Control System World

KBR has announced that it has been awarded a front-end engineering design (FEED) contract by Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) for the debottlenecking and expansion of its Petrokemya Butadiene Extraction Plant in Al Jubail, Saudi Arabia.

Arabian Petrochemical Company (Petrokemya), a wholly-owned affiliate of SABIC, is one of the largest manufacturing sites in Al Jubail. The site has an installed capacity of approximately 5.15 million metric tons per year of petrochemicals including olefins, PVC/VCM, polystyrene and polyethylene plants in addition to utilities and steam generation.

The butadiene extraction plant was built in 1993 with a capacity of 123 kilotons per year. Petrokemya plans to significantly expand the capacity of the plant. This expansion is part of Petrokemya and SABIC’s vision and strategic business plan with a view of growing market demands in the downstream petrochemical market.

“KBR is delighted to further strengthen our more than 20-year relationship with SABIC and our commitment to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia through this strategic project,” said Stuart Bradie, KBR’s President and Chief Executive Officer. “This contract award for the Petrokemya Butadiene Debottleneck Project demonstrates KBR’s world-class petrochemical execution and delivery capabilities within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”

ABB, the leading power and automation technology group, introduces new Minerals Library Release 5.1/5, coming with enhanced control, routing, yard and port functionalities.

“The resulting improvements will lift the automation solution to a next level. Maintenance teams and operators will benefit from optimized processes and easy fault-finding, including on-line access to plant documentation. Leading global mining and cement companies trust System 800xA, the Minerals Library and the knowledge we packed into it”, said Martin Knabenhans, Product Manager for Minerals Libraries at ABB.

New Minerals Library 5.1/5 features:

• Yard and port objects for dynamic position visualization and collision protection of stackers, reclaimers, ship loaders and unloaders;
• Recipe control module to handle proportion and ratio control requirements with as many components as needed;
• Enhanced group and subgroup functions enabling easy, seamless engineering, operation and maintenance of functional group’s even when distributed in different process controller, e.g. long belt conveyors, high level automation with department or process area start / stop concepts;
• Standardized modules for challenging situations where a drive, motor, valve or actuator is controlled by more than one functional group, e.g. complex routing application;
• Improved maintenance and error control options for analog and digital signals.

The latest release of FactoryTalk Batch software from Rockwell Automation eases the process of modifying and creating new recipes by managing the approval process for changes and automatically tracking the genealogy of recipes. New security-authority binding features also help manufacturers protect their intellectual property.

“FactoryTalk Batch software removes risks associated with manually managing recipe changes,” said John Parraga, FactoryTalk Batch product manager, Rockwell Automation. “The upgraded software, which tightly integrates with the PlantPAx process automation system from Rockwell Automation, provides solutions ranging from small, basic sequencing to large, complex batch and sequencing applications. It simplifies the management of recipes throughout their life cycle and provides standard reports containing vital actionable information.”

Administrators can use the software to assign specific people or roles to approve recipes before they advance to the production line. This structured approach provides approval traceability and allows quality control managers to easily manage recipes.

With new version-control capabilities, FactoryTalk Batch v12.0 software preserves and locks recipes from changes. Later, the recipe can be checked out as a work in progress and is automatically assigned a new version. The updated software system automatically stores each version, allowing users to review their genealogy. Recipe authors can manage more recipes and save time previously spent manually backing up files for each recipe change.

FactoryTalk Batch software also provides additional protection from intellectual property theft. With security-authority binding, FactoryTalk Batch software helps protect recipes and area models. This extra layer of security helps ensure that important information is inaccessible for viewing, editing or executing by unauthorized users.

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ABB, the leading power and automation group, announced today it completed its acquisition of Spirit IT of Eindhoven, Netherlands. The acquisition, announced July 25, adds a new line of high-performance liquid flow computers, SCADA and custody transfer solutions to ABB’s leading measurement business for the oil and gas industry.

Spirit IT (www.spiritit.com) designs and sells liquid flow measurement and supervisory solutions for use in oil and gas applications. Its liquid flow computers and software deliver greater accuracy and control for well-pad automation, transportation and custody transfer applications.

The acquisition complements ABB’s Measurement Products portfolio by enabling the company to offer a more comprehensive automation solution for liquids and gas. It adds the liquid measurement component to ABB’s industry leading gas measurement and automation product line and provides new opportunities for growth in the oil and gas segment.

Spirit IT’s employees will join the global Measurement Products business unit in ABB’s Process Automation division. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

ABB's Measurement Products business unit (www.abb.com/measurement) is among the world's leading manufacturers and suppliers of instrumentation and analyzers. With thousands of experts around the world and high-performance technology, ABB's team is dedicated to making measurement easy for its customers.

Exida, one of the leading certification bodies for functional safety and security standards, assessed RPC Radiy’s RadICS FPGA-Based Safety Controller (FSC) per the relevant requirements of IEC 61508:2010, parts 1-7 and found that it meets requirements providing Safety Integrity Level (SIL) 3.

Radiy’s RadICS FSC will read input signals, perform user-defined application layer logic and write results to the output signals within the stated response time. The FSC can be used for design and development of SIL 3 level applications.

“Radiy has developed unique technology that utilizes FPGAs to implement logic solver capabilities,” said Dave Butler, exida evaluating assessor. “Their strong development process ensures the delivery of products that achieve high levels of functional safety.”

The following is from the exida assessment report:

“The audited development process as tailored and implemented for the RPC Radiy FPGA-based Safety Controller (FSC) RadICS development project, complies with the relevant safety management requirements of IEC 61508 SIL 3.

