TACKLING THE PROBLEM OF VALVE MISALIGNMENTS

摘要

Valve misalignments are a real issue in the petrochemical industry where misalignments in tank fields and blending areas can result in financial losses from product quality and environmental safety issues. This article describes an electronic pin board software solution developed by Matrix Technologies, Inc., a certified member of the Control System Integrators Association (CSIA), to mitigate valve misalignments and improve efficiency in the alignment process. It also details some of the underlying technologies used in the software and the gains that have resulted from its use. Integrated systems have been a control standard in the petroleum industry for quite some time. In blending operations, however, it is still common to use manually operated valves. At a client's refinery site, the status of valves being open or closed was noted with paper drawings, charts, red-lines and pin boards. These solutions may work for a handful of instruments, but were cumbersome and error-prone for handling 85 tanks and over 2,000 valves in the subject refinery's tank field area.