Chiranjivi Botre, a Ph.D. student in Dr. M. Nazmul Karim’s research group, has been awarded an F&PD (Fuels & Petrochemicals Division) Outstanding Presentation Award for a talk entitled “Detection and Isolation of Abnormal Event in Nonlinear Industrial Processes by a Novel Data-Based Method.” The award was announced at the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) 2019 spring meeting.
One of the most important aspects in chemical plant operation is the detection and isolation of faults and/or abnormalities. Throughout the normal operation of a plant, any number of things can go wrong, from contamination to loss of pressure or equipment failure. The most common approaches to fault detection are based in data collection and monitoring. The majority of the research in this area has focused on linear data-based monitoring techniques.
Botre, and the Karim group as a whole, have developed a novel approach to detecting abnormalities and faults in industrial processes that dramatically improve the performance over existing techniques. The new approach combines three main components: the use of a nonlinear data-based model, the use of optimization tools and the use of advanced statistical techniques. Botre and the Karim group previously won an F&PD Outstanding Presentation Award in 2017 for a presentation focused specifically on the development of the nonlinear data-based model.
The winner of the 2019 Professor M. Nazmul Karim Award in Process Control and Automation was also announced. James Beall IV of Emerson Automation Solutions in Bryan, Texas, won the award for his paper entitled “Specifying Control Valve Performance to Achieve Desired Process Performance.” Beall is the second winner of the award, which is named after Dr. M. Nazmul Karim, holder of the T. Michael O'Connor Chair II and head of the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering at Texas A&M University.