An Online digital twin for equipment

monitoring and bad actors’ detection· An Offline digital twin for optimization

studies· Advanced Process Control tuning· Relief loads determination

The Fertilizer Industry

AboutFertilizer is a key ingredient in feeding a growing global population, which is expected to surpass 9.5 billion people by 2050. Half of all the food grown around the world today is made possible through the use of fertilizer.SustainabilityThe production of fertilizer is energy intensive. Natural gas is used in the production of hydrogen (for ammonia

The fertilizer industry’s challenges in context (source: https://www.tfi.org/our-industry/state-of-industry-archive)

reaction) and in manufacturing dry phosphate fertilizers. Natural gas can account for between 70 to 90 percent of the nitrogen fertilizer manufacturing cost.WaterThe responsible use of water is fundamental to sustainability efforts and conservation. Because some fertilizer operation processes are water intensive, many producers have established water efficiency

and zero discharge targets that are to be achieved through water conservation and reuse or recycling within their operations.EnergyEnergy is a necessary component in the process of creating fertilizer products. Significant efficiency improvements are generally undertaken when process lines are upgraded, or new capacity is introduced. The quantity of

energy consumed is important in the discussion of environmental regulations that affect energy costs and natural gas policy.Regarding Waste Heat Recapture, the fertilizer industry strives to capture back wasted heat and use this thermal energy for steam production, heating and electricity generation. This represents energy that otherwise would have had to be purchased or supplied through fuel combustion.

Operator Training Simulators for Fertilizer productionAs previously pointed out, the fertilizer industry, which like any other industry needs to produce safely and profitably, is at the same time challenged by the need to reduce the intensive use of reactants, energy and water. As a result, it relies to a great extent on a sufficient level of readiness of the plant’s technical workforce.An Operator Training Simulator is the usual tool of choice used to prepare and train operators for a new plant to be built (greenfield), or to standardize and improve current operating

procedures in existing plants (brownfield)In greenfield fertilizer plants, the OTSs designed by Inprocess have helped our clients to: · Decrease time-to-market (earlier earnings)· Smooth plant start-up (diminution of off-spec

production)· Reduce commissioning time (savings in

reimbursable services)· Avoid future operational bottlenecksWhen our fertilizer clients have used an OTS in brownfield plants, they have:

· Improved existing operating procedures· Solved controllability issues· Increased safety· Reduced spurious trips and, above all· Improved plant performanceThe economic benefits associated with the use of an Operator Training Simulator to train the operations team of a fertilizer plant are intangible but, according to reliable sources, they are worth millions a year, thus projects with ROIs of less than a year.

In the operation of fertilizer plants, the availability of the rigorous and validated dynamic model brought by the deployment of an OTS, is currently helping clients in the study of alternatives which could be used to improve plant operations. It does this by:· Testing different operating targets and/or

increasing plant production· Evaluating feedstock changes (changes may

take place over the years or in day to night shifts)

Usage of the OTS’ Process Models beyond deployment

· Debottlenecking and troubleshooting reformers and other reactors

· Carrying out benefit studies for APC design and troubleshooting, as well as DCS checkouts

· Lowering energy consumption· by evaluating the impact of operating

conditions on specific consumption· by checking to see if a reduction in the

Steam/Carbon ratio is possible· by increasing the HP steam temperature

Benefit studies associated with the use of simulation models in fertilizer plants

· Steady State Off-line Optimization > 20,000 €/upset

· Steady State Unit Monitoring > 250,000 €/year + decreased downtime

· Unit Design and Troubleshooting > 300,000 €/project

· APC Design / DCS checkout Reduction of 30% of the control implementation costs

· Steady State Online Optimization > 2 MM €/project (in a similar industry)

· Complying with environmental regulations by evaluating process alternatives and operating conditions to optimize the CO2 balance, thus considerably reducing emissions

· Studying the effects of catalyst ageing and changes in catalyst charges

· Studying the specific catalyst bed configurations and the associated pressure drops

Inprocess has built several dynamic simulation models for Hydrogen Production Units, based on the steam reforming of natural gas, either for fertilizer plants (where hydrogen is used as a reactant for ammonia production), or in refineries (where hydrogen is used in conversion units such as hydrotreaters and hydrocrackers), or in petrochemical and chemical plants (where H2 is again used as a reactant in many chemical reactions).

