David Williams - Berthold Technologies
In process units that are designed to process heavy oil or residual from other units, measurements can have reliability issues. These issues are normally caused by the measurement technology coming in direct contact with the process fluid and the fluids having a tendency to coat and plug traditional measurement technologies such as displacers, floats, differential pressure, etc. The use of radiometric measurements can increase the reliability of the process units since they are non-intrusive to the process. This means, these issues of coating and plugging do not affect the measurement. This greatly increases the reliability and safety of the process units. Other applications in refineries such as the ebullated bed density can only be performed by radiometric levels but with experience and knowledge, these measurements can also be improved with the proper setup and calibration techniques.