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3023322 
Book/Book Chapter 
Dynamic operator training simulators for sulphuric acid, phosphoric acid, and DAP production units 
Siminovich, C; Joao, S 
2014 
Procedia Engineering 
83 
215-224 
WOS:000358741200024 
Dynamic process simulators are widely used in the chemical and petrochemical industries for operator training, plant design, and optimization; but there is a lack of rigorous simulators in the phosphate fertilizer industry. Some of the many difficulties encountered in phosphate fertilizer simulation include: lack of knowledge of thermodynamic properties, presence of many phases (gas, liquid, and solids), high levels and variation of impurities in phosphate rock producing unknown effects, complexity in modeling particle size distribution, etc. Dynamic training simulators were successfully developed for sulphuric acid, phosphoric acid, and DAP production units of OCP Groups Jorf Lasfar complex using a commercial simulation platform. A new thermodynamic property package was developed for sulphuric acid and oleum to correctly predict vapor pressure, density, enthalpy, and SO2 solubility. Also, a rotary drum granulator was developed to consider the reaction chemistry of DAP production and the stochastic nature of solids created. The granulator can accurately predict particle size distribution, moisture content, ammonia and dust losses, and gas/solid temperatures. It was shown that the simulators could precisely reproduce control room and field operations to model plant start-ups, emergency or normal shutdowns, process upsets, and normal operations. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/). 
Operator Training Simulator; simulation; sulphuric acid; phosphoric acid; DAP