Enhanced Version of Safety Instrumented System

Yokogawa Electric Corporation (The Netherlands) announces the launch of an enhanced version of the ProSafeRS safety instrumented system, ProSafeRS R1.03. To meet the latest safety instrumentation needs of the oil, petrochemical, and other industries, the remote optical communications capability has been enhanced and a digital output module and a simulation test function have been added to this new version.

There is a growing emphasis on operational safety in the oil, natural gas, petrochemical, and other industries that arises from the need to ensure a safe workplace and be a responsible corporate citizen by, for example, protecting the environment. Although distributed control systems (DCSs) and safety instrumented systems have conventionally been kept separate,

highlevel integration of their functions is increasingly required to ensure the right balance between operational efficiency and safety. To meet these needs, Yokogawa released the ProSafeRS safety instrumented system, and has continuously strengthened its functions to work in conjunction with the CENTUM CS3000 R3 integrated production control system. In particular, these enhancements have strengthened functions that improve efficiency by enabling instrumentation rooms to be placed in one central location.

By using optical bus repeaters, the ProSafeRS controller and the I/O modules can now communicate at distances up to 50 km over a fibre optic cable. This enables the instrumentation rooms for individual processes and the safety instrumented controllers located throughout a largescale plant to be placed in a single location. Furthermore, this increase in the communications range enables the monitoring and control of field devices for safety instrumentation that are installed in wellhead areas and other remote locations.

A high current digital output module for long distance wiring has been added to the module lineup. A simulation test function has been added that uses software* to test the communication with DCSs, operation monitoring, and communication between safety instrumented system controllers. With this function, these simulations can be run when a connection with the hardware has not been established, improving engineering work efficiency. To carry out these simulation tests, a separate test software package for the Centrum CS 3000 R3 is required.

ProSafe RS is ideal for use in oil, natural gas, petrochemical, and other process industries that make use of systems for emergency plant shutdown, fire prevention/fighting, and burner management.

Released in February 2005, the ProSafeRS safety instrumented system helps prevent accidents by detecting unusual conditions in plant operations and carrying out emergency operations such as shutting down the plant. Unlike conventional safety instrumented systems and DCSs, which are regarded as having different roles/functions and operate separately, the operation of the ProSafeRS and the CENTUM CS3000 R3 can be fully integrated. Furthermore, an independent certification body has certified that ProSafeRS conforms to the IEC61508 (1) international safety standard and can be used in SIL3 (2) applications. As a result, ProSafeRS is held in high regard by users and has been installed in more than 200 projects worldwide since its release.