Blog - Post List

  • Safety Instrumented Systems Blog: Vortex Flow Meters in Safety Instrumented Functions

    Jim Cahill
    Safety instrumented systems provide a layer of protection beyond the control system to safely shutdown the process during abnormal situations. A safety instrumented function (SIF) or “safety loop” includes the sensing device, logic solver and final control element to perform safety function upon demand. Flow measurement devices are often the sensing devices in these SIFs. Some flow measurement technologies may experience…

  • DeltaV Blog: Getting Alarms Right the First Time or Fixing Later

    Jim Cahill
    As distributed control systems, human-machine interface (HMI)-based control systems and safety instrumented systems came along, adding alarms was easy and close to free. The problem they introduced was too many too often—whether immediate action was warranted or not. The ISA 18.2 alarm management standard was developed to help manufacturers and producers optimize the alarms to minimize alarm flooding conditions and provide…

  • DeltaV Blog: Getting Alarms Right the First Time or Fixing Later

    Jim Cahill
    As distributed control systems, human-machine interface (HMI)-based control systems and safety instrumented systems came along, adding alarms was easy and close to free. The problem they introduced was too many too often—whether immediate action was warranted or not. The ISA 18.2 alarm management standard was developed to help manufacturers and producers optimize the alarms to minimize alarm flooding conditions and provide…

  • Ovation Blog: #POWERGEN 2017 Preview: Helping Power Generators Address the Skills Gap

    Jim Cahill
    Author: Douglas Morris A January 2017 report from the U.S. Energy Department states: Workforce retirements are a pressing challenge. Industry hiring managers often report that lack of candidate training, experience, or technical skills are major reasons why replacement personnel can be challenging to find—especially in electric power generation. The wave of retirements has been talked about for years and…

  • Ovation Blog: #POWERGEN 2017 Preview: Flexible Operations

    Jim Cahill
    Author: Douglas Morris The new plants that are coming online today are already designed for fast start and flexible operations. With the changing generation mix, being able to move a unit is essential as fleets dispatch more renewables. But what about older plants that were designed to operate as baseload generation? Sometimes units must be mechanically retrofitted to be able to better participate in the market…

  • Ovation Blog: Cybersecurity Planning and Preparation

    Jim Cahill
    A digital transformation is well underway with many manufacturers striving to improve safety, reliability, efficiency, emissions and/or throughput. The Industrial Internet of Things is making it possible to monitor more areas of the production operations than was possible in a fully-wired technology era. A strong cybersecurity program must go hand in hand with this digital transformation. In an Automation World article…

  • Ovation Blog: #POWERGEN 2017 Preview: Microgrids and Controls

    Jim Cahill
    Author: Douglas Morris Microgrids are collections of generating sources that are coupled to operate as one either connected to or disconnected from (islanded) the main power grid (sometimes called the macrogrid). Being able to independently provide one’s power is becoming popular with standalone entities like colleges or universities, military bases, and remote locations. Hawaii is embracing microgrids and has recently…

  • Ovation Blog: Automating Combined-Cycle Power Generation Startups

    Jim Cahill
    In combined cycle power plants : …the heat of the gas turbine’s exhaust is used to generate steam by passing it through a heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) with a live steam temperature between 420 and 580 °C. The condenser of the Rankine cycle is usually cooled by water from a lake, river, sea or cooling towers . Over the past decades, combined cycle power plants were built to handle base electrical loads…

  • DeltaV Blog: 5 Questions for DeltaV Product Marketing Manager Jessica Jordan

    Jim Cahill
    Emerson’s Jessica Jordan joins our continuing podcast series on 5 Questions for an Emerson Expert . In these podcasts, we want to share the stories of the paths taken to a science, technology, engineering and/or math (STEM) education and career in the field of instrumentation and automation as well as to learn more about them as people. Jessica leads the product marketing efforts for the recently announced the powerful…

  • DeltaV Blog: 5 Questions for DeltaV Product Marketing Manager Jessica Jordan

    Jim Cahill
    Emerson’s Jessica Jordan joins our continuing podcast series on 5 Questions for an Emerson Expert . In these podcasts, we want to share the stories of the paths taken to a science, technology, engineering and/or math (STEM) education and career in the field of instrumentation and automation as well as to learn more about them as people. Jessica leads the product marketing efforts for the recently announced the powerful…

  • DeltaV Blog: Fuji Electric FCX-AIII Series Rev 1 DeltaV and AMS Interoperability Test

    Larry Griffin
    In Emerson’s continuing commitment to open and interoperable standards, the Fuji Electric FCX-AIII Series Rev 1 has passed the rigorous and comprehensive testing of the DeltaV and AMS Stress Test labs. Using the Device Installation Kits for Emerson Products website at  http://www2.emersonprocess.com/en-US/documentation/deviceinstallkits/Pages/deviceinstallkitsearch.aspx , these fieldbus device files are now available

  • Ovation Blog: Successfully Addressing NERC CIP Cybersecurity Standards

    Jim Cahill
    The power industry is perhaps the furthest along in hardening their cybersecurity defenses due to the work of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) on the critical infrastructure protection (CIP) cybersecurity standards—now at version 6 . In a Power magazine article, Tackling NERC CIP and Cybersecurity at America’s Largest Gas-fired Cogeneration Plant , this electrical energy and steam energy producer…

  • DeltaV Blog: Integrating Ethernet-Based Devices in DeltaV Systems

    Jim Cahill
    Let’s open the week with a video for DeltaV distributed control system users on ways to integrate devices with Ethernet-based protocols into the DeltaV system. Examples of these devices include motor control centers, variable speed drives, programmable logic controllers (PLCs) and various types of online analyzers. In this 6:17 YouTube video , Emerson’s Rune Reppenhagen demonstrates the DeltaV Virtual I/O Module 2…

