The Task

A production area in a world leading pharmaceutical company requires a breathing air supply for their employees to work safely, to prevent contamination from the ambient atmosphere. Failure of the supply, or contaminated supply can lead to risk to health of the employees. IES were engaged to design the breathing air system, including the air delivery system.

Key Objectives

  • Provide a high availability breathing air supply to production area.
  • Meet the Design Parameters for:
    • Minimum Mains Distribution Pressure
    •  Required Volume Flowrate
    • Air Temperature
    • Meet the stated purification parameters at point of use (maximum allowed CO2, CO, SO2, NOx, dewpoint, oil vapour, taste and odour).

System Summary

The main breathing air supply comprises two Breathing Air Purifiers supplied with compressed air from 4 compressors. The BAPs are configured in a duty/standby/assist arrangement. In the event of a fault with the duty BAP or with the duty BAP pipeline the control system automatically changes over to the standby BAP. The control system cycles the duty/standby on a time basis. Each BAP is isolated from the mains supply pipeline by means of an actuated isolation valve. The breathing air from the purifiers passes through a heat exchanger to reduce the air temperature to 18oC. The temperature is controlled to a setpoint by modulating a control valve on the chilled water supply line to the exchanger. A PLC/HMI based control system provides the automatic control and user interface.

Once the newly supplied and compliant control panel was designed, built, tested, and installed on site, a careful, calculated method of approach, identified in the detailed RAMS could be implemented on site to allow for a risk mitigated, smooth transfer.

Design Phase of the Project

IES designed the process, pipework, instrumentation, control system. Identified and applied the relevant international and industry standards.

Our process design team developed the P&ID, undertook a HAZOP, generated the instrument list, developed the control strategy required.

Design Phase of the Project

This critical system needed to be available during all production periods, the selection of components was critical. IES selected and procured the isolation valves and actuators, control valves, temperature, dewpoint, flow instruments, control system.

Development

IES developed the control system. Generated Functional Specification, Software Specification.

Installation

IES were actively involved in the installation by supporting the installation teams and ensuring quality control.

Commissioning and Put In Operation

IES fully commissioned the system and successfully put in operation.

Did You Know?

Balfour Beatty, one of the UK’s largest construction firms, were in the news very recently as they completed the breakthrough of the last and longest of the five onshore cooling-water tunnels at Hinkley Point nuclear power station. They had excavated through 600 metres of ground to create the tunnels, and sprayed 9000 cubic metres of concrete in order to stabilise the recently formed underground structures. The tunnels will now undergo secondary lining works. The tunnels will be responsible for transferring over 120,000 litres of water per second from the Bristol Channel to cool the new reactor, Hinkley C.
SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) systems are becoming increasingly central to the normal functioning of society. IES’s close attention to system security reflects real dangers. ‘American Blackout’, a realistic drama documentary made in 2013 by National Geographic, explores the effects of a malicious cyber-attack on America’s national electricity grid. During ten days without electricity the nation descends into anarchy. A cast of ordinary characters struggle to feed and protect themselves and their families, and record their experiences on mobile devices.
Although PLCs (programmable logic controllers) are now nearly universal in modern industry, their history is comparatively short. The ‘father’ of the PLC is generally considered to be Richard E. ``Dick`` Morley (1932 –2017) a self-schooled American mechanical engineer who had dropped out of MIT. He was behind the production of the first PLC for General Motors in 1968. A self-confessed workaholic, Morley held more than twenty U.S. and foreign patents, including the parallel inference machine and a hand-held terminal. He claimed that he invented the PLC one day when he had a hangover, and didn’t feel like designing a separate control system for each new application.

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