Overview
Our solution optimized the monitoring of a Cooldown Cargo process, where LNG was unloaded from a ship into piping and tanks that went from 80 F to -260 F over the course of the cooldown. By creating a dashboard on Seeq that highlights the most important parameters and alerts users about threshold exceedances , the cooldown process went smoothly and risk was minimized.
Project Duration: 3 Months
Challenge
Cooling down equipment from 80 to -260 F brings many risks and therefore requires close monitoring across the piping and tanks. Prior to this dashboard, the client would have had to manually calculate and observe hundreds of relations between the various temperature readings, which increases the chances of human error and missing a threshold exceedance .
- Piping Integrity: Cooling down piping too quickly can affect the mechanical integrity of the piping system, leading to potential cracks and leaks, making it vital to monitor the temperature rate of change. Along with this, when introducing liquid to the piping, if the difference between the liquid and vapor is too great, the piping can expand or contract significantly, causing the piping to burst.
- Tank Integrity: Similarly, cooling down tanks too rapidly can also affect the mechanical integrity of the tank, leading to leaks.While filling the LNG tanks, issues such as thermal stratification can occur if the adjacent temperatures within the tank are too different.
Solution
The Seeq dashboard automated real-time monitoring and alerts for:
- Pipe Parallelization: Monitors whether North andSouth piping are cooling at the same rates.
- Top/Bottom Pipe Temperatures: Monitors whether the difference between the top and bottom temperatures of piping are crossing certain thresholds, specifically vital during liquid introduction where the pipe will have both liquid and vapor present.
- Thermal Displacement: Alerts users if the piping has been displaced (expand/contract) more than the maximum threshold.
- Tank Trending: Alerts users if the temperature rate of change and adjacent temperature readings within the tank are crossing certain threshold.
Key Benefits
- Improved safety and reliability: Early detection of abnormal thermal behavior reduces risks of leaks, cracks, and unplanned shutdowns
- Remote accessibility: Engineers and operators can monitor cooldown status from anywhere via a web link
- Unified data view: Seamlessly integrates manual readings with live PI tag data for clear, actionable visualization
