Oil production takes place not only on land and in shallow coastal waters but also on the high seas. In shallow waters such as the Gulf of Mexico production platforms are firmly anchored to the sea-bed. In deep-sea applications, where oil exploration platforms can tap into deposits at depths of up to 3500 m it is not possible to anchor the platforms.
Oil exploration platforms suitable for the high seas must keep their position above the bore hole with engine power in spite of wind and currents. Position must be kept accurate to a few metres with engine power so that the boring rods do not break. The highest demands are placed on the operational reliability of the dynamic position control because should the platform drift off position there is the danger of great environmental damage and downtime. Converteam designed a control system for the Transocean Sedco Forex platforms that meets the highest safety demands. As well as other safety precautions the control components are designed with multiple redundancy and networked with fail-safe fibre-optic cables.
The Sedco Express oil platform
Platform position is recorded by satellite with GPS and by sonar buoys fixed on the seabed. The platform position is maintained by powerful electromotors on the four corners of the platform. Each of these 7 MW motors can rotate through 360°. The dynamic position maintenance control system and the associated Fieldbus network must meet high realtime and reliability requirements.
For the Transocean Sedco Forex express class platforms Converteam required a bus system that would operate in realtime, provide error monitoring and alarm indication and be error tolerant such that no single point of failure would render it inoperational. The system was required to maintain a positioning accuracy of better than 5 m in ocean currents of up to 3,5 knots, wind speeds of up to 60 knots and wave conditions of up to 9 m. The solution Converteam opted for comprised World FIP Fieldbus protocol running on an all-fibre network with four hierarchically structured Fieldbus rings and incorporating Hirschmann's fibre-optic cable repeaters.
Some of the reasons for this selection were the high realtime capability of World FIP, the capability of Hirschmann's LWL repeater ring and very fast switchover time on ring failure.
EtherCAT interoperability removes industrial networking barriers
Fieldbus & Industrial Networking
Selecting the right communication technology is one of the most important decisions engineers make, and interoperability helps with that decision. Key development tools and standards ensure interoperability among many EtherCAT devices and manufacturers.
Read more...Controlling runtime and engineering with a leap in performance Beckhoff Automation
Fieldbus & Industrial Networking
Beckhoff is enabling a real leap in automation technology performance with TwinCAT PLC++. Both engineering and runtime can be accelerated, while the well-known TwinCAT advantages of consistent integration, compatibility and openness continue to be delivered.
Read more...Loop signature: Tuning part 4 processes Michael Brown Control Engineering
Editor's Choice Fieldbus & Industrial Networking
The purpose of this particular article is to try and give those unfortunate enough to have to use SWAG (scientific wild ass guess) tuning a bit of an idea of how to go about it, and even more importantly some understanding of a couple of basic principles.
Read more...Condition monitoring to go Turck Banner Southern Africa
Fieldbus & Industrial Networking
Anyone who wants to efficiently monitor the climate in control cabinets will find a comprehensive range of control cabinet monitors for the DIN rail in Turck Banner’s cabinet condition monitoring family.
Read more...Innovative separation of recyclable materials Beckhoff Automation
Fieldbus & Industrial Networking
A plant built by Belgian specialist machine builder, Absolem Engineering features an innovative process for separating recyclable materials. Using PC-based control from Beckhoff, a major problem has been elegantly solved - the generation of different signal sequences for the exact synchronisation of different camera systems.
Read more...Enhancing AI-powered object detection and recognition capabilities Vepac Electronics
Fieldbus & Industrial Networking
Innodisk has announced its cooperation with Advantech, a global leader in AIoT and edge computing. This collaboration leverages Innodisk’s customisable MIPI camera modules and Advantech’s Intel x86-based AFE-R360 solution to enhance AI-powered object detection and recognition capabilities, expanding visual applications for autonomous mobile robots in smart factories and warehouses.
Read more...Rugged, agile and scalable boards Vepac Electronics
Fieldbus & Industrial Networking
Embedded computing pioneer, AAEON has launched the PICO-ASL4 and GENE-ASL6, both featuring the new Intel Atom x7000RE Processor Series for the edge.
Read more...Rugged gateway board with open-source flexibility Vepac Electronics
Fieldbus & Industrial Networking
The SRG-CM4 from Vepac brings all the open-source flexibility of the Raspberry Pi OS and ecosystem to AAEON’s signature rugged, durable gateway design to create a truly industry-ready modular system.
printer friendly version