What’s New at EPIC

The following course has been added to the schedule…

Distributed Generation

Course Date: March 30 – April 1, 2009
Location: Mississauga, ON
Code: 99-0327-1964

Description
Conventionally electricity is generated in large central units that are connected to the high-voltage transmission system. The distribution networks are being used for delivering the electricity to the customers. Most electric distribution systems are designed, protected, and operated on the premise that there is a single source of electric power on each distribution feeder at any given time. Because interconnecting Distributed Resources (DR) (known as Distributed Generation DG) violates this basic assumption, there are special requirements for connecting to utility distribution systems. These technical requirements can be complex, blending traditional distribution engineering practices with added attention to power quality concerns, safety, and installation needs for advanced DR technologies. There are also many economical issues to be addressed due to the interconnection of different types of DG’s. Distributed generation (DG) has the potential to play an important role in a future sustainable energy system. Properly applied distributed generation, installed on a significant scale, can have very positive effects on the environment, energy efficiency, security of supply and price of electricity paid by consumers. However there are still barriers, technical and non-technical, that are limiting the introduction and use of DG.

The main objective of this course is to provide up-to-date knowledge about the technical and economical issues relating to the distribution generation. In addition to an introduction to various generating technologies, a more detailed part will be included discussing various applications of power electronics. The impacts of DG to the distribution system will be presented. The focus will be on electrical issues such as grid connection, losses, planning, protection, and control. In addition, the economical and regulatory issues will be addressed. Effects of DG on voltage regulation, relaying, losses, islanding and standards will be examined.

Objectives

• To provide an in-depth study of the distributed generation technology along with their merits and limitations together with a detailed description and analysis of the effects that distributed generation impose on the distribution system
• To provide a good understanding of different distributed generation technologies
• Review the available standards for distributed generation interconnection
• Understand the impact of DG on distribution system performance, reliability, safety, protection and quality
• To train distribution engineers on how to operate distribution net works with embedded generation
• To enhance the protection aspects of distribution system with distributed generation
• To introduce the state of the art techniques in distributed generation planning
• To highlight the economical benefits from installing distributed generation

Who Should Attend
Consulting engineers, plant managers, electrical power distribution engineers, electrical power system engineers, project engineers, operating and maintenance engineers and all personnel involved in the safety and the operating of the electrical distribution systems who have a concern for increasing their performance.

After Participating in this Course, You will be Able to:

• Understand the rational behind Distributed Generation along with their effects on the distribution system
• Model your DG and select its engineering components
• Select suitable equipment interface your DG to the grid
• Size your DG plant to maximize the system profit
• Estimate the system losses and reliability indices
• Understand the DG effects on system protection
• Connect to the grid knowing the impact of your plant generated power
• on the utility’s power quality
• Perform economic feasibility analysis

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The following course has been added to the schedule…

Pavement Design, Maintenance and Rehabilitation

Course Date: March 30-31, 2009
Location: Edmonton, AB
Code: 99-0308-1945

Description
Pavements are one of the main components of our transportation and infrastructure systems.  By daily expansion of our ground transportation systems and higher costs of construction, maintenance and rehabilitation of pavements, agencies are facing challenges to keep serviceability of their pavements to an acceptable level. During the last two decades, the issue of proper design, high quality construction as well as optimum maintenance and rehabilitation of pavements have been the focus of government agencies, contractors, consulting engineers, and researchers.  With the relatively large investment involved in pavements, even marginal improvement in managing this investment, and in the technology involved, may effect very large absolute dollar saving.  In addition to direct saving in capital costs and maintenance, the indirect benefits to the road users can be equally significant.  This workshop is an excellent opportunity for those wishing to develop their knowledge on pavement design, maintenance and rehabilitation.

Objectives
To provide participants with a through understanding of important factors in pavement design, maintenance and rehabilitation. The focus is on practices of pavement design and maintenance used by Canadian agencies involved in pavement design, rehabilitation and maintenance.

Who Should Attend
The workshop is intended for pavement owners/users, consulting engineers, contractors and engineering technologists. A basic background from federal, provincial and municipal governments of pavement engineering will be helpful.  This course is an excellent opportunity for those wishing to develop their knowledge on pavement design, maintenance and rehabilitation.

