Aracruz Uses a Dynamic Simulator for Control System ... - Andritz

A simplified view of the overall architecture of the system compared to the real life situation is shown in
Figure 1, below.
Figure 1 The Simulated and Actual Plants Compared
At the workstation the operator has full use of the same screens that he will use in the real plant. If the process
models are well executed, the process has much the same “feel” as the real-life process. Thus his window and
his world are similar, if not exactly like his reality.
Using the emulation software and hardware, it is possible to load a copy of the configuration taken from the
field equipment. Thus the system replaces the DCS hardware process controllers (CP) needed in the real
world, with the control logic in the Simulator functioning exactly as in the real-world hardware. In our case,
depending on the size of the mill, or area configuration, it is possible to “replace” nearly one-half of a mill’s
hardware CPs in just one emulation system.
The virtual signals upon which the emulated DCS configuration code acts are generated by the process
models.
The next section in this paper will present an actual working example of part of a model developed for the
project. This section is written primarily for the reader who has some background knowledge in modeling, but
is unfamiliar with the modeling suite used. Those who are primarily interested in strategic issues can bypass
this section and go directly to the sections on “STAGING THE DCS AND THE SIMULATOR” and
“TRAINING OPERATORS USING THE PROCESS SIMULATOR”.
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