  • DeltaV Blog: Integrating Ethernet-Based Devices in DeltaV Systems

    Jim Cahill
    Let’s open the week with a video for DeltaV distributed control system users on ways to integrate devices with Ethernet-based protocols into the DeltaV system. Examples of these devices include motor control centers, variable speed drives, programmable logic controllers (PLCs) and various types of online analyzers. In this 6:17 YouTube video , Emerson’s Rune Reppenhagen demonstrates the DeltaV Virtual I/O Module 2…

  • Safety Instrumented Systems Blog: Proof Testing Level Measurement Devices

    Jim Cahill
    Safety instrumented systems (SIS) include the sensor(s), final control element(s) and logic solver(s) for each of the safety instrumented functions (SIFs) in the SIS. To verify the SIFs are performing the amount of risk reduction intended for their application, they must be periodically proof tested. PCN Europe magazine interviewed Emerson’s Teddy Tzegazeab on how proof testing has changed for SIFs with liquid level…

  • Safety Instrumented Systems Blog: Proof Testing Level Measurement Devices

    Jim Cahill
    Safety instrumented systems (SIS) include the sensor(s), final control element(s) and logic solver(s) for each of the safety instrumented functions (SIFs) in the SIS. To verify the SIFs are performing the amount of risk reduction intended for their application, they must be periodically proof tested. PCN Europe magazine interviewed Emerson’s Teddy Tzegazeab on how proof testing has changed for SIFs with liquid level…

  • Ovation Blog: Network Architecture Considerations in Ovation Control Systems

    Jim Cahill
    Emerson’s Craig McDaniel provided an overview on the Ovation control system network architecture at the 2017 Ovation Users Group conference. He provided a basic overview of Ovation’s network architecture showing standard configurations, connectivity, redundancy, IP addressing schemes, port assignments, network hardware, and connections to third party equipment will be provided in this session. He also discussed the traffic…

  • Ovation Blog: Reducing Control System Hardware Footprint

    Jim Cahill
    Emerson’s Ben Skal presented on reducing the Ovation distributed control system hardware footprint at the 2017 Ovation Users Group conference. Virtualization technology is at the heart of this hardware footprint reduction and having less workstation and server hardware to maintain. Ben’s presentation focused on: What is virtualization & how it works Appropriate uses of virtual machines (VMs) Benefits of VM…

  • Ovation Blog: Take Charge of Partial Discharge to Protect Plant Assets

    Jim Cahill
    Emerson’s Jonathan Murray discussed partial discharge solutions at the 2017 Ovation Users Group conference. Unplanned electrical asset failures can halt production and amount to millions of dollars of associated costs. The IEEE and NFPA organizations identify Partial Discharge (PD) , a breakdown of the assets insulation, as a leading cause of failure. Manufacturers are looking for ways of transitioning away from traditional…

  • Ovation Blog: Model Predictive Control in Power Generation

    Jim Cahill
    Model predictive control in power generation was the subject of a 2017 Ovation Users Group presentation by Emerson’s Ranjit Rao . Rajit opened comparing classical control with model-based control. In classical control, a proportional-derivative-integral loop is used with feedback. There is a setpoint, the actual process variable and the error or difference between the process variable and setpoint. Based on the dynamics…

  • Ovation Blog: Simulation for Training and Engineering Applications

    Jim Cahill
    At the 2017 Ovation Users Group conference, Emerson’s Bob Kerestes and Sheldon Willis gave an update embedded simulation in the Ovation system. Sheldon opened the presentation describing types of uses for simulators for training and engineering. For training simulators, simulations can range from simple tie-back models to high-fidelity models which simulate the dynamics of the running process. For high-fidelity simulation…

  • Ovation Blog: Generator Excitation 101

    Jim Cahill
    Generators turn mechanical energy into electrical energy by moving electrical conductors in a magnetic field. Excitation creates the electromagnetic field to make this mechanical to electrical conversion occur. Emerson’s Rich Dennis provided a basics presentation on excitation control at the 2017 Ovation User Group meeting. Excitation control includes synchronous machine regulation, exciter, synchronous machine for…

  • Ovation Blog: Suite of Cybersecurity Technologies and Practices

    Jim Cahill
    Emerson’s Adam Boeckmann presented the Power and Water Cybersecurity Suite at the 2017 Ovation Users Group conference. He opened describing the team that formed over the last several years that now supports more than 200 sites in the U.S. alone. He shared the story of the recent Wannacry/WannaCrypt ransomware cyber-attack. In March of 2017, Microsoft released a patch. A month later, the National Security Agency (NSA…

  • Ovation Blog: Applying Threat Intelligence for Industrial Control System Defense

    Jim Cahill
    There are many paths to pursue in improving cyber defenses for industrial control systems (ICS). At the 2017 Ovation Users Group conference, Emerson’s Tom Kizer presented on applying threat intelligence for system defense. Tom opened by acknowledging that identifying effective threat intelligence is difficult. Threat intelligence is data collected, organized, analyzed and refined about potential or current attacks…

  • Ovation Blog: Microgrid Monitoring and Control

    Jim Cahill
    At the 2017 Ovation Users Group conference , Emerson’s Fred Huff presented on microgrid controls. Fred opened describing a microgrid as one that could stand alone or connect to the larger electrical grid. Components include distributed generation (DG), loads—critical and non-critical, energy storage systems (ESS), points of common coupling (PCC) and a microgrid controller. Fred focused on the control components of…

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