Geothermal Power Plants Modeling 101: Rigorous Rating

Geothermal Power Plants Modeling 101: Rigorous Rating

     This blog is the first article in a series of Geothermal Power Plants Modeling. This 101 shows how a geothermal power plant is rigorously rated, thus the performance of the power plant can be guaranteed with great confidence.

Unveil the Mystery of Air Products APCI C3MR LNG Liquefaciton Process in HYSYS

You are an LNG professional. You understand Air Product C3MR is the most popular LNG liquefaction process. But do you really know all the ins and outs of the C3MR process? All the mystery of the APCI C3MR LNG process will be unveiled in this video.

Guofu completed 20 hours Pentair PSV training

Guofu completed 20 hours Pentair PSV training in October 2015

Using Dynamic Simulation to Increase the Output of a PRICO LNG Liquefaction Plant

The Problem

Do you ever want to increase the output of your PRICO LNG liquefaction plant? You used a steady state process simulator and designed a PRICO LNG plant to liquefy 280,000 lb/hr natural gas to -250 F. After you deliver to site, you are told that the natural gas flow will increase by 20% to 336,000 lb/hr. Do you think your PRICO LNG plant can still handle it?

Are You Leaving Money on the Table Without Optimizing Your ORC Power Plant?

You Want to Produce More Power via Your Geothermal ORC Power Plant?

Geothermal water is even more precious than the oil! Why? Because both of them use the same drilling process, yet water value is a lot less than the oil. Some companies use the geothermal water to produce electricity through an Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC). It costs so much to drill for the geothermal hot water. You surely want to maximize the potential of the hot geothermal water, don't you?

How Do You Control Your Gas Processing Mechanically Refrigerated Unit (MRU)?

Are you confident with your process control?

You modeled a steady state mechanically refrigerated gas processing unit, and then you created P&ID by adding all the control logics. Are you confident your closed refrigeration loop is going to work as you expect?

Dynamic Simulation is the solution.

The best way to verify your control logic is to build a dynamic simulation. This particular model is built in VMGSim Dynamic.

Do You Really Know How Your PRICO LNG Plant Performs at Off-Design Conditions?

You designed your PRICO LNG plant, you know what it is supposed to do at the design condition. Do you really know how it performs at off design conditions?

Two rate based process simulation models are developed by Guofu Chen. One is a fast rating method utilizing UA, while the other method embeds Aspen EDR to rigorously model the performance of the plate-fin heat exchangers.

Is Your Slug Catcher Big Enough for Pipeline Pigging?

The Challenge

Pipeline pigging and slug catcher modeling have been a very difficult challenge for long long time. Now thanks to VMG, we can model pipeline pigging very easily in VMG Dynamic Simulation.

Do You Test Process Control and Cause & Effect via Dynamic Simulation?

Problems with Steady State Simulation

Steady state simulation is very good for designing a plant. However, when it comes to operation, there are so many questions a steady state simulation simply can't answer. Two typical questions are:

• Is my process control going to work?
• Does my cause and effect diagram really prevent me from any danger?

Guofu Completed VMGSim Dynamic Simulation Training by VMG

Guofu Chen has successfully completed "Dynamic Simulation with VMGSim" in Houston on July 16-17, 2015.

Are You One of 99% Engineers Who Size PSV Fire Case the Wrong Way?

Are you one of 99% engineers who size PSV fire case the wrong way? Sizing PSV fire case seems extremely easy on the surface. You use API 521 to calculate the fire heat input by calculating the wet area, then you get the latent heat from a process simulator, finally you get the reliving mass flow and you follow API 520 to size the PSV area. Sounds easy, right?

Common Mistakes
The calculation sequence seems easy, but it is actually extremely difficult when you get into the details. Common mistakes of 99% engineers are making:

Unveil the Top Secret of Mixed Refrigerant Compositions used in the LNG Liquefaction Process

What's the top secret you think when it comes to LNG liquefaction process? There are different technologies, such as C3MR by Air Products, Cascade process, Single Mixed Refrigerant SMR by Black Veatch and Dual Mixed Refrigerant DMR by Shell. For each process, there are secrets for the optimum refrigerant flow, pressure and temperature. However, the top secret among all the secrets is the mixed refrigerant compositions. In general, process engineers spend days and nights to optimize the compositions. Yet, the solution might not be found. In this video, the top secret is unveiled to teach you how you can optimize the mixed refrigerant compositions in a matter of minutes.

One Minute Process Engineering: Optimize the Size of Two-phase Horizontal Separators

Many process engineers have good knowledge to correctly size two-phase vertical separators. However, when it comes to horizontal separators, a lot of them become confused. Are you one of them? If yes, you are in the right place and you will learn how you can size a two phase horizontal separator in just one minute in this video.

Guofu is also a Professional Engineer in the State of Louisiana, in addition to the State of Texas

Guofu now is also a Professional Engineer in the State of Louisiana, in addition to the State of Texas.

One Minute Process Engineering: Optimize the Size of Two-phase Vertical Separators

It is nothing new for process engineers to size a vertical two phase separator. However, the challenge is no two process engineers will give you the same design, though the same information is given. In this video, Guofu will show you how you can optimally size a two phase vertical separator with confidence in one minute.

Guofu completed ProMax Sour Gas Treatment Simulation Training

Guofu completed ProMax Level 2 Sour Gas Treatment Training on 10 February 2015. ProMax is a chemical process simulation software widely used in the Mid-Stream natural Gas Processing and Gas Treatment industry.

One Minute Process Engineering: Generate Control Valves Data Sheets from Promax (2)

In one of my earlier videos, I explained how you can generate 20 control valves data sheets within one minute through ProMax. In this video, I will further explain how you can complete all the mechanical details so that they are ready to send out for quote.

An introduction to modeling GSP gas processing plants in ProMax

There are generally three kinds of gas processing plants to get Natural Gas Liquid NGL from natural gas. The first kind is the J-T plant, which is suitable for high pressure and rich gas. The second kind is the Mechanically Refrigerated Unit MRU. The third kind is called a "Cryo" plants, which utilize cryogenic turbo-expander to extract NGL from very lean natural gas. One common process of cryogenic plants is Gas Subcooled Process, GSP, which was patented by Ortloff Engineer, LTD in the late 1970's. This video will explain how you can model GSP in ProMax.

Microsoft Outlook, two tips that save you 20 minutes a day, 700 hours a year

Many of us spend hours a day on Microsoft Outlook to search emails and yet could not find it. Do you know with two simple tips you can save 20 minutes a day and 700 hours a year?

Separation, Compression and Liquefaction Power Consumption Calculator of Cryogenic Air Separation Units

Many of my blog readers asked me to generate an Excel spreadsheet to quickly calculate the energy consumption of cryogenic air separation units, regarding the separation, compression and liquefaction power. Based on one of my blogs http://showcase.guofuchen.com/2014/01/blog-post.html, an excel worksheet was developed to answer this challenge. Simply input the flow and pressure of gaseous oxygen and nitrogen, and the liquid oxygen and nitrogen flow, this worksheet will magically tell you the approximate power consumption instantly.