Chesapeake Paper: A Start Up Success Story, 1996 Pulping Conference Proceedings

Henry Donnini

Chesapeake Paper

Michael Rahm

Honeywell

Chesapeake Paper’s West Point, VA mill recently completed a turn-key DCS upgrade in the batch digester house, including addition of batch digest advanced controls. The new control system provides fully automated charging, cooking, production scheduling and statistical Kappa number control. Production rate control was also implemented to automatically adjust digester production based on existing washer rates and high density storage tank levels. The batch digester instruments and control devices were rewired and routed through switchable terminal block panels in the months prior to the start-up. These panels were able to feed both DCS systems, the position of the switches determining who had control of the process. In 10 hours on the day of start-up, the digester house instrumentation was transferred from one DCS system to another. Within 16 hours, all advanced controls were enabled and the mill in full batch digester production. The success of the start-up was a result of the coordinated efforts between the mill’s production, electrical, instrumentation and engineering team and the members of the advanced controls and construction groups. Training on a fully simulated system prior to the start-up gave the operators the skills necessary to move from one DCS control scheme to another.