New updates for safety system aimed at upstream oil and natural gas facilities

Yokogawa releases enhanced version of ProSafe-RS safety instrumented system extending connectivity and environmental operating limits.

December 31, 2012

Yokogawa Electric Corporation has released its enhanced ProSafe-RS safety instrumented system, featuring I/O modules that will operate reliably in the high-temperature conditions typically encountered in desert locations. Support of an open communications protocol has also been added, enhancing its compatibility with other vendors’ distributed control systems (DCS).

In the oil, natural gas, petrochemical, iron and steel, and other energy and basic materials industries, it is becoming increasingly important to ensure the safety of plant operations to prevent accidents, protect the environment, and be good corporate citizens. Accordingly, there is a growing demand for safety instrumented systems that can detect abnormal conditions and safely initiate emergency shutdowns.

Control devices and safety instrumentation systems are often installed outdoors for monitoring oil and gas wells and pipelines. As many of these facilities are in desert locations, they must be able to operate in high-temperature conditions.

In addition, plant operators who replace their safety instrumentation systems to improve productivity and safety need to maintain compatibility with their existing distributed control systems.

To satisfy these needs for high-temperature resistance and inter-system compatibility, Yokogawa has developed this enhanced version of the ProSafe-RS safety instrumented system, with two main advances:

1. High temperature resistant digital and analog I/O modules—Previously, I/O modules had to be spaced far apart to prevent heat accumulation. The new modules can operate at ambient temperatures up to 70 °C (158 °F), even while mounted closely together, which can reduce the system footprint.

2. Modbus/TCP protocol support—Safety instrumented systems and their associated DCSs are not always replaced at the same time. Therefore, ProSafe-RS has been enhanced by adding support for Ethernet-based Modbus/TCP communication with other systems. This facilitates the flexible connection of the ProSafe-RS system with DCSs from other vendors, allowing customers a greater range of choice.

Takashi Nishijima, director and senior vice president, and head of the industrial automation platform business headquarters, says, "The latest version of ProSafe-RS was developed to achieve safety excellence at our customers’ production sites, which is one of the aims of our VigilantPlant solutions. Safety is the most important consideration in plant operations. With this new version, ProSafe-RS is now capable of ensuring under high-temperature conditions that our customers’ systems work precisely and safely. The tighter connection not only with Centum systems but also other vendors’ systems makes it easier for companies to adopt our highly reliable safety instrumented system. We will continue our efforts to develop products that support our customers’ plant operations."

The ProSafe-RS safety instrumented system was first released in February 2005. Its basic purpose is to help prevent accidents by detecting abnormal conditions in plant operations and initiating emergency actions such as plant shutdown. Unlike conventional safety instrumented systems and distributed control systems, which are regarded as having different roles and functions and operate separately, the operation of ProSafe-RS and the Centum series can be fully integrated. An independent certification body has certified that ProSafe-RS conforms to the IEC61508 international safety standard and can be used in SIL3 applications.

Yokogawa

www.yokogawa.com/us

Edited by Peter Welander, pwelander@cfemedia.com