OREANDA-NEWS. Yokogawa Electric Corporation announces that in April it will begin offering new solutions for optimizing plant operations in the oil & gas, petrochemical, and other industries. These solutions will be provided as part of Yokogawa's VigilantPlant Services(r) suite to support safe, stable, and highly efficient plant operations. The technology underlying these solutions is Yokogawa's newly developed MIRROR PLANT online simulator.

The MIRROR PLANT simulator can visualize the internal state of a plant process and make near-term predictions on plant behavior. An industry first, this simulator operates in synchronization with the plant control system and features the good performance required in commercial plants.

In recent years, there has been increasing focus on improving plant safety and strengthening competitiveness by making plants more efficient. For example, in the chemical industry, plant operators need in real time to manage or adjust the state of catalysts and the composition of the reagents and product materials in a chemical reactor, to optimize both plant productivity and product quality.

However, many of the process variables are difficult to measure or cannot be measured directly. Based on actual process information such as flow rate, temperature, and pressure, simulation technology can make predictions on items that cannot be measured in real time, for example the amount of each component in a product, and thus simulate the state of a plant. By means of high-speed calculations, the simulator can make near-term predictions on the state of a plant. Operators can then anticipate events and take action earlier to ensure safe operation.

Yokogawa and its subsidiary, Omega Simulation Co., Ltd., jointly developed the MIRROR PLANT online plant simulator. It operates in synchronization with the plant control system and constantly updates a process model. Based on this simulator, Yokogawa will offer support solutions that help its customers optimize their plant operations.