Product category:
Plant- and Machine-Wide Communications
News Release from: Fieldbus Foundation | Subject: Foundation fieldbus
Edited by the Engineeringtalk Editorial
Team on 25 May 2005
Showpiece plant flies flag for
Foundation
The Fieldbus Foundation recently demonstrated the full implementation of its open, integrated Foundation fieldbus architecture at the ISP 1, 4-butanediol plant in Lima, Ohio.
The Fieldbus Foundation recently demonstrated the full implementation of its open, integrated Foundation fieldbus architecture at the world-class International Specialty Products (ISP) 1, 4-butanediol (BDO) plant in Lima, Ohio The demonstration showed that Foundation fieldbus is a "technology with a business purpose" providing a competitive advantage to controls and instrumentation end-users
This article was originally published on Engineeringtalk on 5 Dec 2003 at 8.00am (UK)
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The demonstration showed how Foundation fieldbus H1, high speed Ethernet (HSE) and flexible function block (FFB) technology, integrated with OPC, forms an open, interoperable plant infrastructure for both brownfield and greenfield projects significant operating expense (OpEx) and capital expense (CapEX) savings.
Foundation fieldbus was specifically developed as an open environment providing the ability to integrate multiple systems, subsystems, applications and devices.
The technology provides the "freedom to choose" and the "power to integrate" across the plant enterprise, enabling end-users to choose best-in-class automation solutions that work together seamlessly regardless of their supplier.
The Lima BDO technology demonstration was a joint project initiated by BP Amoco Chemical Company, an indirect subsidiary of BP, and the Fieldbus Foundation.
ISP, through one of its subsidiaries, acquired BP's BDO operations in March 2005.
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The Lima plant has an annual capacity of 60,000 metric tons of BDO used in pharmaceutical, personal care, food, beverage, coatings, oil field and other applications.
Fieldbus Foundation members participating in the demonstration project included: ABB, Emerson Process Management, Fieldbus centre at Lee College, Hawke, Hirschmann, Honeywell, Invensys, MTL/Relcom, Pepperl+Fuchs, Phoenix Contact, Rockwell Automation, Smar, Softing, StoneL, TopWorx, Turck, Yamatake, Yokogawa and Westlock.
According to John Rezabek, Lead Controls Engineer for the ISP Lima facility, the fieldbus demonstration project provided valuable, real-world experience for end-users seeking to replace proprietary control systems with an open, interoperable fieldbus architecture enabling robust, reliable control at the field level.
"Having implemented the demonstration project in a mission-critical part of an operating process, we feel confident that we have passed a milestone in the development of fieldbus HSE and truly distributed control", said Rezabek.
"The distinct advantages of implementing H1 and HSE in lieu of proprietary networks will become increasingly apparent, as our leading suppliers develop products to make this technology accessible to their customers everywhere".
Fieldbus Foundation President and CEO Richard Timoney acknowledged the contributions of all demonstration project participants.
"Thanks to the efforts of leading automation equipment suppliers and end-users, the future of true plantwide distributed control is here today", said Timoney.
"As seen in the BDO demo application, industrial manufacturers can eliminate the constraints of proprietary legacy systems and realise the benefits of a modern, open, fieldbus-based control environment".
Developed for the Foundation fieldbus HSE (100Mbit/s) technology programme, but also compatible with H1 (31.25Kbit/s) fieldbus systems, FFBs are a key component of the Foundation architecture for plant wide information integration.
FFBs, which are application-specific, bring the full instrumentation integration part of the fieldbus solution into play.
They reside at the fieldbus user layer along with standard function blocks and enable control strategies such as supervisory data acquisition, batch control, programmable logic controller (PLC) sequencing, co-ordinated drive control and input/output (I/O) interfacing, including gateways to other plant device networks.
The use of FFBs enhances the ability to move control functionality to the field-level.
For example, with FFBs running in an HSE linking device, a single physical device can support batch and logic control.
With this approach, users can often eliminate the need for proprietary unit controllers.
Unlike other solutions requiring a master-slave link, this technology places process node aware logic local to the optimised task.
Two types of FFBs are available.
The Fieldbus Foundation released specifications for the preconfigured FFBs in March 2000.
Specifications for the fully-configured FFBs were released in September 2001 after completion of field tests at the Lee College Fieldbus centre in Baytown, Texas, USA.
Preconfigured FFBs have a predefined number/type of I/O parameters like standard function blocks, but the algorithm is configurable.
As the I/O is predefined, the electronic device description (EDD) is also predefined.
The initial FFBs of this type, multiple input/output (MIO) blocks, have eight analogue or discrete parameters per block: MAI, MAO, MDI, MDO.
MIO blocks are used for remote I/O interfacing and simple gateway applications.
Fully configured FFBs are used for more complex applications; they allow both the number/type of I/O parameters and the algorithm to be configured.
In this case, the EDD is generated "on the fly" by the configuration tool.
FFBs are created using programming tools based on standards such as IEC61131-3.
Once created, FFBs are instantiated and connected to other blocks just like standard function blocks.
For the live demonstration application in Lima, a Foundation fieldbus system consisting of H1 field devices and HSE linking devices was installed on a vapour system.
The fieldbus controls actuated a series of butterfly valves used on the process.
The demo highlighted FFB implementation of host-resident logic using both discrete and analogue field devices residing on H1, the co-existence of diverse control systems from various manufacturers using HSE, and the interoperability of alternate HSE linking devices and associated controllers.
In addition, the demo showed the suitability of existing Foundation fieldbus devices for high-speed batching and sequencing of discrete systems, as well as the use of FFBs in discrete and hybrid applications.
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