Computer-Aided Process Design System for Plant Operation

Abstract In designing a piping and instrumentation diagram (P&ID) with refer-ence to a process flow diagram (PFD) of a chemical plant, design engineers are used to implicitly or explicitly deal with operational procedures for start-up and shut-down. There is no systematic approach to handle the relationships between plant topology and its operations. This paper states the structure of a computer-aided process design support system for plant operations, specifically, start-up from PFD to P&ID. First, the background of necessity of a design integration environment and the basic concepts are explained, using a representative case study. Developed as a visual system, and databases of operational sequence diagrams, time tables, .preliminary P&ID (Pre-P&ID) and unit specifications are explained.