Emergency shutdown upgrade at Teesside chemicals plant
5 May 2010
Teesside, UK – UK fertiliser manufacturer GrowHow is upgrading the emergency shutdown system (ESD) at its Teesside Billingham chemical plant. Hima-Sella has been selected to establish a TÜV-certified HIQuad H51qHS system at the facility, which produces and stores ammonia, nitric acid and ammonium nitrate.
Hima-Sella supplied the existing ESD in the 90s, a TÜV-certified Hima Planar F rack mounted solid state fail safe logic system installed behind a large operator wall mimic in the Weak Nitric Acid (WNA) 4 control room. The system operated for many years with little maintenance being required. However, the programmable upgrade has provided extensive diagnostic and Sequence of Event (SOE) reporting facilities and dedicated communications to the DCS.
The TÜV-certified system which can meet SIL3 requirements, was selected as a suitable replacement for the hardwired system. With dual CPUs and single failsafe I/O configured in this case to meet SIL 2, it will be mounted in the same cabinet space and use existing terminations in the adjacent marshalling panel.
The PLC will have dual Ethernet communications allowing vital diagnostic information to be transferred to the distributed control system (DCS), to operator HMI level, added Hima-Sella.
A separate, standalone PC with Wizcon Logline will provide independent sequence of events recording (SOE) allowing operators and managers to see the chain of events for any given situation. This diagnostic tool allows operators to quickly and confidently assess plant issues and resolve them to ensure continuous, safe plant operation.
