Fertilizers
The fertilizer industry plays a crucial role in global food security by producing essential nutrients like nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium for agriculture.
Fertilizer production involves various chemical processes, including ammonia synthesis, urea production, and nitric acid processing, all of which depend heavily on complex rotating equipment. Key equipment includes centrifugal and reciprocating compressors, steam and gas turbines, pumps, and electric motors. These machines drive critical processes such as gas compression, synthesis reactions, and product handling, ensuring efficient and continuous production in fertilizer plants.
Challenges
Centrifugal and reciprocating compressors used in ammonia synthesis and urea production are prone to liquid carryover, causing impeller erosion or valve failures. Over time, these issues can lead to reduced efficiency and unplanned downtime, disrupting production schedules.
Gas and steam turbines, used to power compressors and pumps, are susceptible to fouling, corrosion, and thermal fatigue due to high temperatures and exposure to chemical by-products. These issues reduce turbine efficiency and increase maintenance requirements, leading to potential production losses. Pumps used for moving liquid ammonia, nitric acid, and other chemicals face challenges such as cavitation, seal wear, and bearing degradation. These failures can interrupt the flow of raw materials and products, posing both operational and environmental risks. Fertilizer production involves harsh chemicals that can accelerate corrosion and fouling in rotating equipment. This not only compromises performance but also increases maintenance costs and the likelihood of equipment failure.
Why Use Mechademy’s Turbomechanica Platform
On Mechademy’s Turbomechanica platform, physics-based asset models continuously evaluate the performance of machines, including compressors, pumps, and turbines. The models ingest live composition from analyzers when available. When not available, they estimate composition based on machine performance. This novel approach enables the early detection of issues such as liquid carryover and allows the alerts to be prescriptive instead of generic.
Physics-based models for the prime movers and driven equipment are tightly coupled on the platform to allow for data flow between the models. This enables energy balance calculations and independent assessment of essential variables such as power, mass flow, and volumetric flow. Issues such as steam turbine fouling are picked up early as the power output to the driven equipment starts dropping per unit mass of steam flow.
Issues such as steam turbine fouling are picked up early as the power output to the driven equipment starts dropping per unit mass of steam flow.The platform also detects subtle changes in vibration patterns, seal performance, and thermal efficiency, allowing operators to address potential failures before they impact production.
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