Energy is the most important cost factor in the petrochemical industry.
Thus, energy efficiency improvement is an important way to reduce these
costs and to increase predictable earnings, especially in times of high energy
price volatility. This work describes the development of an expert system for
the improvement of this efficiency of the reaction zone of a petrochemical
plant. This system has been developed after a data mining process of the variables
registered in the plant. Besides, a kernel of neural networks has been
embedded in the expert system. A graphical environment integrating the proposed
system was developed in order to test the system. With the application of
the expert system, the energy saving on the applied zone would have been about
20%.Junta de Andalucía TIC-570