After Participating in this Course, You will be Able to:

• Explain the importance of pavement and various pavement types
• Identify important factors in pavement performance
• Calculate traffic loads, consider environmental factors, and characterize materials for pavement design
• Design a typical new construction pavement based on AASHTO 1993 and new AASHTO mechanistic-empirical pavement design methodology
• Understand how to design permeable pavements for adequate structural and hydrological capacity
• Recognize important factors in selection of various pavement maintenance and rehabilitation methods
• Prepare an overlay pavement design

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The following course has been added to the schedule…

Effective Equipment Maintenance – Striving to Achieve the Required Reliability at Low Cost

Course Date: March 26-27, 2009
Location: Saskatoon, SK
Code: 99-0302-1936

Description
Not all of the plant facilities and equipment require high reliability; economically some components can be allowed to ‘run to failure’ and a ‘reasonable’ level of reliability is acceptable for other components. A cost effective maintenance program should therefore address the ‘required’ reliability only.

Poor maintenance programs and activities often lead to lost production and spiralling upward costs resulting from escalating equipment unreliability.
Conversely, an effective maintenance program can be the target of budget cuts since the benefits of the existing expenditures occasionally go unrecognized by those outside the maintenance organization.
Ideally, therefore, a good maintenance program should provide the required reliability at minimum cost. Further, the validity of the program should be continuously acknowledged by management.

This course will present the ingredients of an effective, cost efficient maintenance program together with continuous improvement aspects.  It will also show not only how to validate the cost of the program but will also show how to justify to management, any additional funding that may be necessary.  During the course there will be several exercises designed to provide a practical explanation of some of the material presented.

Objectives

• To outline the features of optimum preventive and corrective maintenance activities.
• To provide techniques and ideas to both minimize costs and achieve the desired reliability.
• To provide strategies that can be applied to enhance, change or improve an existing maintenance practices or can used to develop new maintenance processes.
• To provide information on how to ensure that senior management is conversant with the necessity of the maintenance work conducted and its cost.
• To explore existing maintenance issues and provide an information exchange with other course participants.

Who Should Attend
Staff involved in the maintenance of equipment and facilities including plant engineers, supervisors and managers; maintenance engineers, supervisors and managers; maintenance planners; property/facility managers who are responsible for ensuring that equipment and facilities operate in an economic and reliable fashion; consulting engineers; design engineers; industrial engineers; production and managers.

After Participating in this Course, You will be Able to:

• Familiarize yourself with the components of good maintenance practices that can produce the required reliability in the most cost effective manner
• Appreciate how an existing maintenance activities can be both improved and acceptable
• Understand the techniques and benefits for good, efficient maintenance planning
• Recognize the need for and interpretation of maintenance measures
• Become conversant with techniques for maintenance budgeting and effective reporting
• Gain an understanding of how to implement maintenance activities in line with your company’s requirements

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The following course has been added to the schedule…

Materials Of Construction For Process Equipment And Piping Systems – Selection and In-Service Performance

Course Date: March 30 – April 2, 2009
Location: Mississauga, ON
Code: 99-0303-1940

Description
Appropriate material selection is the cornerstone of pressure equipment and piping design, operation and maintenance. Engineers must select materials of construction that provide adequate strength at operating temperatures and pressures, in compliance with applicable construction codes and with regard to their resistance to corrosion and other likely degradation mechanisms, as well as to cost-effectiveness. The acceptability of materials is controlled by the relevant Codes. The ultimate selection of the correct material is the responsibility of the design or fabrication engineer. By listing the design’s allowable stresses, the Codes do limit the materials that can be chosen. Only those materials that meet certain requirements as listed in the specifications should be used. The mechanical integrity, safety, and cost-effective operation of plants depend on the in-service performance of the materials of construction throughout the plant life cycle.

Metallurgy is a complex science but a general understanding of the major principles is essential to the plant engineers and inspectors.

This course provides comprehensive and practical understanding of engineering materials and guidance on the methods and best industry practices for the selection of the appropriate materials of construction for specific applications while simultaneously satisfying service requirements, construction Code requirements, and least life cycle costs over the entire plant life. This course will provide a practical overview of ASME BPVC Section II – Materials, as well as some relevant information from the BPVC Section VIII Div.1 and B31.3 Process Piping.

