Andrew Nathan - Virtual Materials Group
James van der Lee - Virtual Materials Group
Dynamic simulation can be an important modeling tool for design, capacity, safety and control studies of process plants. However, application of dynamic simulation with regard to sulfur plants has been minimal, due to lack of knowledge and experience, as well as lack of commercially available tools with the necessary functionality and fidelity.
This presentation will provide an overview of dynamic simulation and its benefits/capabilities applied to process plant modeling, with a specific emphasis on sulfur recovery units (SRUs). Topics discussed will be the inputs and data needed for building a dynamic SRU model, potential pitfalls, as well as the various uses of the dynamic SRU model once it has been developed and validated.
A rigorous dynamic SRU model offers many benefits to engineers and operators such as: evaluating process equipment, process configurations, control strategies, relief loads during blowdown/depressuring, analyzing potential upsets (including upstream and downstream processes as necessary) and malfunctions, as well as studying process operability, start-up and shutdown procedures. A number of these applications will be illustrated with case studies.