TRAX Simulator Maintenance Manager
The TRAX Simulator Maintenance Manager is an easy-to-use, secure site for organizing simulator issues. Because the value of the testing and training using your simulator is directly correlated to the fidelity of that simulator. And enabling the simulation system to evolve with the plant is an important part of keeping a training asset viable for the life of the plant.
IDENTIFY AND CAPTURE
Many items can cause a simulation system to deviate from existing plant conditions:
The TRAX Simulator Maintenance Manager provides a structure for identifying the scope of the changes. The online organizational tool allows a user to create “issues” relating to each noted discrepancy, and to share screenshots or files for additional clarity.
EVALUATE
The Maintenance Manager includes a process for determining the scope of differences between the plant and the simulation system. Users can set the priority of an issue based on the impact to training quality and simulator performance.
TRACK
Once the simulator maintenance items are prioritized, users can follow issues on any of the provided dashboards. The Maintenance Manager also provides a mechanism to group issues for better organization. You can sort and filter issues by priority, report date, or other desired criterion to get the best visibility into the reported issues.
REPAIR
The Maintenance Manager can help demonstrate the need for maintenance to plant management by producing a formal issue list. When the nature or number of issues indicates a service call is due, TRAX will work with plant personnel to group the most urgent issues for attention.
TRAX has delivered a carbon capture simulator for a 150 MW coal-fired unit that models the capture of the full flue gas stream. The system provides both CO2 and SO2 capture, delivering the captured CO2 to a pipeline for industrial use and underground storage.
—CO2 and SO2 capture
—Sulfuric acid plant
—CO2 and SO2 amines filtration and purification
—CO2 compression
—CO2 pipeline and cavern
As shown below, TRAX built a modular simulation replicating the plant layout using our software, ProTRAX. ProTRAX contains a full suite of modules specific to carbon capture functions and can model a wide variety of processes. TRAX also virtually replicated the user interface that appears in the plant.
Upon initial delivery, the TRAX simulator was used to debug control logic and processes prior to site installation and to provide operations training prior to plant startup. There was a clear need to begin training operators as early as possible since they had multiple unfamiliar systems to learn.
Thanks to the ProTRAX simulator, our customer gained considerable insight into control functionality and system interactions, resulting in modification to some control logic and correction of simple errors. TRAX was able to assist with controls tuning, and helped in development of initial plant Operating Procedures.
The latest upgrade brings the model into alignment with the as-built plant condition by updating and tuning the simulator models to match the current plant dynamics. In addition, TRAX has updated the simulator controls and HMI graphics to the as-built state. Keeping the simulator aligned with the current plant condition is critical to maintaining a positive training value, and is of paramount importance to the customer.
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