Water is an essential resource for the chemical process industries (CPI), with steam, cooling water and process water as just a few examples of its many applications. When readily available, this essential commodity is often taken for granted.…
Provided that they are updated when appropriate to keep them relevant, time-tested heuristics rules based upon experience, also referred to as rules of thumb, can be useful for the design, specifying and operation of several kinds of equipment…
Since its introduction to the market in 1959, chlorinated polyvinyl chloride (better known as CPVC) has proven suitable for use in a wide variety of chemical process environments. Because it is inert to most mineral acids, bases, salts…
The ANSI/ISA-S84.01-1996 standard, which has guided North American users for the past decade in designing safety instrumented systems (SIS) has migrated to a new international standard based on the IEC 61511 and is now known as ANSI/ISA-84.00.01-2004 (IEC…
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…
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. …
Distillation, based on differences in the volatility of components, is the most common unit operation for separating homogeneous mixtures. In simple distillation columns, a single feed stream is separated into two product streams. Complex columns are those that…
In the pharmaceutical, biotech and food processing industries, ingredients are transported, mixed, heated and cooled assuming the assurance of product purity required by lawmakers and taken for granted by consumers. Integral to the design of fluid-handling systems that…
For many years, the job of a control room operator at a petroleum refinery or chemical plant was seen as relatively simple: Keep the process running and fix it when it breaks. That perception is changing as more…
In widespread use throughout chemical process plants, centrifugal pumps are often employed (and taken for granted) in severe service conditions. Consequently, it is hardly surprising that problems can arise during their operation. A major difficulty facing the chemical…