Extended abstract: Primary separation vessel interface control

The Primary Separation Vessel (PSV) plays a key role in oil sands extraction process. Controlling the interface between the froth and middlings at an optimal level provides significant economical and environmental benefits. Traditional level transmitters are not sufficient enough to provide consistent interface level information due to slurry quality changes from time to time. Two novel measuring approaches are discussed in this paper, which have been applied at PSV interface level control in Syncrude Canada Limited. One is based on image signals captured from a camera installed on the PSV sight glass; the other one is based on density readings along the PSV depth provided by a density profiler installed inside the vessel. Application results show both approaches perform outstandingly in detecting the interface, and are promising to improve the performance of PSV interface level control.