Case study: A dual-primary redundant automatic decoupling system for a critical petrochemical process

Gulf Petrochemical Industries Company (GPIC), located in Sitra, Kingdom of Bahrain, operates a petrochemical complex consisting of a 1200 MTPD (metric tons per day) ammonia plant, a 1200 MTPD methanol plant, and a 1700 MTPD urea plant. GPIC selected a new dual-primary redundant automatic decoupling system (ADS) to island their system for external system disturbances. The as-built ADS was validated against a real-time digital simulation system. The real-time system modeling made it possible to validate the decoupling system operation for various system disturbances and select the set points accordingly. Since installation, the new ADS has operated correctly several times to island the GPIC system.