PROJECT LEAD

Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station (TEES)

PARTNERS

Praxair, Process Systems Enterprise, AspenTech, OSISoft, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, University of Texas Austin

PROBLEM STATEMENT

An Air Separation Unit (ASU) is a complex and energy intensive process for chemical industries. Sub-optimal performance of these processes result in a loss of energy efficiency. For Praxair in the US, each 1% in operating efficiency is worth about $10 M/yr.

TECHNICAL APPROACH

• Create data acquisition tools, asset templates and predictive tools for the air separation units and demonstrate their application in an integrated environment.

KEY TASKS/MILESTONES:

• Develop data model templates for the air separation unit for data acquisition and modeling & control environments (M6)
• Implement a coupled on-premise & cloud historian system to collect plant data for analysis in the cloud (M6)
• Develop steady state, dynamic, control oriented, planning and scheduling models for ASU (M9)
• Develop data models for individual assets for integration into a Remote Asset Management workflow (M12)
• Develop analysis tools for the efficient monitoring and operation of the Air Separation Unit (M15)
• Validate analysis tools through field testing on an air separation unit at Praxair (M24)

POTENTIAL IMPACT:

• Increase in operating efficiencies of Air Separation Units estimated at $10M/yr. for one large manufacturer, with potentially similar impact to other manufacturers with similar ASUs Contributes to CESMII’s energy reduction and energy productivity goals

BENEFIT TO CESMII:

• Data templates, models, analytics tools available to other members with similar processes through the SM Platform™
• Contribution to the SM Platform™ core technologies (data acquisition, contextualization and apps)