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Electricity
+
Control
AUGUST 2017
STANDBY + BACK-UP
New opportunities for gas operations
Nampak Glass
has commissioned a 1 km-long high pres-
sure underground pipeline, which feeds from the existing
Sasol Gas transmission network and ties into the newly
constructed Nampak Pressure Reduction Station (PRS) in
Germiston.
Implemented for strategic business decisions, the high
pressure underground pipeline construction includes a
pressure reducing and metering station with two parallel
lines; one in service and the other on standby. Each of the
lines boasts a filter separator to clean the gas, an electric
heater to heat the gas prior to the Joule Thompson effect
when the pressure is reduced, a flow meter to measure
gas flow, a regulator and slam-shut valves for pressure
reduction and control, and to protect the downstream
equipment. The project encompasses all necessary civil,
mechanical, electrical and instrumentation work.
According to Morkel du Preez, Saiyl Project Engineer,
“This high pressure pipeline and metering station is one of
the few in South Africa that is not owned by Sasol. Ener-
gasTechnologies was commissioned to supply the electric
heaters, filter separators, flow meters, insulation joints,
isolation valves, control and slam-shut valves as well as
relief valves.”
The construction of the high pressure underground
pipeline was overseen by project management team, Sai-
yl, and commenced in April 2016 with basic engineering.
Enquiries: Laetitia Botha.Tel. +27 (0) 11 397 6809 or
round up
productive, as well as being empowered to explore manufactur-
ing innovations by leveraging the latest innovations such as Big
Data, Natural User Interface (NUI), and Internet of Things (IoT),
all without compromising proven PLC reliability and robustness.
The challenge was to use Sysmac machine control in con-
junction with an existing operating system like Windows. This
can normally be done by means of full visualisation, but influ-
ences machine control negatively, which means it was not a
viable option at the end of the day. Instead careful positioning
has been deployed to allow both operating systems to work
independently of each other.
Integrated platform:
The Sysmac integrated platform
means continuous operation, productivity, efficiency, and safe-
ty. Vertical integration delivers production data from the manu-
facturing process directly to the IT systems. Data management
enables machine data to be recorded, stored, and analysed in
order to improve productivi-
ty even further. Furthermore,
the installation of production
modules and safety devices
is simplified due to EtherCAT
connectivity.
Development
environ-
ment:
The familiar VB and C#
language enables easy reuse
of application assets. This also
translates into a low switching
cost, and an excellent integrat-
ed development environment,
including debugging and monitoring functions to boost devel-
opment efficiency. Superior execution performance means im-
proved operational efficiency, even in the event of limited hard-
ware resources.
Control and flexibility:
It comes equipped with Windows
RTOS that, combined with a powerful control capability, pro-
vides for maximum flexibility. It is not only motion control that is
the main beneficiary, as it also enables the creation of high-res-
olution graphics and customised applications for high-end pro-
duction requirements. The system can perform predictable
motion control, while running data-handling applications at the
same time. Uniquely, it will continue with motion control tasks
even if the operating system stops working.
This IPC has been
designed to meet
the requirements
of industrial end
users for maximum
robustness and
reliability.