 Business Science
 Industry
Optimization of
Continuous Production
Optimization of
Coal Fired Boilers
Diagnosis of Boiler
Slagging and Fouling
Diagnosis of Progressing
Cavity Pumps
Discovery of NOx and
SO2 Control Rules
Discovery of Control
Rules for Melting
Practices
Discovery of Control
Rules for Coal Cleaning
Scheduling Continuous
Production Processes
Fault diagnosis and
Adaptive Control
A Hybrid Learning
Expert System
Monitoring Pulp Quality
|
|
|
These examples
discuss application of our tools or the underlying mathematical methods to various
industrial uses. Because of confidentiality considerations, we discuss here only
applications that were made available to the public.
Monitoring and Control
Optimization of
Continuous Production Processess
Optimization of
Coal Fired Boilers
Monitoring Pulp Quality (Virtual Sensor)
Discovery of NOx
and SO2 Control Rules
Discovery of Control Rules for Melting Practices in a
Steel Mill
Discovery of Control Rules for Coal Cleaning Practices
Planning and Scheduling
Scheduling Continuous
Production Processes
Fault Diagnosis and
Maintenance
Fault Diagnosis and
Adaptive Control
Diagnosis of Boiler
Slagging and Fouling
Diagnosis of Progressing
Cavity Pumps
A Hybrid Learning
Expert System
| Title: |
Optimization of Continuous Production Processes |
| Developer: |
REDUCT & Lobbe Technologies, Regina, SK, Canada. |
| Description: |
Optim/RT was implemented in a pulp mill to optimize mill
performance in real-time. Optim/RT uses rules derived from historical process logs
to monitor the process at different stages. While Optim/RT is monitoring the
process, it determines whether or not the current process state will result in the desired
outcome. If not, it will notify the operator and recommend changes. The goal
of the system was to reduce the hydrogen peroxide and other chemicals added in the process
while still meeting the brightness specifications. |
| Benefits: |
- Reduce hydrogen peroxide addition by 5 to 6 percent.
- Cost savings of over 1/2 million dollars per line per year.
|
 Top
| Title: |
Optimization of Coal Fired Boilers |
| Developer: |
REDUCT & Lobbe Technologies, Regina, SK, Canada. |
| Description: |
REDUCT Optim/RT was applied to optimize boiler efficiency by simulating boiler operations and performance with several months of historical operating data. The performance of Optim/RT system was then compared to the actual historical boiler performance data. Optim/RT knowledge described a number of control states that resulted in high boiler efficiency (> 84%), while maintaining values of gas temperatures, spry flow, and oxygen concentrations within well-defined boundaries. Optim/RT provided valuable information how not to operate the boiler and what situations should be avoided under different load conditions. Increasing boiler performance on the order of 0.5 to 1.5 percent.
|
| Benefits: |
- Increased boiler performance by 0.5 to 1.5 percent.
- Cost savings of over 1/2 million dollars per year.
|
Top
| Title: |
Virtual Online Analyzer (Virtual Sensor) |
| Developer: |
REDUCT & Lobbe Technologies, Regina, SK, Canada. |
| Description: |
VirtualAnalyzer was implemented in a pulp mill to monitor product
quality in real-time. The goal of the system
was to provide operators with timely information on key product attributes to enable them
to detect potential problems early, without having to wait for lab analysis. The
system also alerts operators when attribute values are outside the target range. |
| Benefits: |
- Reduces delay in reacting to product problems.
|
Top
| Title: |
Discovery of NOx and SO2 Control
Rules |
| Developer: |
REDUCT & Lobbe Technologies, Regina, SK, Canada. |
| Description: |
A comprehensive analysis of NOX and SO2 emission data from a 150 MW utility boiler fired by lignite.
The developer derived control and optimization rules for NOX
including effects of overfire air quantity, location and injection patterns; secondary air
distribution; excess and primary air quantity; sulfur capture sorbent injection, type and
location of injection, etc. |
| Benefits: |
- Design specifications for new power plant.
|
Top
| Title: |
Discovery of Control Rules for Melting Practices in a
Steel Mill |
| Developer: |
REDUCT & Lobbe Technologies, Regina, SK, Canada. |
| Description: |
A comprehensive analysis of four years of production data describing steel
rolling mill operations and slab composition. The developer derived control rules
that described the best melting practices of expert engineers/operators. |
| Benefits: |
- Reduce slab rework.
