Petroleum Refining

Below you will find white papers on topics involving process control and automation.

Effective Inventory Management During a Turnaround

Submitted by Kari Kohonen || Valin Corporation

Nothing will impede a successful plant turnaround like improper planning. One aspect of this planning is effective inventory management, and the keys to achieving this are properly identifying and communicating maintenance needs. Read the article below published in Hydrocarbon Processing Magazine to learn more.

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Guiding a Chopper Valve Application

Submitted by Sri Gavini || Valin Corporation

A large refinery in California (U.S.) was conducting a turnaround and utilized an outside engineering firm to oversee the process. During this phase, the engineering firm discovered the refinery needed new emergency safety shut-off valves (chopper valves) as part of their regeneration process.

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Heating a Tank for an Industrial Process

Submitted by Jon Irvine || Valin Corporation

Taking a systematic approach to specifying a tank heater can help ensure the equipment specified delivers the heating performance desired. Factors to consider include the amount of energy needed, heat loss, direct or indirect heating, materials of construction, and controls.

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Condition Monitoring: What Are We Measuring?

Submitted by Corey Foster || Valin Corporation

The concepts of preventive maintenance and condition monitoring are not always characterized in a way that is entirely accurate. They sometimes seem to be treated as a one-size-fits-all service that many operators believe they need. However, these concepts can mean very different things depending on the application.

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What You Need to Know About Emergency Isolation Valves

Submitted by Peter Jessee || Valin Corporation

Industrial process plants are complex facilities with thousands of components that play a role in the operation of the plant. Not all these components hold the same consequences if they are improperly selected or if they fail to perform their designed function.

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Excel-Worksheet Predicts Control Valve Hydrodynamic Noise

Submitted by Jon Monsen || Valin Corporation

Most control valve manufacturers include IEC 60534-8-4:2015 in their control valve sizing and selection software to predict control valve hydrodynamic noise. However, users who want to make quick noise predictions or who want to construct valve sizing applications, programming the above noise standard can be a daunting task. 

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Simplified Methods for Liquid Control Valve Sizing

Submitted by Jon Monsen || Valin Corporation

If one wants to be able to do accurate hand calculations, or construct a simple program or Excel sheet, the method described here gives answers that agree exactly with iterative calculations using the equations in the current version of the ISA and IEC standards.

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Emergency Isolation Valves — Needs and Requirements

Submitted by Peter Jessee || Valin Corp.

EIVs are a critical safety device for fuel-burning equipment and industrial processes that use flammable ingredients. Proper selection is critical for the safety of the workers in the plant, plant equipment and the surrounding communities.

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Using Control Valve Installed Gain Calculations

Submitted by Jon Monsen || Valin Corporation

The availability of an easily constructed Excel worksheet that calculates and graphs control valve installed gain in conjunction with the users preferred control valve sizing application has prompted a new interest in the application of these calculations. Three examples are shown here.

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Improving a Thermal Loop: The Power Controller

Submitted by Nathan Ehresman || Valin Corporation

For any process where temperature needs to be monitored or controlled, a thermal loop is required. Typically, a process that contains a thermal loop includes some key elements: the process itself, the temperature sensor or transmitter, the temperature controller and the power controller. 

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Fluid Handling: Pick The Proper Positioner

Submitted by Peter Jessee and Dave Fahlgren || Valin Corporation

Positioner selection deserves due diligence and consideration of several factors before making any firm decision. Theres certainly not a typical one-size-fits-all approach for positioners; an uninformed choice can lead to undesirable consequences.

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Valin’s Inventory Management Services: Providing Peace of Mind

Submitted by Rich Wilbur || Valin Corporation

By taking advantage of Valins program, customers can be confident that their inventory management function is fully optimized.  They can rest assured that the right parts will be in the right place right when they need them, while keeping the peace of mind that their transactional costs are being lowered and the KPIs are being adequately analyzed.

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Actuator Options for Process Automation

Submitted by Corey Foster and Peter Jessee || Valin Corporation

The process industries have control valves with actuators designed to open, close, and control them. Many people prefer pneumatic actuators given their long history, reliability, and high performance.

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Looking Beyond Globe Control Valves

Submitted by Peter Jessee || Valin Corporation

While globe control valves are still a viable solution, modern rotary control valves offer many advantages and serve as a more suitable solution in certain process applications.

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How to Monitor Assets Remotely Today

Submitted by Corey Foster || Valin Corporation

As long as products have had ethernet ports, people have been asking for remote access to them. They believed they could just plug the devices into the internet, and it would all work. As more software tools became available and internet speeds increased, capable users found ways to give themselves access, however, there was a catch.

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Understanding the Feedstock with Valin

Submitted by Norman Hall || Valin Corporation

The only way to achieve a specified purity level is to select and install proper filtration, with the job intended and the task fully understood. Norman Hall, Filtration Business Unit Manager for Valin Corporation, suggests a correct approach.

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Steam vs. Electric Heating — The Basics

Most facilities in the chemical process industries (CPI) require some form of heat. The amount of heat required, and the necessary level of consistency can vary from process to process. Regardless of the details, engineers must decide on a heating source that works best for a particular process.

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