Shankar Viswanathan

Intelligent systems for HAZOP analysis of complex process plants

Abstract Process safety, occupational health and environmental issues are ever increasing in importance in response to heightening public concerns and the resultant tightening of regulations. The process industries are addressing these concerns with a systematic and thorough process hazards analysis (PHA) of their new, as well as existing facilities. Given the enormous amounts of time, effort and money involved in performing the PHA reviews, there exists considerable incentive for automating the process hazards analysis of chemical process plants. In this paper, we review the progress in this area over the past few years. We also discuss the progress that has been made in our laboratory on the industrial application of intelligent systems for operating procedure synthesis and HAZOP analysis. Recent advances in this area have promising implications for process hazards analysis, inherently safer design, operator training and real-time fault diagnosis.

Automating operating procedure synthesis for batch processes: Part I. Knowledge representation and planning framework

Automating the synthesis of operating procedures for batch processes is very valuable as plant personnel often spend considerable amount of time and effort in preparing and verifying them for correctness and completeness. Towards this goal, a framework for automating operating procedure synthesis for batch processes is proposed in this paper. We propose an approach based on Grafcet, a discrete event modeling concept, to represent procedural knowledge combined with an object-oriented representation of the declarative knowledge. Grafcet is also used to model the information; called inferred knowledge, that is incrementally generated during operating procedure synthesis. The details of the basic components and the advanced features of Grafcet that make it a suitable technique for modeling the procedural and inferred knowledge are presented. A hierarchical planning strategy is proposed that uses the declarative and procedural knowledge to generate the inferred knowledge incrementally, which leads to the synthesis of the operating procedures. The implementation of this framework and its application to an industrial case study are presented in Part II.

Automating operating procedure synthesis for batch processes : Part II. Implementation and application

A framework for operating procedure synthesis in batch processes was presented in part on of this paper. In this part, we present, iTOPS (intelligent tool for operating procedure synthesis), a knowledge based system for implementing the concepts outlined in the framework. iTOPS has been developed in Gensyms G2 expert system shell. The architecture of iTOPS, that consists of components that closely mirror the strategies of the synthesis framework, is described. The implementation and algorithmic details of each of these components in the iTOPS architecture are explained. Finally the application of iTOPS to on an industrial case study is presented.

A hybrid strategy for batch process hazards analysis

Abstract In this paper we present a framework that addresses the three main parts of a process hazards analysis (PHA) study — hazard identification, hazard evaluation, and hazard mitigation. The framework utilizes a hybrid methodology that effectively combines a qualitative digraph model-based technique for performing hazard identification and a quantitative optimization-based technique for performing hazard evaluation and hazard mitigation. The systems that are used to implement the framework are BatchHAZOPExpert, gPROMS and gOPT. BatchHAZOPExpert is used for hazard identification while gPROMS and gOPT are used for hazard evaluation and hazard mitigation. The application of the integrated framework is illustrated by implementing it on an industrial case study.

Integrating operating procedure synthesis and hazards analysis automation tools for batch processes

In this paper we address the problem of integrating two systems iTOPS, an Intelligent Tool for Operating Procedure Synthesis and BHE, BatchHAZOPexpert that are respective used for generating operator instructions and performing process hazards analysis for batch processes. The architecture of the integrated system is described and its application to an industrial case study is presented.

Computer-integrated tools for batch process development

Abstract In the current environment of intense market competition, batch process industries stand to benefit from faster process development. Operating procedure sysnthesis (OPS) and process hazards analysis (PHA) are two time-consuming areas in batch process development because they are often manually performed. Recently, two intelligent systems — iTOPS and Batch HAZOPExpert (BHE) were developed in our research group to automate OPS and PHA. In this paper, the architecture of the full integration of the two systems is presented. Two applications from specialty chemical industry are presented to demonstrate the utility of the integrated system.

iTOPS: An intelligent tool for operating procedures synthesis

Abstract Operating procedures are the detailed sequence of instructions an operator has to follow to manage a batch process safely and optimally. The traditional manual synthesis of operating procedures is time-consuming and error-prone and hence can benefit from automation. In this paper a description of i TOPS 4.0, an Intelligent Tool for Operating Procedure Synthesis, is presented. The architecture of i TOPS and its performance for a pharmaceutical industry case study are discussed.

Industrial applications of intelligent systems for operating procedure synthesis and hazards analysis for batch process plants

Operating Procedure Synthesis (OPS) and Hazard and Operability analysis (HAZOP) are two important areas in batch process development. They are time-consuming and knowledge-intensive, and could benefit from automation. Recently, two knowledge-based systems for automating OPS and HAZOP, called iTOPS and BHE respectively, were developed and integrated. The integrated system has the capability to perform consistent HAZOP analysis based on the information in the generated operating procedures. In this paper, the integrated system is illustrated using one large-scale pharmaceutical industrial case study.

An integrated environment for batch process development — from recipe to manufacture

Publisher Summary Batch-process development involves the process of converting a chemical synthesis into an optimum, safe, robust, and economical process for manufacturing the chemical of desired quality at the ultimate desired scale. This chapter describes a strategy for developing a set of integrated decision support tools to facilitate this activity. The primary motivator for doing this is to perform fast and high-quality process development, because there is significant economic leverage that can be gained by speeding up this activity while not compromising on quality. The application of the strategy to an industrial case study is also presented. The batch-process development pipeline can be viewed as consisting of the following aspects: process alternatives synthesis, process alternatives evaluation, process operations development, and process operations assessment. This method minimizes rework by avoiding multiple problem setups, thereby allowing faster process development. The quality of the development activity is also enhanced through the sharing of the function across the different tools.