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The IUP Journal of Mechanical Engineering

A Mathematical Model for the Performance Evaluation of a Fertilizer Plant

Article Details

Pub. Date	:May, 2019
Product Name	: The IUP Journal of Mechanical Engineering
Product Type	: Article
Product Code	: IJME21905
Author Name	: Sanjeev Kumar
Availability	: YES
Subject/Domain	: Management
Download Format	: PDF Format
No. of Pages	: 13

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Abstract

Availability is considered as a crucial metrics used to evaluate the performance of a fertilizer plant. The paper develops an availability model of the urea decomposition system of a fertilizer plant to quantify the values of availability indices and to identify the most critical equipment that mainly affects the system’s performance. The Markovian approach was adopted to model the system behavior. A transition diagram was constructed for the developed model and differential equations of the developed model were formulated to obtain the state probability. The availability at steady state was analyzed and investigated. The developed model was verified and its validation was carried out. A real data of industrial system in fertilizer plant was applied to validate the developed model and the effect of failure and repair rates at different mission times was presented and discussed. The model output identifies the critical subsystems and the equipment which mainly influences the system’s performance. Consequently, the developed model is considered as an excellent tool for the system’s performance evaluations. The performance has been optimized using Genetic Algorithm (GA). The findings of the paper will be highly useful to the plant management for timely execution of proper maintenance decisions and thus to enhance the system performance.

Description

Availability is an important performance metrics in system analysis and considered a good starting point for system improvements. The fertilizer plant has consistently increased its requirements, combined with the rise in technological systems and increased competitiveness of service providers to implement adequate management strategies for these systems to improve their availability and productivity to comply with the most demanding standards. One important point in this regard is to have knowledge about the availability of the main equipment in this industry. Evidentially, a fault-based (breakdown) maintenance system in the industry is a costly and timeconsuming process, resulting in a substantial and intangible loss to system operators.