Colt Hero
Member
This is a Pharma Plant application.
The Plant is highly Automated, but there are still many, many Manual Valves throughout.
Is it possible to retrofit a valve Position indicator (PI) to a Manual Valve (VB)?
The idea is to know whether these VBs are completely closed, or not.
The VBs are manually closed by Operators with a 90-degree turn (sometimes using a long handle for leverage).
We had an "event" recently (no injuries, thankfully), and I was subsequently asked if Automated Valves (XVs) could be added.
Well, when we thought about all the paths where these XVs would need to be added, it came to something like 40-50 valves! Not going to happen. After all ... 25 years ... and this was the first "event". It was really "Operator Error", but to me ... one "event" is one too many.
So I wondered if it would be possible to just add PIs to these VBs (just to indicate "fully-closed"), then use a "field PLC" to collect these signals and MUX them up to the DCS (which could then determine if pressuring up a Header, Config Station, or Loop was safe to do).
The Plant is highly Automated, but there are still many, many Manual Valves throughout.
Is it possible to retrofit a valve Position indicator (PI) to a Manual Valve (VB)?
The idea is to know whether these VBs are completely closed, or not.
The VBs are manually closed by Operators with a 90-degree turn (sometimes using a long handle for leverage).
We had an "event" recently (no injuries, thankfully), and I was subsequently asked if Automated Valves (XVs) could be added.
Well, when we thought about all the paths where these XVs would need to be added, it came to something like 40-50 valves! Not going to happen. After all ... 25 years ... and this was the first "event". It was really "Operator Error", but to me ... one "event" is one too many.
So I wondered if it would be possible to just add PIs to these VBs (just to indicate "fully-closed"), then use a "field PLC" to collect these signals and MUX them up to the DCS (which could then determine if pressuring up a Header, Config Station, or Loop was safe to do).
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