All materials have flaws and will degrade in service. The in-service performance of the selected materials is crucial for plant integrity, safety and cost-effective operation. Clear understanding of the degradation mechanisms affecting specific equipment and piping systems is essential so that effective inspection strategies, plans and activities can be implemented to assess their condition and suitability for continued service until the next scheduled shutdown. This course provides concise overviews of best industry practices including: API RP 577 “Welding Inspection and Metallurgy”; API RP 580 and Publ. 581 BRD “Risk-Based Inspection”; API RP 571 “Damage Mechanisms Affecting Fixed Equipment in the Refining Industry”; API RP 578 “Positive Material Identification”; and API Std. 579-1/ASME FFS-1 “Fitness-For-Service”.

This course builds on a focused and practical coverage of engineering materials properties and selection and provides a structured approach to predict, monitor and assess the materials performance in service with the objective of ensuring plant integrity, safety and cost-effective operation.

Objectives

• Assist participants to clearly understand that the appropriate selection of materials of construction for pressure equipment is the cornerstone of safe, reliable and cost-effective plant operation.
• Impart the knowledge that material performance will degrade in service necessitating understanding of the active degradation mechanisms, where and how they affect the pressure equipment, and knowing how to effectively inspect the equipment and assess its condition.
• Enhance participants’ awareness of key requirements of relevant design and operation standards and industry practices such as ASME B&PVC and B31.3; ASTM Material Specifications, API 571, 580, 581, 578 and 579, and others.
• Provide guidelines to participants to identify and locate in-service degradation and appropriate tools for condition assessment and making sound run/repair/replace decisions.
• Make participants recognize that although all flaws detected by inspection must be evaluated, not all flaws need to be repaired. The proper application of API Std 579-1/ASME FFS-1 for fitness-for-service assessment may obviate the need for some repairs and result in reduced maintenance cost and downtime.
• Enable participants to actively contribute towards reducing the probability of serious failures in pressure equipment and piping systems.

Who Should Attend
This course is developed to provide essential knowledge and understanding to professional and technical personnel in the petroleum, process, power, manufacturing, and other related industries. Engineers of all disciplines, including mechanical engineers, process engineers, project engineers, and maintenance engineers will benefit from this course. It is an indispensable course in the professional development of recent engineering graduates.
Plant inspectors and other operations and maintenance technical personnel involved in the operation and maintenance of process equipment and piping systems will also benefit from this course.

After Participating in this Course, You will be Able to:

• Recognize key aspects of applicable industry standards and best practices
• Use the basics of metallurgy in considering engineering materials types and properties to specify them for your plant
• Apply the knowledge gained at the course to select the appropriate materials for specific applications in your plant
• Add to your skills in understanding, detecting and assessing the degradation mechanisms and damage sustained in service and taking the corrective action
• Review your welding process to increase its efficiency for construction and maintenance activity in your plant
• Utilize more effectively NDE techniques to decide whether certain repairs are essential or not
• Make run/repair/replace decisions concerning damaged equipment using lessons of past failure analysis to achieve maximum uninterrupted performance of your plant

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The following course has been added to the schedule…

Testing, Commissioning and Start-Up of Electrical Systems

Course Date: March 26-27, 2009
Location: Saskatoon, SK
Code: 99-0311-1949

Description
The start-up of any electrical system for the first time, regardless of its size, type or industry, is a very special occurrence and poses some outstanding problems. A lack of experience in dealing with such problems and the consequent lack of proper planning has frequently resulted in prolonged delays in the start-up and the consequent costly productivity losses.  This course provides guidelines to anyone who wishes to know and understand the role of commissioning in a project, whatever its size. The importance of planning and preparation for the project, from engineering to commissioning and start up, will be emphasized. This course deals with safety considerations and testing and start-up procedures for all the components of any electrical system.  Insurance and legal aspects of commissioning and start up are dealt with in detail and the course provides useful guidelines on what to do when things go wrong during this phase of a project.

Objective
To help participants in accomplishing a smooth commissioning and start up of the electrical system, within the project schedule and cost estimates.

Who Should Attend
Design engineers, electrical engineers, commissioning and testing engineers, consulting engineers, electrical technologists, project managers, project engineers, plant managers, operating and maintenance personnel and all individuals involved in project execution.

After Participating in this Course, You will be Able to:

• Learn to plan, control and implement commissioning and start-up of electrical systems
• Familiarize yourself with the performance specifications, which can be economically verified
• Gain insight into the field tests for electrical distribution systems, generator and motors, transformers, switchgear and cables
• Increase your skills in start-up of electrical systems
• become knowledgeable about handover, acceptance and transition to operations
• Understand who is responsible for what and what to do when disaster strikes

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