Control System World

“ Optimizing your Turbomachinery Process & Controls ”: September 23rd – September 25th at the 43rd Turbomachinery & 30th International Pump Users Symposia Conference and Exhibition.

Built on a history of success, the Pump/Turbo Symposia is an event you can’t afford to miss. This annual event features a world-class technical program combined with an international exhibition complete with full-size equipment and hundreds of leading companies.

The Turbomachinery Laboratory sponsors two annual symposia, held in the Fall of each year, to promote professional development, technology transfer, peer networking, and information exchange among industry professionals. These two events are led by engineers with vast experience in the petrochemical, process, chemical, utility, contractor, and consulting fields, along with manufacturers of rotating equipment and fluid-handling equipment from around the world.

Both symposia feature lectures, tutorials, case studies, discussion groups, and short courses, as well as exhibits of the latest services and full-sized equipment. These international meetings emphasize the technology and troubleshooting that users need in today's challenging workplace.

The Pump & Turbomachinery Symposia continue to be the only meeting organized by users for users. The members of the Advisory Committee, who provide overall guidance, are recognized leaders in the rotating equipment and power generation community. The Symposia is an outstanding value for users concerned with maintenance, performance, troubleshooting, operation, and purchase of rotating equipment. The technical sessions provide an opportunity for attendees to select lectures, tutorials, discussion groups, and case studies that best meet their personal and professional needs and interests.

The exhibits feature products from many key companies in the industry. Exhibiting companies normally send their "first-team" players to these symposia; hence, you can get knowledgeable help at the exhibit hall, in addition to seeing major exhibits of equipment.

Register

Advantech has announced the introduction of a new product range with the launch of three PCI Express adapters that will enable industrial integrators, network equipment providers and cybersecurity vendors to integrate LAN access and acceleration devices with more robust and reliable feature sets into industrial PCs, high performance servers and high-end network appliances. The three adapters, based on Intel® Ethernet controllers are designed for multi-core processing applications and optimized for virtualized environments.

Multi-core processors and virtualized applications can leverage the Intel® I/O technologies available on the network controllers for load balancing data and interrupts amongst themselves in order to optimize and improve overall system performance. The new adapters offer excellent price/performance, enhanced power-savings and are backed by industrial lifecycles along with Advantech’s comprehensive industrial lifecycle management program.

“Advantech’s industrial PCIe network adapter line introduces a whole new range of accelerators, network interface cards, and intelligent NICs for system integrators to choose from - all backed by robust driver and optimized software framework support.” said Peter Marek, senior director x86 solutions, Advantech Networks and Communications Group. ”Our goal is to offer customers greater flexibility in port count, a menu of special functions such as Advanced LAN bypass as well as offload options allowing them to match I/O and feature sets with the workload at hand, more easily, on whatever platform or form factor meets their application needs. Our “no surprises” policy for life cycle management and commitment to 5 years product delivery and beyond will help our customers to optimize their supply chain and reduce total cost of ownership. We will continue the build out of this new product line with more new product introductions over the coming weeks. In addition, equipment makers can leverage our Customized COTS framework and industry leading intellectual property for designing custom network adapters with minimum cost, risk and time to market.”

KBR has announced it has been awarded a reimbursable contract by Koch Nitrogen Company, LLC to provide engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) services for a new grassroots urea plant, part of a $1.3 billion expansion project by Koch Nitrogen at its Enid, Oklahoma facility. In addition, KBR will provide construction management services for expansion of the existing ammonia plants and site utilities and infrastructure to support the project.

The expansion will increase the plant’s urea and ammonia production capacity by more than one million tons per year. The new urea plant will have an annual urea production capacity of 900,000 tons. Koch Nitrogen’s Enid facility is one of the largest fertilizer production plants in North America.

This contract award is a testament to KBR’s capabilities and solidifies the company’s world leadership in ammonia technology, according to KBR President and CEO Stuart Bradie. Considered a world leader in ammonia technology, KBR has been involved in the licensing, design, engineering and/or construction of more than 230 ammonia plants worldwide.

“KBR has a long history of delivering customer value,” Bradie said. “We’re excited about this major contract award which continues our long relationship with Koch Nitrogen Company, LLC and, at completion, will bring Koch Nitrogen and its customers the benefits of our EPC and fertilizer technology expertise.”

Yokogawa Meters & Instruments Corporation announces the release on this date of the AQ2200-342 Dual Attenuator module for the AQ2200 multi-application test system. The AQ2200-342 is ideal for the production line testing and inspection of optical transceivers, optical amplifiers, and transmission systems that are essential components of optical communications networks.

Due to the rapid adoption of technologies such as the Internet, smartphones, and digital terrestrial TV that necessitate the high-speed transmission of large volumes of data, there is increasing demand for optical transmission systems, and the optical transceivers and optical amplifiers that are used in these transmission systems. The systems used for testing and inspecting these devices are equipped with an optical attenuator that can adjust the level of the optical signal used to measure the input characteristics of a device. To improve production efficiency, multiple optical attenuators are required to enable the simultaneous inspection of more than one device or multiple ports on a single device. And to save space, there is a need to simplify the testing system configuration. To meet these requirements, Yokogawa Meters & Instruments developed the AQ2200-342.

