Start Up of AGA's First DeltaV System
In Leirdal, north of Oslo, AGA has invested in a plant for
manufacturing the fluent air gases oxygen, nitrogen and argon.
The raw material is compressed air, which is cooled and then
expanded, so it will pass to fluent form. The gases have different
boiling points, oxygen -183ºC, nitrogen 196ºC and
argon -186ºC. This is used for separating them from each
other in a special separation tower. The process produces
gases with very high purity. 6000 m3/hour is produced and
distributed to customers throughout Norway.
 The
factory was built in 1985, but by last year, it was time to
upgrade the process system. AGA Plant Technology in Lidingö,
Sweden, had evaluated a number of process systems during their
ROC (Remote Operation Centra) project. For the upgrade of
the Leirdal facility, the DeltaV system from Emerson Process Management
was chosen. The configuration, FAT, and training took place
at F-R in Karlstad, Sweden. The operators participated in
the building of the screens. In November 1999, the plant was
shut down. Two operator stations and four process stations
with I/O for total 900 signals were integrated in existing
cross connection.
"The change to DeltaV went very smoothly and with less
problems than expected," said Tor Eggum, Plant Manager.
The ability to achieve a graphical view of the process has
made it easier to get an overview, especially for the new
process operators. We find the system very user friendly and
with many possibilities. We can now for instance have the
trend and reports done very easily and transferred to other
users in a format that everyone can use, Microsoft Excel.
This means that we have a better insight and understanding
for how our process works," ends Eggum.
 "During
the commissioning we used advanced functions like Autotune
for tuning the most difficult control loops," explains
Rune Johansson, Automation Technician at AGA.
The next upgrade with DeltaV will take place at the Oxelösund
facility in Sweden, and the capacity of that plant will be
increased at the same time. "Co-operation with Emerson
has been very good so far," says Roger Lindqvist, Project
Manager at AGA Plant Technology.
"In Oxelösund we expect to save time as we can
use the functions for logic and control loops in the configuration,
which have now been adapted for the AGA plant in Leirdal.
The modular way which the configuration in DeltaV is based
upon, helps this," explains Sven-Erik Bengtsson, Project
Manager at Emerson.
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