Hurricanes Harvey and Irma have certainly been a test for infrastructure, and while flooding seems inevitable under such extreme conditions, there are valuable lessons to be learned from these two storms.

Pipelines

The biggest concern for people outside the affected area following Hurricane Harvey’s assault on the Houston area was the disruption in supply of gasoline and resulting high prices. Approximately one-sixth of total pipeline mileage in the U.S. is in Texas. Many of those pipelines start or end on the Gulf Coast, where about 35 major refineries are located.

Whether you embrace it as a way to more safely and accurately control processes, or fear it as a threat to human employment, machine learning (ML) is one of the hottest topics in computer programming today. It is a type of artificial intelligence (AI) that allows software applications to become more accurate in predicting outcomes without being explicitly programmed.

Data is the fuel that feeds machine learning. The basic premise is that computers learn by building algorithms that can receive input data and use statistical analysis to predict outcome.

Advances in wireless technology have made remote monitoring of process equipment and systems much easier and less expensive than previously thought possible. As a result, many segments in process plants, power stations and production fields are monitored continuously, reducing shutdowns and the possibility for accidents while increasing efficiency and production. However, not all systems are monitored equally.

This article, based in part on a presentation by Mark Murphy of Fluor and Melissa Toten and Ed Sanders from Emerson at the 2016 Emerson Exchange*, relates how cooling towers and air-cooled heat exchangers can benefit from remote monitoring, which reduces life cycle cost and increases safety.

Steam condensate is the liquid by-product formed when steam goes from the vapor state to the liquid state; this process occurs in a wide range of applications, across virtually all industries. The chemical processing industry especially relies heavily on steam and steam-related systems. This necessitates vast, complex networks of boilers, evaporators, steam lines, and condensate return lines throughout many of the steps in the chemical production process.

By its nature, steam will condense back to liquid water at some point. This is unavoidable. In most of the modern industrial processes that use steam, the condensate is collected and recycled back into the system. This is a fiscally and environmentally beneficial practice, but its proper implementation is often overlooked, and poorly managed steam condensate in a system can lead to many serious issues.