ESD System for UK refinery

The system will monitor and record all safety critical functions – performed by the refinery’s Distributed Control System (DCS) – and support the fail-safe operation of the refinery; as well as allow for an orderly shutdown in the event of an emergency.

Hima-Sella is building the ESD around two HIMA HiMax Programmable Electronic Systems (PESs), which are process safety platforms. To exhibit a Safety Integrity Level of 2 (SIL 2), as defined by the international functional safety standard IEC 61508, the ESD will interface with the refinery’s DCS via a secure digital data link and be networked to engineering, maintenance and configuration stations. In addition, the two HIMax systems will, between them and in their ESD role, dedicate some 150 analogue and 500 digital I/O channels to interfacing with a variety of temperature and pressure sensors and switches.