- Potential payback of 6 to 8 months.
|
Top
| Title: |
Discovery of Control Rules for Coal Cleaning Practices |
| Developer: |
REDUCT & Lobbe Technologies, Regina, SK, Canada. |
| Description: |
A comprehensive analysis of two years of pilot production data including
operating data for grinding, floatation, high and low shear condition tanks, and product
screening . The developer derived control rules that described the best melting
practices of expert engineers/operators. The system used these rules to
automatically respond to constant changes in feedstock properties while minimizing
chemical cost and off-spec product. |
| Benefits: |
- Reduced froth chemical cost.
- Reduced off-spec product.
- Potential payback of 3 to 4 months..
|
Top
| Title: |
Scheduling Continuous Production Processes |
| Developer: |
REDUCT & Lobbe Technologies, Regina, SK, Canada. |
| Description: |
SchedulingExpert considers a number
of pulp production scheduling issues concurrently including order amounts, order
deadlines, transition losses and costs, production line constraints, storage costs and
desired run lengths. By defining as many or as few constraints as desired, the user is
able to customize the system to his plant’s unique scheduling problems and
priorities. Tests were conducted in a two production line pulp mill and one month
schedules were developed based on the actual orders awaiting production. The goal of these
schedules was to minimize losses from switching grades (pulp transitions) while still
meeting the deadlines. |
| Benefits: |
- Reduce missed deadlines by 10 to 30 percent.
- Reduce pulp transition losses by 30 to 40 percent.
- Potential savings of over $300,000 per year.
|
Top
| Title: |
Fault Diagnosis and Adaptive Control |
| Developer: |
REDUCT & Lobbe Technologies, Regina, SK, Canada. |
| Description: |
A proof of concept of a fault diagnosis and adaptive control system for
hydrocracking vacuum bottoms in a heavy oil upgrading plant. |
| Benefits: |
- Derivation of temporal patterns from historical log data at a
fraction of the cost of acquiring human expert rules.
- Cost savings of several hundred thousand dollars per year.
|
Top
| Title: |
Diagnosis of Boiler Slagging and Fouling |
| Developer: |
REDUCT & Lobbe Technologies, Regina, SK, Canada. |
| Description: |
REDUCT DES was also applied to build a decision support system for monitoring and diagnosis of boiler deposits. Based on the troubleshooting guide for boiler fouling and slagging, and historical boiler performance data, a set of expert diagnostic rules was derived to characterize boiler cleanness. Simple troubleshooting rules could be derived to diagnose superheaters, reheater and water wall fouling; however, to identify fouling of air heaters and economizer additional information on the current trends of absorption factors was required.
|
| Benefits: |
- Increased boiler performance by 0.5 to 1.0 percent.
- Cost savings of over 1/2 million dollars per line per year.
|
Top
| Title: |
Diagnosis of Progrssing Cavity Pumps |
| Developer: |
REDUCT & Lobbe Technologies, Regina, SK, Canada. |
| Description: |
DES PCP diagnosis was evaluated in terms of its ability to
identify major PCP well failures and PCP well instabilities, and its potential for providing
decision support for prioritizing operators’ actions. DES was able to diagnose and rank various
PCP operating instabilities caused by incorrect operating conditions or well upsets.
|
| Benefits: |
- DES PCP proactively alerted the operator to frothcoming performance deterioration.
- Cost savings of over 4 thousand dollars per per well per year, or over 2 million dollars for a mid size heavy oil production facility.
|
Top
| Title: |
A Hybrid Learning Expert System |
| Developer: |
REDUCT & Lobbe Technologies, Regina, SK, Canada. |
| Description: |
A proof-of-concept of a learning expert system for fault detection and
diagnosis in a Mobile Servicing System of the Canadian Space Agency. |
| Benefits: |
- A simple system that overcomes problems with operator-induced
faults and that learns from performed diagnoses.
|
Top
|
