Full Profibus automation solution in Brasil

SMAR has completed the Profibus based automation system used to expand production and control efficiency for Very High Polarisation (VHP) sugar at a plant in Brasil

This year the Alvorada do Bebedouro Sugar and Alcohol Unit (ABAA), located in the municipality of Guaranesia, in the Minas Gerais state in Brasil, has started production of VHP (Very High Polarisation) sugar, a raw material for the food industry With the goal of 106,250 tons of sugar exports up to 2009, Alvorada do Bebedouro Sugar and Alcohol invested R$60million in the expansion of its crushing, steam generation, juice treatment and evaporation in the sugar plant.

SMAR Application Engineering, coordinated by the Application Engineer Leonardo Mansur Pinheiro, jointly with the ABAA unit technical team chose the Profibus fieldbus network for the job.

The main factors leading to this choice were the high degree of acceptability and compatibility of this protocol in the market, due to its open, interoperable communication standard that works with several suppliers, besides its easy installation, and simple configuration and architecture.

The automation system chosen was the SMAR SYSTEM302-7, which combines connectivity, flexibility and integration with specialist administration, quality and maintenance systems like MES (Manufacturing Execution System) and ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning).

Therefore, the administrative, production planning and industrial management departments in the company may access the information necessary for their needs and makes it possible to follow up, control and improve production, as well as provide support to the logistic chain, through more accurate decision making.

This brings more efficiency and effectiveness to the plant management action, while improving plant availability.

A flexible architecture.

The architecture project included the implementation of Profibus DP for the MCCs (Motor Control and Command Centres), Profibus PA for continuous field control equipments and AS-I for discrete field start-up equipment distributed among master Profibus DP controller.

Horizontal communication between the controllers may be done by using a 100Mbit HSE network providing control and supervision.

The circuit loops, motor startup and interlocks were configured on the DF73 Profibus DPV-1 master controllers.

All the controllers are connected to an optical fibre ring network that makes possible the exchange of control data between the controllers and supervision data between controllers and the operation, engineering and maintenance stations.

For motor startup, intelligent MCCs were specified with relays, inverters and soft starters using the Profibus DP communications protocol.

In all, the Profibus DP network has 162 equipments communicating at 1,5 Mbits/s, with a network range around 200m maximum length.

All the circuit switch sensors and on-off valve startup carry the AS-I communication protocol inserted in the Profibus DP network through gateways that convert Profibus DP into AS-i.

The convergence between the PA and DP networks was obtained through gateways and couplers.

A total 106 SMAR field equipments using the Profibus PA communications protocol were installed and distributed in six channels with a network length with a maximum 30m distance that communicate at a speed of 31,25 Kbits/s.

All SMAR field equipments are specially made to operate with Profibus DP and PA protocols, such as FY303 series positioners for pneumatic valve actuators, series LD303 manometric and differential pressure transmitters, series TT303 temperature transmitters, series IF303, 4-20mA/Profibus PA converters (used to insert a standard instrument with a 4-20mA output signal into the Profibus PA network), and DF73 Profibus DPV-1 master controllers.

SMAR JM400 junction boxes were used on the Profibus PA network to interconnect physically the field equipments like network nodes, which permit easy and safe connection to make possible mounting an industrial network.

The JM400 may be used in restricted explosion-proof areas, due to its certification.

Operation, Maintenance and Engineering Stations.

These local operation stations make it possible for operators to supervise and command the plant through supervisory software with synoptic, tuning, graphs, alarms and history screens.

The Maintenance and Management station, besides monitoring and making available process data for the corporate network via the web, has the SYSTEM302 tools necessary to configure the Profibus DP/PA and AS-I networks (cyclic configuration), to alter or monitor parameters like field equipment calibration and diagnostics on the Profibus PA network (acyclic configuration) and create the control logics.

All field device configuration on the PA network was done using ProfibusView from SMAR.

Corporate System.

The SYSTEM302 architecture makes possible the integration with corporate, quality and maintenance specialist systems, such as MES (Manufacturing Execution Systems) and ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning).

The administration, production planning and industrial management sectors may access the information they need to follow up, control and improve the production process and support the logistic chain, through better and well coordinated decision making, more efficient actions and higher plant availability.

Plant Commissioning and Startup.

Araobert Dantas de Medeiros, Fauze Renato Ardenghi and Washington Luis de Barros from the SMAR Technical Assistance team commissioned, oriented and installed the field equipment, and put the system in operation according to schedule, due to the ease of installation afforded by the Profibus industrial network technology.

The SMAR engineers Cesar Cassiolato and Edson Emboaba gave all technical support to this phase of the project.

The ABAA unit technicians were trained and oriented on the system maintenance and operation to guarantee its good performance.

The client perspective.

According to Mr Eduardo Pitondo, Electric and Instrumentation Supervisor of Alvorada do Bebedouro Sugar and e Alcohol unit, the SYSTEM302-7 is robust and able to provide the amount of diagnostic information on the equipments only offered by a purely digital system, including for analysis and checkup of the network structure.

One of the advantages provided by the Profibus technology specifically mentioned by Mr Pitondo refers to the panel internal space saved due to the reduction of the quantity and volume occupied by the hardware, the power sources, trays, terminal blocks and cables, which reduced the time spent on the identification and solution of problems and increased the system reliability and plant availability.

Extracted from Processingtalk website, click here to read the original article.