Overview of Industrial Process Automation

460 Pages·2011·56.124 MB·English

by  K.L.S. Sharma

Overview of Industrial
Process Automation
Second edition
KLS Sharma
Automation Education and Training,
Bengaluru, India
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Dedication
This book is dedicated to ABB India, where the author learned
and practiced automation for over 24 years.
About the Author
KLS Sharma graduated from University of Mysuru, India, and received his masters
and doctoral degrees from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, India.
He has worked for the following organizations:
• Technical manager, Electronics Corporation of India, Hyderabad, India
• Assistant vice president, ABB, Bengaluru, India
• Consultant, Honeywell Technology Solutions Lab, Bengaluru, India
• Professor, International Institute of Information Technology, Bengaluru, India
• Professor emeritus, MS Ramaiah Institute of Technology, Bengaluru, India
• Member, Campus Connect Program, Automation Industry Association of India, Delhi, India
• Distinguished visiting professor, National Institute of Technology Karnataka, Surathkal, India
His current positions are:
• Advisor, Automation Education and Training, Bengaluru, India
• Principal consultant, Advanced Engineering Group, Infosys, Bengaluru, India
• Member, Editorial Advisory Board, A&D Magazine on Industrial Automation, Pune, India
Association
• Senior member, International Society of Automation (ISA)
Awards and Recognitions
• ISA Celebrating Excellence Member’s Choice Award for Student Mentor of the Year 2015.
Foreword
The industrial revolution replaced the need for human muscles; the computer revolution
substituted the routine functions of our brains. Today we operate robots on Mars that can
vaporize rocks by laser to determine their composition, and soon we will be ordering
pizza while sitting in our hydrogen-fueled driverless cars and the drone-delivered pizza
will be waiting for us in the driveway by the time our smart car parks itself.
Similar advances took place in the field of industrial automation. 50 years ago we
were tuning single loop pneumatic controllers and were perfectly satisfied with using
filled bulbs for temperature and orifices for flow measurement. At that time the main
job of the instrument department in the plant was to clean plugged pressure taps and
open stuck control valves, and our control panels were full of push buttons, blinking
lights, and manual loading stations. Over the past decades our tools changed into
self-checking digital components, wireless transmission, and redundant safety backup
systems that provide ease of configuring complex algorithms and generating dynamic
displays. Today automation is minimizing operating and energy costs while maximiz-
ing both safety and profitability of our industries.
Yet the totality of the automation field is poorly understood because that knowledge
is fragmented, since our colleagues are working only in particular segments of the
field. Few have an overall view of the totality of the automation profession. This book
of Dr. Sharma serves to fill that gap by describing the totality of this field.
We live at a time when cultural attitudes concerning automation are changing as we
debate the proper role of machines in our lives. Whereas in everyday life we accept the
spread of automation, that our mobile phones can do just about anything except sharpen
our pencils (but who needs pencils or handwriting anymore, for that matter?), industrial
attitudes change much more slowly. Our industries are still mostly run by human oper-
ators, and although they are assisted by machines, it is the operator who usually has the
“last word.” In other words, automation is seldom used to prevent human errors.
xvi Foreword
Safety statistics tell us that the number one cause of all industrial accidents is human
error. One could refer to Three-Mile Island, where operators poured water into the instru-
ment air supply; the BP accident, where there was no automation to keep the drill pipe
straight; the ferry accident in Korea, where safety overrides were not provided to prevent
the captain from turning sharply into a fast ocean current; or airplane accidents, where
pilots are allowed to fly into mountains or attempt to land at wrong speeds. Yet we know
that in addition to its other contributions, automation can overrule the actions of pan-
icked or badly trained operators who often make the wrong decisions in emergencies.
To achieve this higher level of industrial safety, an override safety control (OSC)
layer of safety automation is being added to our control systems, one that cannot be
turned off or overruled by anything or anybody. With this design, if the plant condi-
tions enter a highly accident-prone life- or safety-threatening region of operation, the
uninterruptible safe shutdown of the plant is automatically triggered. The functioning
of this layer of automation is free from possible cyber attacks because it is not con-
nected to the Internet at all. In short, once the OSC layer of protection is activated, the
plant is shutting down and nothing and nobody can prevent that.
In addition to safety improvements, advances in standardization are also taking place.
Just as it occurred in the “analog age,” a global standard is now evolving for digital
communication that could link all digital “black boxes” and could also act as a “transla-
tor” for those automation devices that were not designed to “speak the same language.”
