Dynamic Simulation: Value During LNG Process Design and Beyond

A contributor to complex/large project management difficulty is uncertainty gaps – gaps between the information required and that readily available within the project organization. Moreover, for large projects, information is generally spread among many professional personnel across multiple organizations.

In the process industries, LNG engineering teams are finding that – both in front-end engineering design (FEED) and during detailed design – dynamic simulation is a cost effective tool to reduce uncertainty gaps and facilitate information communication. This is all the more so as both inherent functionality and exploitation capability of commercially available dynamic process simulation software expands, enabling the scope of rigorous dynamic modeling to cover from wells to export jetty within a single software application.

But where should engineering effort be focused? What are the expectations from dynamic simulation during the design phase? And what happens after the design phase completes? To address these questions, the authors will reference the literature and discuss some of their generalized experience. Technical focus items will include:

- Representing wells, pipelines and more

- Assurance evaluation of high integrity pressure protection system and/or pressure relief valve scenarios

- Defining and evaluating control strategies associated with tight thermal integration, including for anticipated (even if rare) off-normal operations

- Checking the integrity of available operating procedures and/or providing logistic information that can feed into sequencing start-up, shutdown and other operating procedures for the fully integrated facility

- Example of exchanger tube rupture unanticipated potential consequences.

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