【Ten Years of Rapid Development in Chemical Equipment】Baling Petrochemical Put into Use Domestic DCS from 2012 to 2023

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Looking at the development of chemical technology over the past decade, we celebrate the prosperity and strength of modern China; this is just a modest contribution to spark further discussion, with more people’s involvement making things even more interesting. HaiChuan becomes even better with you in it. Prevention first, life above all. ----------------------------------------- On August 30, 2023, the redundant server function of Direct, a software used for operating and navigating domestic distributed control systems (DCS), was tested in the rubber production department at Baling Petrochemical Company through simulation tests. This marked a new breakthrough in the company’s efforts to automate the production of thermoplastic rubbers. Currently, this domestic DCS system is in normal operation at SBS plants, and it will be rolled out to SEBS and SIS plants in the next step. The person in charge of the instrumentation department in the Rubber Division of Baling Petrochemicals explained that the DCS system currently used by the company is a new control system developed independently based on a control system from a company in Zhejiang; it is the first time such a system is being used within Sinopec’s network. In mid-August, a research team composed of instrument technicians from the department’s equipment room, process technicians for the SEBS plant, and the plant’s chief operators traveled to Zhejiang to engage in 10 days of technical discussions with server manufacturers regarding the development and testing of redundant Direct server functions. “Redundant servers are akin to backup pumps in the DCS version; by implementing redundant server functionality, it is possible to have one primary and one backup copy of the data, thereby further enhancing resilience in the event of an emergency power outage. This is one of the new features we have developed for domestic DCS systems. ”said the instrument technician in the equipment room of that department. Compared with traditional DCS systems, the domestic DCS system independently developed by the Rubber Department of Baling Petrochemical not only features a \"one-click start/stop\" function but also fundamentally optimizes the logical relationship between the main program of the DCS system and the sub-programs used for producing different products. This allows the main program to directly call various data packages that contain production processes and process parameters, in a manner similar to building with blocks, thereby avoiding the risk of the main program crashing due to improper operations and resulting in a complete shutdown of the facility. At the same time, if new product grades are to be produced, it is sufficient to add new data packets, which will not affect the operation of the main program, thereby facilitating the industrial production of rubber products in new grades. It is stated that through programmed settings, in addition to the \"one-click start/stop\" function, operators are only authorized to adjust certain parameter values based on the actual production conditions. The entire manufacturing process remains completely hidden, which reduces the workload while meeting the company’s requirements regarding technical confidentiality.