Honeywell/ExxonMobil Process Control Project Implemented
The Department took a major step forward in its laboratory facilities with
the addition of a TDC3000 distributed control system to the undergraduate
labs. Honeywell Industrial Automation and Control donated the basic equipment,
in the process upgrading the software, the workstations, history module,
IO processors and field termination assemblies. ExxonMobil Chemical assisted
us in configuring the system, with several employees of the Baton Rouge complex
donating their time and effort. Key players were Mary Mowrey, Erin Percell,
Larry Bumgardner, and advisory committee members Jake Martin (now retired)
and Lindsey McMorris for ExxonMobil, and Mark Firmin and Chuck Spicer of
Honeywell. We thank these and all others who assisted us in realizing this
project.
The system is currently being used to control - both in startup/shutdown
and at steady-state - a packed distillation column, an experiment in Senior
lab. The 3" diameter, two-story column and ancillary facilities were renovated
and integrated into the Senior lab in 1998; the original facilities were
provided to the Department by Exxon Chemical in 1987 as part of a joint project
between Exxon chemical and LSU. Your donations paid for the renovations.
The control facility will also be used in teaching Process Control. We will
soon migrate one other Senior lab experiment - a pH neutralization nonlinear
control experiment - from an older control system to the Honeywell system.
[picture of computer screen] All of this effort is focused toward making
our curriculum as up-to-date and our graduates as employable as possible.
In other news concerning the upgrade of the undergraduate laboratory, Drs.
Kerry M. Dooley and F. Carl Knopf were awarded approximately $200,000 from
Fischer-Rosemount Systems, Inc. and the John H. Carter Co., and $58,700 from
the LSU Student Tech Fee Program to develop a completely computer-controlled
batch processing/polymerization facility.
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