Product Webpage

Mitsubishi Electric Corporation has announced today that Mitsubishi Electric India Pvt. Ltd. has begun operating, effective immediately, a new center to provide factory-automation (FA) services in Ahmedabad with the Indian state of Gujarat, where a large number of Japanese manufacturing companies in need of FA services are operating. The Ahmedabad FA Center will support the ongoing expansion of Mitsubishi Electric's FA business in India, which is targeting sales of 8.9 billion INR, or 146 million USD, by the fiscal year ending in March 2016.

The Center will offer FA product training, technical consultation, solutions and training support for the engineering personnel of its customers. FA product servicing operations in the Gujarat area had been handled by the Pune FA Center, which was established in January 2012, and by local partners. The Ahmedabad FA Center, one of five such centers that Mitsubishi Electric now has in India, will provide faster, higher quality local services than ever before.

Ahmedabad, which has a robust economy and substantial infrastructure, is aggressively attracting outside investment. The area's increasing number of Japanese manufacturers and automotive companies in general are envisioned stimulating demand for FA products and a wide range of related services.

Moxa is pleased to announce the release of the AWK-1131A, a new 802.11n wireless AP/client that features a smaller housing with advanced protection technology, making continuous wireless connections a reality for your industrial applications. The new AWK-1131A is designed with galvanic isolation technology to protect devices from the electrical disturbances commonly found in industrial environments. In addition, it supports 802.11n MIMO technology to reduce multipath effects and increase data rates up to 300 Mbps for bandwidth-hungry applications, and features millisecond-level roaming to minimize packet loss for seamless connections with mobile applications.

“There are many benefits to adopting wireless devices for industrial applications. Not only do wireless devices reduce deployment costs compared to wired devices, they also increase mobility for hard-to-wire applications and enhance scalability when expanding your network backbone. However, operators must consider wireless reliability and availability when choosing wireless devices for mission-critical applications,” said Zed Shen, Moxa product manager. “Industrial wireless devices require a rugged design that includes advanced EMS protection against the electrical disturbances found in harsh industrial environments, and seamless WLAN roaming to increase network availability for rolling stock industrial applications. By offering better wireless communication than what you’d expect, the new AWK-1131A series can meet all of these requirements.”

The new AWK-1131A series features 802.11n technology, which is perfect for video surveillance applications that require up to a 300 Mbps data rate and Gigabit wired transmissions. With the release of the AWK-1131A, Moxa now offers a comprehensive portfolio with both single-radio and dual-radio IEEE 802.11n industrial wireless solutions for the bandwidth-hungry systems found in industrial applications.

AWK-1131A Series Features:

- Advanced EMS protection against electromagnetic interference

- Galvanic isolation technology on all interfaces for device reliability and longevity

- 802.11n MIMO technology reduces multipath effects and increases data rates up to 300 Mbps

- Moxa client-based Turbo Roaming with millisecond level roaming capability

- Palm-size, cost-effective solution for easy installation in space-restricted locations

Product Webpage

Yokogawa Electric Corporation announces the November release of Energy Performance Analytics (EP-Analytics), a software tool that uses energy performance indicators (EnPI) to track how energy is being consumed in a plant, identifies gaps between EnPI targets and actual performance, and helps to identify countermeasures to improve energy performance. The EP-Analytics software is powered by the Visual MESA™ energy management and optimization solution.

Development Background:

Manufacturers around the world are working hard to improve their energy performance and protect the environment by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Released in 2011, the ISO50001 standard provides a framework of requirements that help companies in the process industry effectively manage their energy performance and achieve regulatory compliance.

Yokogawa is a leading supplier of advanced solutions and control instrumentation to the process industry and excels in helping manufacturers conserve energy by optimizing their plant operations. In 2013, Yokogawa took a significant stake in Soteica Visual MESA, a world leading supplier of energy management systems with a solid track record in providing solutions for the utility facilities at large industrial complexes. Through this partnership with Soteica, Yokogawa is able to offer the Visual MESA solution to its customers.

The EP-Analytics plant energy performance visualization software is based on Yokogawa's know-how in production processes and operations and is powered by Soteica's Visual MESA energy management and optimization technology.

Product Webpage

KBR Inc.has announced it has been awarded a contract from Gemini HDPE LLC, a manufacturing joint venture between INEOS Olefins & Polymers USA (INEOS) and Sasol, to provide engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) services for a new high-density polyethylene (HDPE) facility to be located at INEOS’s Battleground Manufacturing Complex in La Porte, Texas.

The new facility is designed to produce 470 kilotons per annum of bimodal HDPE using Innovene™ S process technology licensed from INEOS Technologies. The new, single-train facility will include new polymerization, pelletization, and railcar load-out facilities, plus upgrades to existing utilities and infrastructure.

Engineering and procurement services will be split between KBR’s Houston Operating Center and KBR’s Monterrey Engineering Center. KBR will provide direct hire construction with selected subcontracts to construct the new facility. Upon completion, the new facility will be one of the largest in the Americas.

“This significant win is a testament of the excellent work performed with the Gemini team during the FEED portion of the project,” said Stuart Bradie, KBR President and Chief Executive Officer. “We look forward to continuing our work with INEOS and Sasol.”

The contract value was not disclosed. Expected revenue from the contract will be included in the third quarter 2014 backlog of unfilled orders for the Hydrocarbons segment.