Creating Pressure Relief Valve Fugitive Emissions Testing

Posted Yesterday, under Oil & Gas
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Emerson's Amr Gado


Emerson's Calvin Deng


Globally, oil and gas producers seek ways to lower fugitive emissions for safety, environment and economic reasons. These are the unintended emissions of gases from pressurized parts of the production process.

At the upcoming April 30-May 3 Offshore Technology Conference in Houston, Emerson’s Amr Gado and Calvin Deng will present a paper, Pressure Relief Valves Fugitive Emissions Testing, on Thursday May 3 at 2:45pm as part of the Technical track, Striving Toward Safety Excellence in Offshore and Subsea Environments.

Emerson's D. Emile Tezzo


Their paper, written with Emerson colleague D. Emile Tezzo, provides an overview and look at the importance of fugitive emissions. They’ll review the existing emissions standards, and specifically their work with a leading oil & gas producers and third-party testing laboratory to develop a first-of-its-kind fugitive emissions testing program for pilot-operated pressure relief valves.

The major sources of regulations around fugitive emissions are the United States’ Clean Air Act and Germany’s TA-Luft. Valves are some of the most important devices to consider in a process when seeking to control and reduce emissions.

In the effort to create the testing program they looked to existing standards for valves with stems including: Continue Reading ▶

Technology Trends for Life Sciences Manufacturers

Posted 2 days ago, under Life Sciences
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We seem to be fully in the swing of industry conferences. This week is the pharmaceutical and biotech manufacturing industries’ INTERPHEX conference in New York City. It:

…brings over 11,000 global industry professionals and 650+ leading suppliers together to “Learn It, Experience It, Procure It” through a combination of no cost technical conference, exhibits, demonstrations, and networking events to leverage quality, efficiency and cost effectiveness in today’s ever-changing global market.

If you’ll be there, make sure to catch these presentations:

  • Automation Trends Facing the Industry – Wed, 4/18, 11:15am-12:00pm – Interphex Live, Crystal Palace CP-2 – Featuring Peter Zornio, Chief Technology Officer Emerson Automation Solutions
  • Technology Keynote Series: Information Technology Trends and Best Practices – Data Integrity and Process Security – Wed, 4/18, 11:45am – 12:30pm – Interphex Innovation Stage – Featuring a panel of industry experts including Bob Lenich, Life Sciences Marketing Director Emerson Automation Solutions
  • Predictive Maintenance Leveraging IIoT Technology Can Become Your Competitive Advantage – Thurs, 4/19, 11:30am – 12:15pm – Technical Conference Stage 1, Booth 1076, Exhibit Hall – Featuring Niv Weisenberg, Sr. Reliability Consultant, Emerson Automation Solutions

Emerson's Bob Lenich


Emerson's Michalle Adkins


Emerson’s Bob Lenich and Michalle Adkins will also be at the Interphex conference. They’ve recently written an article for Pharma Bio World, Leverage the Industry 4.0 Revolution to Meet Market Challenges.

They open describing changes in the markets for manufacturers in the Life Sciences:

But with increasing levels of complexity and increased competition in the market, Life Sciences manufacturing is going through a transformation.

More flexibility is required: Continue Reading ▶

Digital Transformation for Refiners and Petrochemical Producers

Posted 3 days ago, under Refining, Wireless
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At the recent 116th American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) Annual Meeting, they discussed the many changes brought about by U.S. tax and regulatory policy changes, as well as the application of the advancing technology landscape.

Emerson's Marcio Donnangelo


In the conference daily publication, published by Hydrocarbon Processing magazine, Emerson’s Marcio Donnangelo highlighted one area of technology advancement in an article, Industrial apps simplify data analytics (p10).

He opened describing the business drivers for incorporating new technologies:

Refinery operators must focus on process optimization and blending crudes to achieve the most profitable operations. Asset and equipment failure can lead to downtime, spoiling these and other strategies, so operators are constantly searching for ways to improve uptime.

While real-time control has been a longstanding part of refining and petrochemical processes, wireless instrumentation has enabled additional monitoring applications that were not economically or technically feasible. For example:

New non-intrusive instruments technologies—such as inside-of-pipe temperature, corrosion, acoustic and others—eliminate leak points and further reduce the overall cost and time of installation by removing the need for pipe cutting, drilling or welding.

Once a wireless infrastructure is set up to monitor one or more pieces of equipment, additional wireless instruments can be added and joined to the existing network for very little marginal cost.

From a software application standpoint: Continue Reading ▶

More Efficient and Consistent Cheese Production

Posted 6 days ago, under Food & Beverage
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While the snow continues to fall in the U.S. upper Midwest, the cheese producers will be gathering next week at the International Cheese Tech Expo. More than:

…3,500 cheese industry leaders, suppliers, marketers and more will gather to share information about the latest in cheese technology, new products, whey opportunities, product safety, marketing and additional issues affecting our industry.

Emerson's Vince Massey


As consumers, our taste preferences are prompting a greater demand for cultured, hybrid and organic dairy products. Greater flexibility is required by cheese makers as well as the need to be more efficient in reducing waste in processing and utilities usage.

Emerson’s Vince Massey described how by applying measurements and control along the cheese- and processed cheese-making process can help to reduce product waste, increase throughput and improve overall quality of the cheese.

Some of the key instrumentation and controls include:

Emerson Dairy Production Technologies

The production of cheese has come a long way and become more efficient by reducing product waste, increasing production throughput and improving the overall quality and consistency using ever-advancing automation and control technology.

If you’ll be in Milwaukee next week at the 2018 International Cheese Technology Expo, visit the Emerson team in booth 1709 to discuss how these technologies can improve your business performance.

Emerson boot 1709 at 2018 International Cheese Technology Expo

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Solving Control Valve Vibration Challenges

Posted 1 week ago, under Final Control Element, Industrial IOT
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The production areas of many process manufacturing facilities can sometimes seem deafening. Some of this noise may be attributed to excessive vibration surround equipment such as control valves, piping and instrumentation.

Flow Control: Analyzing Vibration in and Around Control ValvesEmerson’s Adin Mann and Shawn Anderson have written a great Flow Control article, Analyzing Vibration in and Around Control Valves to look at the causes and remedies for excessive vibration. Many times, fixes are attempted:

…by measuring vibration, moving equipment, stiffening the valve structure, rewelding broken pipes, changing the piping system and other remedies — only to find problems still exist.

The challenge is to determine the root cause instead of addressing the symptoms. Around a control valve, vibration can be generated by:

…pump cavitation, flow pulsation, flow-induced excitations, vortex shedding, rapid valve closure, vapor pocket collapse, pump startup and shutdown, slug flow, water hammer and many other hard-to-diagnose conditions.

They describe two types of vibration: Continue Reading ▶

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