Integrating dynamic process simulation into detailed automation engineering

Plant engineering workflow consists of different phases and engineering disciplines. Dynamic process simulation can be utilized to mitigate risks and improve quality of design in the engineering workflow. Earlier and more extensive utilization of simulation is proposed in this paper using an integrated simulation-assisted engineering workflow. In this paper, basic automation design and tests are conducted in dynamic process simulation software Apros. The basic automation design is delivered to detailed design for implementation. Usually engineering projects utilize multiple non-interoperable software tools requiring significant manual data transfer. Standard engineering data interfaces provide reusable and automatic transfer features for engineering software. In this paper, standard-based integration of automation and simulation engineering is demonstrated by transferring automation design data in PLCopen XML format to detailed design. The integration and its benefits are demonstrated and some limitations and challenges for wider utilization are recognized.