System and method for routing chemicals in a chemical plant
AssigneeNational Oilwell Varco Norway AS
InventorsSvenn Kristoffersen, Jan Helge Sørensen, Tormod Hertzenberg, Thomas Klemetsen, Deepak Arora
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Abstract
A system for automatic routing of chemicals includes a plurality of equipment, including a source and a destination, and one or more possible paths between the source and destination. The system further includes a process control unit to communicate with the equipment, a routing control unit to communicate with the process control unit. The routing control unit is provided with control algorithms for finding an optimum path between the source and the destination based at least partially on feedback from the process control unit.
Claims26
A drilling fluid plant for automatic routing of chemicals, the drilling fluid plant comprising:
- a plurality of equipment pieces comprising sources and destinations;
- paths comprising pipes that connect the sources and the destinations;
- a process control unit configured to communicate with the equipment pieces;
- and
- a routing control unit configured to:
- communicate with the process control unit,
- obtain a graph model depicting the equipment pieces as nodes and the paths as edges, and
- obtain control algorithms for finding an optimum path from among the paths based on feedback from the process control unit and based on costs,
- wherein each of the edges has a cost associated with it, and
- wherein the cost is based on at least one of pipe length, pipe diameter, pipe inclination, or pipe bend.
A non-transitory computer-readable medium or media storing computer-executable instructions for causing a processor to perform a method for automatic routing of chemicals in a plant by a drilling fluid plant, the drilling fluid plant comprising:
- a plurality of equipment pieces comprising sources and destinations;
- paths comprising pipes that connect the sources and the destinations;
- a process control unit configured to communicate with the equipment pieces;
- and
- a routing control unit configured to:
- communicate with the process control unit,
- obtain a graph model depicting the equipment pieces as nodes and the paths as edges, and
- obtain control algorithms for finding an optimum path from among the paths based on feedback from said process control unit,
- wherein the method comprises the steps of:
- finding the optimum path further based on the feedback from the process control unit and based on costs, wherein each of the edges has a cost associated with it, and wherein the cost is based on at least one of pipe length, pipe diameter, pipe inclination, or pipe bend, and
- transferring the chemicals from one of the sources to one of the destinations along the optimum path by regulating one or more of the equipment pieces.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.