Current Release: Version 3.2

Supported by the PROVISION graphical user interface, DATACON turns real-time process data into consistent and reliable business information. It uses statistically sound techniques to reconcile flow, temperature, and composition measurements to satisfy material and energy balances around each unit in a process plant. DATACON also detects gross errors in measurements, pinpoints the error locations, and confirms the presence or absence of measurement redundancy. DATACON now offers full and automated linkage to data historians, plant databases, and directly to distributed central systems (DCS).

• Typical plant balance reduced from 2-3% to 0.1%
• Balanced plant data for performance monitoring, management reporting, and technical applications
• Targeted instrument maintenance program based on reports from DATACON
• Reduced instrument maintenance costs
• Reduced instrument capital costs
• Improved plant yields
• Reduced operating costs due to lower processing losses

Applications

Process Monitoring - Analyze on-line plant data, tracks equipment performance, and detects instrument errors or malfunctions. DATACON is ideal for increasing confidence in the analysis, modeling, and scale-up of pilot plant designs.

Equipment Performance Analysis - An effective tool for tracking equipment performance over time. Catalyst activity, compressor efficiency, and heat exchanger fouling are good examples of DATACON's ability to identify true equipment performance trends and resulting effects on the entire plant.

Instrument Maintenance - Enables the identification of instruments that need recalibration or repair. Timely detection and correction of instrument errors minimize operational problems and off-spec product.

Plant Instrument Design - Instrument engineers can use DATACON to design safe, reliable, and cost-effective plant controls for both new and retrofitted plants. DATACON'S redundancy analysis feature guarantees adequate back-up for your most important plant measurements, and balances the cost of additional instruments with the benefits of redundancy.

Uses

Datacon performs plant data reconciliation based on an advanced, sum of weighted least squares optimization technique, subject to a set of heat and material balance equality constraints. The program adjusts the measured data and gives estimates to unmeasured variables where possible. This set of measured, as well as estimated, data, satisfies heat, material and component balance equations.

Process Control & Optimization

Operations, process and control engineers can use DATACON to automatically access on-line, time-averaged process data and reconcile it accurately. PRO/II then uses the reconciled process data and current economic data to provide outstanding operational decision support and improve plant performance without violating safety or regulatory constraints. PRO/II models may be used for operational analysis or for rigorous, off-line calculation of optimal control setpoints.

Output

Standard output includes reconciled estimates of measured flow rates and temperature, estimates of unmeasured variables, gross errors detected, and heat exchanger duty. Results can be logged for further analysis and input to application programs or passed through to the PRO/II or HEXTRAN programs for process optimization calculations.

Typical output includes:

• Degree of redundancy
• Measured and reconciled values
• Standard deviations
• Error analysis and propagation reports
• Classification of variables
  - Measured/unmeasured
  - Observable/unobservable
  - Redundant/non-redundant
  - Calculated/reconciled
• Heat duties for heat exchangers, heaters, flash, and reactors
• UA values for heat exchangers
• Extent of reactions for reactors