Editor’s note: Remember Y2K and how everyone was worried that the systems would go haywire when presented with a year that ended with “00”? Us too. It’s easy to see it as a joke now but there were some real concerns about it in the late 1990s - understandably! Luckily, everything went OK. We’re all about having your systems prepared for whatever may come, though, which is just what this city did. Read our original case study for an interesting throwback!

Y2K. We’re all aware of it, but do we really know what it could mean to our daily lives? According to Bob Bennett, Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Y2K, there doesn’t seem to be anyone who can fully answer that question.

“I can’t tell you, are we going to be all right?” said Bennett at a Y2K Task Force Public Forum. “I haven’t got any idea. I can make some guesses and they may be educated guesses, but until the whole system really goes through this there’s no way really to test it in advance. Everything is so interconnected. The power grid is going to work. Of course the power grid is going to work. That’s based on the assumption that the telephones will work. And the telephone system is going to work, and that’s based on the assumption that the power grid is up. And so on, all the way through."
 

John Hamre, Deputy Secretary of Defense, agrees.

“The Y2K problem is the electronic equivalent of El Niño, and there will be nasty surprises around the globe,” Hamre said.
 

Amazingly, it seems that industrial automation is more sensitive to incorrect dates than had been originally anticipated.

“At each one of our factories there are catastrophic problems,” said Ralph Szygenda, Chief Information Officer for General Motors, speaking with Fortune Magazine. “When we tested robotic devices for transition into the year 2000, for example, they just froze and stopped operating.”

The American Water Works Association released a survey. It found that many of our nation’s municipal water providers are not prepared for the year 2000. Another survey conducted by a national wastewater association found that only 35 percent of the survey’s respondents expected to complete Year 2000 repairs. During an American-Canadian meeting it was revealed that 10 percent of the large urban water suppliers in the U.S. will not be Y2K compliant when the millennium arrives.

We’ve all read the news concerning the computer glitch that happened during a Y2K test in Los Angeles. At the Hyperion Treatment Plant over 2,000 alarms were triggered in the first hour of the test. It took officials an hour and 15 minutes to realize that nearly 3 million gallons of raw sewage had spilled into a local park.

One northwest city has a different story to tell. Early last year they completed an analysis on the current pump station equipment relative to Y2K, and decided to replace their outdated system with a SCADA system connected to smart PLCs or RTUs.
 

The city’s senior software engineer in charge of embedded systems conducted a Y2K analysis on the pump station equipment and found problems in the software and hardware as well. He also reported that much of the field equipment was obsolete or unsupported.

Regulatory Requirements

 The city also needed to meet new regulatory requirements issued by the Department of Ecology. These regulations required that the current pump station network be able to quantify an overflow at any given permitted site. This was not possible with the older monitoring and data collection equipment in place at the time. When it was installed in the 1980s, data collection was expensive, forcing officials to limit data collection parameters to only minimal data necessary to perform the city’s current business and permit requirements..

Designing the New System

 The city decided that in order to meet both the regulatory requirements and avoid any potential for a Y2K incident, a new system was in order. Specifically, one that could provide more data from their field equipment and add intelligence to the remote sites to compute and log lift station flow rates and increase the accuracy of data during overflow events.

Systems Interface Inc. and Rockwell Automation® teamed up and designed just such a system.
 

“The customer preferred a nationally recognized, name-brand solution with local distribution and required Modbus® protocol,” said the municipal business manager for Systems Interface. “The solution had to be PLC-compatible and the customer preferred the Allen-Bradley® hardware, yet A-B couldn’t accommodate the need for Modbus.”

ProSoft Steps In 

“That’s where ProSoft Technology stepped in,” said Doug Sharratt, President and Lead Developer for ProSoft. “A large number of SCADA projects in the Oil and Gas and Water and Wastewater industries have been specified with the Modbus protocol. ProSoft’s processor, developed jointly by ProSoft Technology and Allen-Bradley, is aimed specifically at these opportunities. It is an Allen-Bradley SLC 5/03 processor that has been modified to include the Modbus Slave protocol.”

Once the Modbus protocol is activated, a Modbus host can read and write data from all the common Modbus data types. In addition, support has been provided for the transfer of Floating Point data. A host can also access the processor Status File S2 to remotely monitor the health of the unit or do such things as setting the real time clock.
 

“The city couldn’t compute station flow rates, including overflow events, with the past system,” said Systems Interface’s municipal business manager. “Now they can track the well level and integrate it over time to accurately compute and log well inflow, outflow, and how much overflow has occurred.”

More Control, More Information

The new telemetry system consists of a hot backup, redundant, dual processor headquarter master station talking to 72 RTUs at each of the city’s sewer pump stations. 

“ProSoft’s Modbus Communication Modules function independent of the PLC, sharing the task of communications and allowing the processor module to concentrate on control and data functions,” said a Systems Interface project manager.
 