· In an ammonia plant for Simplot Phosphates, the steam methane reformer designed to generate hydrogen was modeled by Inprocess as part of the Operator Training Simulator project required for the new plant, using UniSim Design to build it (more details of this project are available in the Ammonia plants section)

· For a plant in Malaysia, Inprocess was in charge of developing the OTS for the Ammonia-Urea integrated plant, with the requirement of including in the dynamic model the primary and secondary steam reformers of the H2 plant (more details of this project can be found in the Urea plants section)

Steam Methane Reformers (SMR)

· In the Preem’s refinery located in Lysekil, Sweden, an OTS for the steam reformer in the hydrogen production unit was requested as part of a more ambitious project involving OTSs for four of the refinery units. Inprocess built the training system based on Aspen HYSYS, being especially careful in the simulation of the steam circuit (reactant and heating fluid) as well as in the reformer reactor and its thermal inertia. This project is summarized in a paper published in Hydrocarbon Engineering:

Download Paper

· For a Danish process licensor, Inprocess developed a generic OTS for their proprietary methanol process, which also included an SMR designed to generate H2, (more details of this project will be found in the Methanol plants section)

· For a chemical specialties plant, in

USA, Inprocess built the OTS for the Steam Methane Reformer unit that generates the H2 they need for their specialty chemical reactors

As part of different projects requested by our clients, Inprocess has had to build several dynamic simulation models for Ammonia plants. Examples include:

· For the greenfield ammonia plant previously mentioned in the SMR plants section, for J.R. Simplot Phosphates in Rock Springs, WY (USA), the process was based on Linde’s LAC.L1 concept, using natural gas as feedstock. Inprocess built a direct-connect OTS, using a Siemens DCS simulator to reproduce the control logic and the operators’ consoles, connecting everything with our own Inprocess Infrastructure Suite (IIS) software. The whole project is summarized in a paper published in World Fertilizer:

Download Paper

Ammonia Plants

· As previously mentioned, for the fertilizer plant in Malaysia, a dynamic simulation model of the Ammonia plant (and the subsequent Urea and the parallel Methanol plants) was developed by Inprocess as part of the required OTS (more details of this project can be checked out in the Urea plants section)

· Inprocess has carried out dynamic simulation studies for an Italian EPC for the steam and the CO2 networks associated with an Ammonia/Urea producing plant. The main purpose of the simulation project was to deliver to them an evaluation of the response of the system (and the suitability of the protective controls and devices currently installed) to an increase in the NH3 and Urea production after an improvement study carried out to optimize the operating modes

Inprocess has been in charge of developing and commissioning an emulated Operator Training Simulator for an integrated Ammonia/Methanol-Urea plant (plus the associated Utilities plant, including a SMR to generate H2) in Malaysia. In this project, several dynamic simulation models have been created (instead of a single, large model) in order to optimize the integration rate and, as a result the real time factor of the training tool, thereby achieving acceptable ratios for training purposes. The dynamic process models were built using Honeywell UniSim Design. The Yokogawa Centum VP control logic was incorporated into the process model, and the APC module was connected to the dynamic process model, while the operator’s graphical user interfaces were constructed using our proprietary Inprocess Infrastructure Suite, which was also acting as the communication hub for the whole of the training system.

Urea Plants

Inprocess built a complex dynamic simulation model of Espindesa’s weak nitric acid dual-pressure process in Aspen HYSYS, applying much of its internal know-how about dynamic process simulation, and squeezing the software to the maximum in order to be able to model a mainly inorganic process. Such a model was the basis for the building of a Digital Twin of the system that could be used by Espindesa to show the operability of the plant to current customers, and to show plant and technology capabilities to potential customers. The Digital Twin was first evolved to a Process Trainer and later, to a full direct-connect Operator Training Simulator. The entire the project is summarized in a paper published in World Fertilizer:Download Paper

Nitric Acid Plants

Methanol Plants

Although not directly connected to the fertilizer industry, methanol plants are usually placed close to ammonia and urea plants in order to leverage the use of the same raw materials and subproducts.

· In this sense, the previously-mentioned OTS for the fertilizer complex in Malaysia also necessitated the building of a model for the methanol plant associated to the ammonia/urea producing plant due to the existing interactions between the different product and energy streams that belonged to both plants

· Inprocess has also built a generic, high-fidelity Operator Training Environment for a proprietary methanol licensed process. This is

composed of a series of training modules to be used to learn about the fundamentals of unit operations (based on Inprocess’ training environment: ITOP) as well as an emulated solution (Yokogawa CentumVP) for the methanol plant, founded on a dynamic simulation model built on VMGSim technology (current Symmetry). The architecture of this training environment consisted of a web-based infrastructure. This approach allowed different thin-clients to access the different operator training functionalities from different PCs, sitting at various company locations. The remote environment allowed interaction by clients with the central application in a smooth and non-intrusive way.

Inprocess is a leading services and consulting company that supports its clients with results from process simulation in an effort to help them achieve safer, more reliable and more profitable industrial operations. Our services and products provide guidance to the design and the operation of highly complex hydrocarbon and chemical processing plants where it is critically important for operations

Inprocessto reach and remain at optimum values. Inprocess’ independence of any specific technology provider facilitates our ability to exceed customer expectations as we are free to combine results from any piece of software available in the market. Our added expertise in software development helps to fill the functionality gaps when commercial products do not meet all our customer’s requirements.

Inprocess’ passion for knowledge transfer has contributed to the acquisition of skills by our clients, delivering high returns in their investments, in both current and future projects.

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