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Automation & Control

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Markup languages

The World Batch Forum (WBF; St. Louis, Missouri; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6891-542) has released new versions of its two, XML-based markup languages for implementing the ANSI/ISA S88 and S95 standards and their international countrerparts IEC-61512 and IEC/ISO-62264. Enhancements in Version 2.0 of WBF’s…

Computational chemistry

    It’s a very exciting time for computational chemistry, said Gerhard Engel, senior director of R&D, accelrys Ltd. (Cambridge, England) in his opening address to delegates of the European Science Forum last month in Heidelberg, Germany. This comment was…

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Interoperability in control systems

Samson AG (Frankfurt, Germany; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6891-545) has started to implement the Vigilant Integration Partners (VIP) initiative, having entered a formal cooperation agreement with Yokogawa Electric Corp. (Tokyo; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6891-546). The VIP initiative is an open and non-exclusive mutual technology cooperation program to…

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Adiabatic-Temperature Rise: An Awkward Calculation Made Simple

    Predicting an adiabatic-temperature rise is useful to chemical engineers for a number of purposes. One use is with combustion reactions whereby it is useful for determining the adiabatic-flame temperature. The adiabatic-temperature rise can be calculated for any reaction…

Self-organizing wireless — right out of the box

Despite its potential to affordably reach valuable, non-critical data that would otherwise be out of physical or economic reach, wireless technology has yet to be widely adopted in the chemical process industries (CPI) because of the significant upfront resources that…

Free optimization

Acro 1.0 optimization software, developed by Sandia National Laboratories (Albuquerque, N.M.; edlinks.chemengonline.com/6518-550), has recently been published and is now available to the public at no charge. The software can be used to answer questions such as: “How will a drug…

Level measurement highlights

      Among the many parameters measured and controlled in the chemical process industries (CPI), level definitely ranks high in importance, and in some applications, can even be critical. Accurate level measurements commonly guide decision makers in inventory and…

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Antoine Coefficients for Vapor Pressure of the Elements

        Vapor pressure is important to engineers throughout the chemical process industries (CPI). Knowledge of a compound's vapor pressure is required in the design of storage vessels containing the compound. In hazard analysis, knowledge of vapor pressure…

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Getting the Most Out of Intelligent Devices

    Since their inception, data buses have been highly acclaimed in the chemical process industries (CPI) for their potential to achieve interoperability and substantial wire-savings - advantages that are particularly easy to envision for a theoretical case in which…

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Implementing Communication Buses

    The reason for installing a bus is generally four-fold: to reduce costs; to speed and simplify control system design, installation, and startup; to provide alarming and troubleshooting diagnostics; and to gather valuable information about the process itself.  …