Emerson system for UK chemicals training centre

Southampton, UK - The Centre for the Assessment of Technical Competence (CATCH) is employing Emerson's PlantWeb digital plant architecture at its training centre for the chemical industry in Stallingborough, near Grimsby, North Lincolnshire. The £8.2-million facility is designed to accurately reflect the working environment of modern process plants - without the hazards.

Emerson supplied products, software and services and was involved with the engineering, design and installation of the plant architecture. This included the DeltaV digital automation system and AMS Suite Intelligent Device Manager, together with Fisher control valves and FIELDVUE digital valve controllers, Rosemount level, flow, pressure, and temperature transmitters and Micro Motion Coriolis mass flowmeters.

The process on the CATCH site is based on a real digital automation architecture. Foundation fieldbus digital communication technologies feed data over a network to the centralised control room where students are able to control, configure and troubleshoot in a real plant environment.  Originally designed as a conventional plant utilising HART communications, the timescale and savings in cabling costs led to the adoption of Foundation fieldbus technology.

Had the plant retained the original architecture it would have had to excavate a roadway to lay additional cabling, extending the original project timescale, noted an Emerson press statement. With customer training sessions already arranged, any delay would have created serious problems for CATCH. By adopting Foundation fieldbus communications the plant was ready for its first scheduled training sessions, it added.

Most of the hardware for the plant was contributed to CATCH by its partner companies and comprises a tank farm and system of pipework, pumps, valves, heat exchangers and reactor vessels that is typical of the chemical industry. The plant is run as a live system with safety rules and full evacuation procedures in place. It can be operated as a continuous process, or by using the reactor vessel, configured for batch production. Students are able to experience a range of situations and incidents that test their knowledge and skills in a real environment.

As new technologies are introduced to the industry, the equipment on site will be upgraded to ensure the latest innovations can be experienced. For example, the automation system incorporates Emerson’s DeltaV SIS (safety instrumented system). Other innovations include the addition of Emerson’s DeltaV Simulate software that allows engineers to develop new control strategies, and fully test them on their laptop computer using actual control configurations and process simulation software. CATCH also plans to include Emerson’s Smart Wireless system.

CATCH is owned by North East Lincolnshire Council and operated through a dedicated management team by the Humber Client/Contractor Training Association, an alliance of 40 chemical companies and contractors. CATCH was funded through Yorkshire Forward, the European Regional Development Fund and the Learning and Skills Council.To date, over 6,000 students having passed through the facility in the first year of operation. From January 2008 more than 120 apprentices will be based at Stallingborough, learning skills and gaining experience that will be vital to the future success of the industry.

“CATCH provides professional facilities although it is not itself a training organisation,” said Clive Rounce, general manager at CATCH. “Our brief is to provide and maintain a realistic and safe training facility for our partner companies. When the project was at the design stage, we approached our partners for input on the type of automation system to be used. They wanted a system that would provide the best training platform based on what they actually have installed on site, and their first choice was Emerson’s DeltaV system as the state of the art front end system and as a key component in an overall PlantWeb architecture.”