Today,
the safety of industrial facilities, personnel, processes, and the environment
is a crucial concern. Plants must improve safety while optimizing operational
and business performance. Faced with this reality, they are seeking to ensure the lowest risk, and
highest value protection, from their Fire & Gas (F&G) systems.
Integration of F&G
systems into the overall control system is a very important factor in running
modern plants. By implementing unified solutions, plant owners can meet their
critical health and safety requirements while reducing long-term asset
lifecycle costs.
Background
Industrial
fire & gas systems play an essential role in the plant infrastructure. They
continuously monitor fire and toxic or combustible gas levels, and can provide warnings
of an abnormal situation before it becomes a significant threat.
F&G detection systems
are commonly employed for offshore exploration and production, onshore oil
& gas facilities, refineries and chemical plants, marine operations,
pipelines, power plants, and mining sites.
Use of F&G technology
At increasingly complex
industrial sites, the F&G system is a mitigation safety layer tasked with
taking action to reduce the consequences of a hazardous event after it has
occurred. It is used for automating emergency actions with a high-integrity
safety and control solution to mitigate further escalation. The system is also
important for recovering from abnormal situations quickly to resume full
production.
A typical fire and gas
safety system comprises detection, logic control, and alarm and mitigation
functions. The logic solver is the central control unit of the overall F&G
detection and control system. The controller receives signals from fire, gas
& flame detection devices required for fire and gas detection. It also
handles the required actions to initiate alarms and mitigate the hazard.
Need for unified systems
As more operating
companies move toward “smart” plants, appropriate integration with other
systems will play an important role in increasing safety as well as efficiency.
As F&G systems are tightly integrated with the overall process safety
strategy, mitigation either takes place via the emergency shutdown (ESD) system
or directly from the F&G system itself.
The F&G system should
also be integrated with the distributed control system (DCS) addressing fire
and gas graphics and alarms for display to the operator. Meanwhile, there needs
to be independent displays such human-machine interfaces (HMIs) to draw
attention to fire & gas excursions when the DCS HMIs are not available.
In addition, the plant
F&G system, and the fire system for occupied buildings, should be
integrated with the system/site security center for plant evacuation. As part
of an overall plant safety strategy, there needs to be a unified platform for
the command center/fire station for plant evacuation procedures.
Industrial
standards play a large role in the development, implementation and installation
of integrated F&G systems. Considering standards like IEC 61511 and ANSI/ISA
S84.0,1 is a major step towards protecting industrial plants
Value of a holistic approach
As a global control and
safety technology leader, Honeywell provides a truly holistic safety and
security solution for the process automation industry, Honeywell’s approach improves
business performance by reducing the risk of incidents, faults and failures
that cost money by disrupting normal operations.
Honeywell’s
advanced F&G systems combine innovative fire and gas detectors,
conventional and analog addressable fire panels, clean agent and inert gas fire
suppression systems, and a SIL 3-certified fire and gas logic solver into a
consistently designed and executed solution. They also provide common tools, operating interface and networking, resulting in a
common platform with independent systems.
Honeywell’s F&G systems
can detect early signs of explosive and health hazards, including combustible
and toxic gas releases, thermal radiation from fires and minute traces of smoke
in sensitive equipment enclosures. Audio and visual alarms are generated to
alert plant operators and fire-fighting personnel.
Honeywell delivers F&G solutions through its local organizations using
global project management practices and recognized international engineering
standards. The company helps to sustain the optimal performance of F&G
systems through a comprehensive managed services program.
With its outcome-based Assurance 360 services, Honeywell takes responsibility for the total lifecycle of installed assets and utilizes a secure remote connection to add value through proactive/predictive maintenance of the customer’s F&G system.
“Honeywell’s F&G systems can detect early signs of explosive and health hazards”
Benefits to industrial facilities
By implementing unified
fire and gas solutions, industrial facilities can meet their critical
infrastructure protection requirements while ensuring operational and business
readiness at project start-up and during operations.
Experience
has shown that plant owners/operators benefit from a holistic approach to
safety that supports a secure process control network to the perimeter of the
plant to protect people, assets and the environment. Integrated F&G safety
systems help to minimize intervention and shutdowns, and enable plants to
recover more easily from process upsets.
An integrated strategy
for plant operation and safety also helps in improving efficiencies and
managing capital expenditures. This approach drives greater agility, enabling
operating companies to adapt to business conditions quickly and cost
effectively, to help ensure profitability in uncertain times.
Conclusion
Industrial
organizations face a host of operational challenges. Ensuring utmost safety is
a priority for every facility. Integrated F&G and life safety solutions help to detect safety hazards
before they escalate. They mitigate potential incidents by ensuring all
personnel are informed of hazardous situations in a clear and unambiguous
manner, and provide fast and efficient response to associated risks.