Naturally, this standardization should apply to both wired and wireless systems, thereby
eliminating “captive markets” and allowing the easy mixing of different manufacturers’
products in the same control loop. This trend is most welcome because once completed,
it will allow the automation and process control engineers to once again concentrate
on designing safe and optimized control systems and not worry about the possibility
that the “black boxes” of the different suppliers might not be able to talk to each other.
Therefore it is hoped that the “Babel of communication protocols” will shortly be over.
The automation profession can simultaneously increase gross domestic product
and industrial profitability without building a single new plant, just by optimizing
existing ones. We can achieve that goal while also reducing both pollution and energy
consumption, solely through applying the state-of-the art of automation. We can
increase productivity without using a single pound of additional raw material and
without spending a single additional BTU of energy. We can also protect our indus-
tries not only from human errors but also from sabotage or cyber terrorism by replac-
ing manual control with OSC-type automatic safety controls.
Our profession can do all this and much more, but to do so it is necessary for the
people entering or working in this field to have an overall view of this profession, and
this book of Dr. Sharma serves that goal.
May 1, 2016 Béla Lipták
Stamford CT, USA [email protected]
Béla Lipták is president of the consulting firm Lipták Associates, PC.
Foreword xvii
Future of Industrial Automation
Extract from the article by Jim Pinto
“As the second decade of the 21st century moves forward, technology continues to
accelerate and is generating rapid changes in industrial automation & control systems.
Industrial automation can and will generate explosive growth in the next decade,
with several new inflection points:
• Nanotechnology will bring tiny, low-power, low-cost sensors and nano-scale electromechan-
ical systems. The Internet-of-Things (IoT)—Europeans call it Industry 4.0—will be perva-
sive and change the face of industrial automation, generating vast productivity gains.
• Wireless sensors and distributed peer-to-peer networks will give rise to major new software
applications—tiny operating systems in wireless nodes will allow nodes to communicate
with each other in a larger complex adaptive systems.
• Today’s pervasive smart-phone has more power than a super-computer of just a couple of
decades ago. The use of WiFi-connected tablets, smartphones and mobile devices with new
real-time monitoring software (Apps) will be used widely in industrial plants and process con-
trol environments.
• Conventional Real-time control systems will give way to multi-processors and complex
adaptive systems
These are the waves of the future. The leaders will not be the traditional automation
majors, but new start-ups with innovative ideas that will generate industrial productiv-
ity gains to drive significant growth.”
June 28, 2016 Jim Pinto
Carlsbad, CA, USA [email protected]
Jim Pinto is an international speaker, technology futurist, automation consultant, and writer
(http://JimPinto.com).
Preface to the First Edition
During my 33-year career in the computer and automation industry and subsequently
my 7 years in academic institutions, I have observed a gap between academia and indus-
try regarding the automation domain. These observations are based on my time spent
training new recruits in Indian industry and later, on my teaching experience in Indian
academic institutions. One of the ways this gap can be bridged is by introducing the basics
of modern automation technology to those who are beginning careers in automation. This
includes students and persons in industry who are switching to the automation domain.
Prior knowledge of automation provides these beginners with a better and quicker start.
In many academic institutions, curriculum is being upgraded in instrumentation/
control engineering courses to prepare students for careers in the automation industry.
Currently the automation industry spends considerable time and money training and
preparing new recruits for the job. The situation is more or less the same for persons
switching to the automation domain in industry. This motivated me to write this book
introducing the principles of automation in a simple and structured manner.
This book teaches beginners the basics of automation, and it is also intended as a
guide to teachers and trainers who are introducing the subject. It addresses the current
philosophy, technology, terminology, and practices within the automation industry
using simple examples and illustrations.
The modern automation system is built out of a combination of technologies, which
include the following:
• sensor and control
• electronics
• electrical drives
• information (computer science and engineering)
• communication and networking
• embedded
• digital signal processing
• control engineering, and many more
Current automation technology is one of the few engineering domains that use
many modern technologies. Among these, information, communication, and network-
ing technologies have become integral parts of today’s automation. Basic subsystems
of a modern automation system are instrumentation, control, and the human inter-
face. In all of the subsystems, the influence of various technologies is visible. By and
large, the major providers of automation use similar philosophies in forming their
products, systems, and solutions.
xx Preface to the First Edition
As of now, most of the information on modern automation exists in the form of
technical documents prepared by automation companies. These documents are usually
specific to their products, systems, solutions, and training. This knowledge has not yet
been widely disseminated to the general public, and the books that are available deal
with specific products and systems. Most of this industry material is difficult for begin-
ners to understand. It is good for next-level reading after some exposure to the basics.
