Catching unfit control valves: Retired end user Henk Hinssen shares his 42 year journey of selecting control valves

摘要

How do you catch those unfit control valves during your project before it is too late? I mean too late before it really hurts! Before it eats your energy! Before it gives you sleepless nights! During my 42 years in the petrochemical industry, working 35 years for an American oil and gas major, I was often involved in large and mega projects as the automation engineer responsible for the engineering, commissioning and startup of instrumentation and control including those control valves. How many of you have mastered the control valve sizing and selection process such that all your valves selected, except maybe a few, proved fit for the application and the plant started up without a glitch? In other words, you were never on the radar screen of the startup leader. You never got on the critical path of a startup. Never were you in a situation where people were waiting for you putting the hydrocarbons in and finally making the product... How many times have you had to correct control valve selections during commissioning and startup? And work your butt off to get those redesigns expedited to getting the plant started up and running?