“The assessment of the FMEDA, done to the requirements of IEC 61508, has shown that the FPGA-based Safety Controller (FSC) RadICS can be used in a Low Demand safety related system in a manner where the calculated PFD AVG is within the allowed range for SIL 3 (HFT >= 0) according to table 2 of IEC 61508-1.

The RadICS platform (see Fig. 1) is a set of general-purpose building blocks that can be configured and used to implement application-specific functions and systems. The RadICS platform is composed of various standardized modules, each based on the use of FPGA chips as computational engines.

The basic configuration for the RadICS platform consists of an instrument rack containing two logic modules, as well as up to 14 other I/O modules and fibre-optic communication modules. Logic modules gather input data from input modules, execute user-specified logic, and update the value driving the output modules, as well as gather diagnostic and general health information from all I/O modules. The I/O modules provide interfaces with field devices (for example, sensors, transmitters, actuators). The functionality of each module is driven by the logic implemented in the on-board FPGA(s).

The basic set of I/O modules consists of analogue and digital input, and digital output modules. There are also special-purpose I/O boards designed for specific field detectors and devices, such as resistance temperature detectors (RTDs), thermocouples, ultra-low voltage AI boards used for neutronic instrumentation, actuator controller modules, and fibre-optic communication modules that can be used to expand the I&C system to multiple chassis. It is also possible to provide inter-channel communications between 2, 3 or 4 channels via fibre-optic communications directly between logic modules.

The backplane of the RadICS platform provides external interfaces to power supply, process I/Os, communication links, and local inputs and indicators. The internal backplane interfaces provide connections to the various modules that are installed within the chassis by means of a dedicated, isolated, point-to-point low-voltage differential signalling (LVDS) interface.

Case Study by Yokogawa: Constructed in 1987, the GEOLIDE wastewater purification plant treats up to 220,000 m3 of wastewater per day (86 million m3 per year) for the city of Marseille (population 1,860,000) and 16 towns in the surrounding area. The plant has been operated since 2001 by Seramm, which is a subsidiary of the French water supply and wastewater treatment company Lyonnaise des Eaux.

Although located in the Marseilles city center, the GEOLIDE wastewater purification plant has minimal impact on the surrounding area as it is built almost entirely underground and releases none of the objectionable odors that are normally associated with facilities of this type. Originally configured to provide just primary water treatment using physical and chemical processes, the GEOLIDE plant was revamped in 2008 to provide advanced biological treatment processes. Water treated by this facility is discharged into the sea, and sludge is transported 6 km to the Cayolle treatment plant.

As part of the revamping process that was completed in 2008, Yokogawa France was asked to upgrade the GEOLIDE plant’s existing Yokogawa CENTUM V production control system (PCS) to the CENTUM CS3000 PCS and to install the Exaquantum plant information management system (PIMS). This work was carried out in collaboration with Veolia Environnment and Suez Environnment.

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Rapidly changing consumer demands require machine and equipment builders to reduce development and installation time while increasing machine flexibility. The Allen-Bradley Kinetix 5500 servo drive with integrated safety can help machine builders satisfy those requirements by taking advantage of a single EtherNet/IP network, as well as a common design environment with Rockwell Software Studio 5000 Logix Designer software.

The Kinetix 5500 servo drive with integrated safety builds on the foundation of the recently released Kinetix 5500 servo drive. With the same high-speed coordination to meet demanding motion requirements, the drive uses the EtherNet/IP network for streamlined machine safety functions. End users gain the benefit of improved personnel safety and increased machine uptime in the manufacturing facility.

“Production requirements are constantly changing for end users in the packaging, converting and material-handling industries, meaning their safety requirements may change as well,” said Mike Schweiner, product manager, Rockwell Automation. “Putting safety on the network eases the configuration of and updates to safety functions. This allows machine builders to be very flexible with their design and differentiate themselves in these industries, providing customers the means to more easily react to market changes.”

The EtherNet/IP network allows safety signals to travel via the same wires and IP addresses used for control and motion. This eliminates the need for a hardwired safety system. Reducing overall system wiring saves time and money in installation and removes potential points of failure, resulting in less troubleshooting and downtime.

Machine and equipment builders can more quickly install the drive and provide customers with greater ease of use via the Logix Designer development environment and Allen‑Bradley GuardLogix safety controllers. In addition to motion and control parameters, end users now can configure the safety system within the Logix Designer software. They can unlatch the safe torque off function, program an unlimited number of set points, change safety zoning, and re-use code to maintain system validation – all within a single software application.

Technip was awarded by Sasol a contract to provide engineering and procurement for eight proprietary Ultra Selective Conversion (USC®) furnaces (1) for a world-scale ethane cracker and derivatives complex to be located in Lake Charles, Louisiana, USA. The award follows Sasol’s selection of Technip’s proprietary ethylene technology and FEED (2) for the cracker, which will produce an estimated 1.5 million tons per annum of ethylene.

This award validates Technip’s strategy of early involvement to design an effective project execution scheme, bringing value to clients.  Technip’s operating center in Houston, Texas, USA, will execute the project.

“Following the selection of our ethylene technology during the early stage of this project, Technip is pleased to expand our role by supplying the most critical part of the cracker, the furnaces,” said Stan Knez, Technip’s Senior Vice President, Technip Stone & Webster Process Technology. “In addition, Technip’s North America region also is playing a significant project role, having been selected, with Fluor, to provide engineering, procurement and construction management for the cracker and derivatives complex”.

Technip has widened its range of services and has reinforced its leadership in the downstream business since the acquisition of Stone & Webster process technologies in 2012.