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Functional Safety Engineer Training

Functional safety in the process industry is commonplace and industry best practice is compliance with IEC 61511. A requirement of IEC 61511 is that engineers are competent to carry out the activities for which they are accountable. Competence includes knowledge, training, and experience.Functional Safety Engineer Training and exam certified by Safety and SIS (Spain) are designed to deliver the necessary knowledge to start working in the field of Functional Safety Engineering. Process Group Limi...

Process Safety Time (PST) vs SIF Response Time (SRT)

Safety Instrumented Systems (SIS) need to ensure that the response time of a Safety Instrumented Function (SIF) protecting a specific hazard, responds in sufficient time to mitigate the hazard. The process safety time should be developed during process design. This value is documented in the Safety Requirements Specification (SRS). SIF design should include calculation of the SIF Response Time (SRT) taking sensing element, logic solver and actuation time into account. The rate of hazardous event...

LTS Reactor System Retrofit

Retrofitting a low temperature shift reactor in a client’s SMR hydrogen plant marked a pragmatic approach to improving efficiency and contributing to ongoing decarbonisation efforts.Partially funded by the New Zealand GIDI fund, the project’s purpose was to convert residual water and carbon monoxide from the upstream SMR and HTS reactors to produce hydrogen. The goal was to reduce total input fuel and process feed gas while achieving the same hydrogen output, contributing to sustainable effi...

Ammonia Plant Process Simulation using Symmetry

A full simulation (process and utilities) of an ammonia plant has been completed using Symmetry process simulation software. Symmetry is the perfect platform for complete plant simulation enabling detailed characterisation of the plant that aligns with the way the plant is actually operated. The simulation is set up with key operator inputs and outputs used for plant control (e.g. steam to carbon ratio, hydrogen nitrogen ratio etc) together with key control loops.The Symmetry display configurati...

From Idea to Investment: Rules of Thumb for Project Costing

Accurate cost estimates are critical for making informed investment decisions. The more defined a project’s design scope is, the more refined the financial assessment can be. However, a project begins its lifecycle as an initial idea with an undefined scope and the opportunity for broad deviation from basic concept; how do we ensure financial viability of a project during these early phases?This article will outline some rules-of-thumb for project economics in the oil and gas or specialty chem...

The Importance of Process Simulation for Plant Optimisation

Plant revamp studies and complete plant simulations with matched plant operating data are the foundation for revamp concepts. Just recently we completed a +20% debottlenecking of a hydrogen peroxide plant where ultra-pure hydrogen is used as the feedstock for hydrogen peroxide production.  This involved rigorous simulation of the process and utilities, including a full hydraulic analysis to optimise the plant pressure profile.  This was essential since the plant is constrained at the i...

Sizing a Restriction Orifice

A restriction orifice is a simple, inexpensive device used to limit the flow of fluids. Despite their simplicity they are often used in safety-critical situations, such as limiting the vapour flowrate to within the capacity of a relief valve or controlling the rate of an emergency depressurisation. Accurate sizing of the orifice is therefore critical but is often misunderstood. Whilst the Bernoulli-derived equations for flow through an orifice are well documented in literature, such as in Crane ...

Project: AEMS for Ballance Kapuni

Commissioned in October 2021, the Ammonia Emissions Management System (AEMS) for Ballance Kapuni was a significant milestone for PGL. Spanning almost 3-years, the project involved the design and retrofit of a flare system with 40+ relief devices into the Ballance Kapuni ammonia plant. For Ballance, the driver for the project was to improve operator and community safety for their plant. From Process Group's perspective, this was certainly a landmark project of great complexity for flare system de...