Automation of the industrial process calls for industrial process automation sys-
tems. These involve designing, developing, manufacturing, installing, commission-
ing, and maintaining automation systems, which calls for the services of qualified and
trained automation engineers. In addressing the basic concepts of automation, this
book provides a starting point for the necessary education and training process.
Over the years, considerable advances have taken place in hardware technologies
(mainly in electronics and communication). However, in computer-based automation
systems, hardware interfaces have remained virtually the same, except that control
has become more powerful owing to the availability of large memory and increased
processor speeds. In other words, the memory and speed constraints present in earlier
systems are not an issue today. In view of this, many aspects of hardware interface
and function have been taken over by software, which does not need special inter-
face electronics. Today, complete operation and control of industrial processes are by
software-driven automation systems. Furthermore, this software provides maximum
support to the user. The user is now only required to configure and customize the auto-
mation system for a particular process. Therefore the emphasis in this book is placed
on hardware, engineering, and application programming.
This book is intended for:
• students beginning automation careers
• teachers of automation and related subjects
• engineers switching to automation careers
• trainers of automation
How to read the book:
• Follow the book from beginning to end, because its sequence is structured as a guided tour
of the subject.
• Skip appendixes if you already have the background knowledge. They are provided for the
sake of completeness and to create a base for easy understanding of the book.
Benefits the book provides for readers:
• does not call for any prior knowledge of automation
• presents a guided tour of automation
• explains the concepts through simple illustrations and examples
• makes further study easy
• prepares the reader to understand technical documents in the automation industry
Preface to the First Edition xxi
Based on my experience in training, teaching, and interacting with trainees and
students, I have specially formulated and simplified the illustrations and discussions
in this book to facilitate easy understanding.
The book is organized as follows:
Chapter 1: Why Automation?—Industrial process, Undesired behavior of process, Types
and classifications of process, Unattended, manually attended, and fully automated pro-
cesses, Needs and benefits of automation, Process signals
Chapter 2: Automation System Structure—Functions of automation subsystems, Instru-
mentation, control, and human interface, Individual roles
Chapter 3: Instrumentation Subsystem—Structure and functions, Types of instrumenta-
tion devices, Interface to control subsystem, Interfacing standards, Isolation and protection
Chapter 4: Control Subsystem—Functions and structure, Interfaces to instrumentation
and human interface subsystems
Chapter 5: Human Interface Subsystem—Construction, Active display and control ele-
ments, Types of panels, Interface to control subsystem
Chapter 6: Automation Strategies—Basic strategies, Open and closed loop, Discrete, con-
tinuous, and hybrid
Chapter 7: Programmable Control Subsystem—Processor-based subsystem, Controller,
Input–output structure, Special features—communicability and self-supervisability
Chapter 8: Hardware Structure of Controller—Construction of controller, Major func-
tional modules, Data transfer on the bus, Structure and working of functional modules,
Integration
Chapter 9: Software Structure of Controller—Difference between general-purpose com-
puting and real-time computing, Real-time operating system, Scheduling and execution of
tasks, Program interrupt
Chapter 10: Programming of Controller—Programming of automation strategies, high-
er-level languages, IEC 61,131-3 standard, Ladder logic diagram, Function block diagram
Chapter 11: Advanced Human Interface—Migration of hardwired operator panel to soft-
ware-based operator station, Layout and features, Enhanced configurations, Logging station,
Control desk
Chapter 12: Types of Automation Systems—Structure for localized and distributed pro-
cess, Centralized system, Decentralized/distributed system, Remote/networked system,
Multiple operator stations, Supervisory control and data acquisition
Chapter 13: Special-Purpose Controllers—Customization of controller, Programmable
logic controller, Loop controller, Controller, Remote terminal unit, PC-based controller, Pro-
grammable automation controller
Chapter 14: System Availability–Availability issues, Improvement of system availability,
Cold and hot standby, Standby/redundancy for critical components
Chapter 15: Common Configurations–Configurations with operator stations, Supervisor
stations, Application stations
Chapter 16: Advanced Input–Output System—Centralized input–output, Remote input–
output, and Fieldbus input–output, Data communication and networking, Communication
protocol
Chapter 17: Concluding Remarks—Summary, Application-wise classification of automa-
tion systems, Data handling, Future trends