Fred Hendrix, Group Lead, Software Development

Do you need to know how your heat exchangers are operating? Do you want to make smarter choices about exchanger maintenance while avoiding unnecessary shutdowns? HTRIconnect can help you understand the thermal performance of your equipment, anticipate problems, and avoid unnecessary maintenance.

The HTRIconnect information hub connects HTRI software with plant data historians and ODBC databases such as Microsoft® SQL Server, and Microsoft® Excel® workbooks. You can use your operating data where it is stored to gain valuable insights on your heat exchanger equipment and its operation.

Plant data are essential for understanding plant operations. However, data commonly logged in plant data historians and used in isolation may actually limit your grasp of those operations. HTRIconnect combines process data with world-class HTRI simulations, helping you identify potential performance problems with the heat exchanger equipment at your facilities.

So how does HTRIconnect work?

You can collect all your HTRI case files that model your heat exchanger equipment in HTRIconnect and associate each case file with specific plant equipment in your inventory. With HTRIconnect, you tag the equipment with identifying information so you can easily find the HTRI file that interests you.

In HTRIconnect, you can quickly inspect contents of HTRI files, as illustrated in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Summary view of HTRI file contents
Figure 1. Summary view of HTRI file contents

To find specific HTRI files, you can easily search through your inventory by file name, modified date, application module, equipment location, and input value.

You can associate plant data from several data sources including data historians, Microsoft Excel files, and relational databases to provide input data to the HTRI case files. Input data bindings associate the plant data with input items in each HTRI file. Figure 2 shows a sample of the input data bindings that connect the plant data to the HTRI file that is the “twin” for a heat exchanger in a plant.

Figure 2. Data bindings associating AVEVA Pi System tags with HTRI input fields
Figure 2. Data bindings associating AVEVA™ Pi System™ tags with HTRI input fields

The tag in a data historian stores data related to a property. Note that the sample file in Figure 2 associates tagged plant data with historical data spanning several years. The two tags represent measured data stored in an instance of an AVEVA PI System historian: FC6001 for flow rate on the shell side and TI6001 for the shellside inlet temperature. HTRI calculations use the shellside inlet temperature designated by the TI6001 tag data stored in the historian. The measured plant data stored in the data historian associated with the FC6001 tag can be used as input for the flow rate in the set of HTRI calculations. However, HTRI typically defines flow rates in terms of mass basis, while the data in the historian are recorded in terms of volumetric flow rate. So for each calculation, HTRIconnect references the fluid properties defined in the HTRI input file, converting the values from volumetric flow rate to mass flow rate.

You can choose which results to publish back to the data sources. Simply set your selection via drop down lists on the Output Bindings panel, shown in Figure 3, before you have HTRIconnect run the HTRI calculations. In Figure 3, the EX5B_Reconciliation_20180916 file is listed in the left column, while the green highlighted items are the calculated results for the Xist® set of analyses (fouling, pressure drop, and heat transfer coefficients) to be returned to that data source.

Figure 3. Output bindings for storing HTRI calculations in data source
Figure 3. Output bindings for storing HTRI calculations in data source

After you configure the input and output data bindings, you can set up the solution to run time-series plant data in the HTRI simulations. Figure 4 shows key values calculated during the solution, along with the calculation status.

Figure 4. HTRIconnect simulating shell-and-tube heat exchanger with plant data
Figure 4. HTRIconnect simulating shell-and-tube heat exchanger with plant data

Then you can publish the calculated values that you defined in your output bindings to the data source. You can also easily plot the time-series plant data and specific HTRI calculations saved in the data source, as illustrated in Figure 5.

Figure 5. Plot of time-series data published to data source
Figure 5. Plot of time-series data published to data source

Connecting the dots … one exchanger at a time

HTRIconnect combines your plant data with key HTRI results, helping you make more informed operating decisions. Whether you are responsible for a single heat exchanger on a skid or a fleet of heat exchangers at multiple locations, HTRIconnect can help you monitor performance and reliability metrics so you can keep your plant running effectively.

Interested in elevating exchanger performance monitoring?
Visit https://www.htri.net/software/htriconnect for more information.