The RTUs monitor the pump station activities and control the operation of the sewage removal equipment, which consists of either pumps or air compressors. The headquarter master polls each RTU via a modem connection, and staff at the headquarters monitor the status and alarms in order to track pertinent data and be able to respond to emergency situations. This is far different from the previous system, which couldn’t track or control any station flow rates. 
 

The new SCADA system, scheduled for completion in late October 1999, will change all of that.
 

Learn more about ProSoft Technology’s solutions for Rockwell Automation platforms here.

We tend to think about it only when disturbances occur, but wastewater treatment is a basic public service that affects all of us:

it is vital to keep our living environment hygienic and healthy and our watercourses clean. Behind the scene, the wastewater treatment process combines microbiology and chemistry with mechanical engineering, instrumentation, and automation techniques that offer high performance in a progressive way.
  
 Industrial wastewater treatment
 The central wastewater treatment plant of a Finnish company receives household and industrial wastewater from different communities and utilities. "Around 60 percent of the water treated here is industrial wastewater," said the plant’s operating chief. Treatment of sewage including animal waste is especially laborious. "Compared to industrial sewage, we consider household wastewater to be clean enough to be used as a drink," he jokes. The automation of the whole system has to be considered with care.
  
 

Part of the company’s work involves maintaining central wastewater treatment plant in a nearby city. This is where the automation system had to be renewed.

An accurately controlled process
 The process starts with the primary treatment, where the influent sewage water is strained to remove all large objects and the oxygen level of the water is increased to facilitate microbe activities (microbes clean the water by feeding on its impurities). During this biological treatment phase, the microbes in the wastewater are given suitable growing conditions in terms of temperature, oxygen level, and nutrition.

The next phase includes chemical secondary sedimentation, where aluminum-based chemicals are added to the water from the biological treatment to prompt flocculation of slowly-degrading organic and other materials. In the last phase, the remaining sludge is treated by removing water from it. The water separated from the sludge is taken back to the beginning of the treatment process, and the solid sludge is taken to the biogas plant.
High-tech automation system
The central wastewater treatment plant is fully automated. The automation system from 1992 reached the end of the road. Requirements for the technology selected to renew the wastewater treatment plant were:

• Ease of installation and maintenance
• Flexibility to adapt to fast-changing regulation
• Improvement of the overall solution
• Compliance with existing applications and methodologies

 
 The whole system was renewed in 2008 in collaboration with Schneider Electric®. “The old automation system had served its time. We have been using it every day for the past 16 years," the operating chief explained. The original automation system involved six controllers from the TSX7 series, with Monitor 77/2 software environment, and used MAPWAY communication protocol. In the new solution, six Modicon® Premium™ controllers are implemented with Monitor Pro v7.6 and are using Modbus® TCP/IP over wireless, using nine of ProSoft Technology's industrial radios. About 2000 process variables are transiting over the wireless network, which is also used for programming and maintenance purposes.
 

Why wireless? 
 A total of seven locations had to be integrated into one single tight network. The 6 Modicon Premium controllers are located in different buildings at the wastewater treatment plant, and the plant has two control rooms. "We put the second computer here in this higher building so that our feet never get wet," the operating chief said. The plant is situated in an area prone to flooding. Of course, the plant can continue to operate even if the computers are down.

From the user point of view, the first advantage of the wireless networking option was the cost and time savings for the installation: no need to dig tranches, and no need to clean up existing cable paths.

From the integrator’s point of view, the wireless network was "the easiest part of the implementation. We didn't have any problems. These radios are very easy to configure, and mounting recommendations given by ProSoft Technology were very clear. Schneider Electric made some tests in their office and then explained to us how to implement the wireless network on the field."

From Schneider Electric’s point of view, the engineering of the network was reduced to a minimum. "When we started the project, we did not locally have any specific RF expertise," explains the then-Application Sales and Key Account Manager, Wood and BioEnergy, at Schneider Electric Finland. "We talked to ProSoft Technology Technical Support Engineers and provided them with the basic engineering and layout of the network. They made some calculations that where necessary for this type of application and they provided us with the recommended lists of accessories for each radio location: cables, antenna, lightning protector, etc. They also provided all the necessary recommendations for mounting and implementation in the field. The wireless network implementation was an easy job for us and our integrator.”

Long term investments 
"The controls have been defined largely in the same way as in the old system," the plant’s operating chief explained. "Some of the old controls have remained the same, some have been added, and we have changed the commands a little bit." Since 1992, the plant has acquired a new sludge drying centrifuge and the treatment process has been modified by a new chemical treatment with aluminum. The automation system had to evolve accordingly.

"No controller can remain the same forever. There are always some additions and changes along the way. In this industry in particular, the regulations change quite a lot over the years as well," said the Schneider Electric sales manager, who took part in the plant’s original automation project in 1992.

The new setup is working well.

"We have not had any problems with the implementation of the new automation system. The graphics of the user interface have remained practically the same so we are familiar with the screens and don't need additional training," the plant’s operating chief said.

The reporting program in use is separate from the SCADA, but it reads data directly from the Modicon Premium controllers as well, via the same network.

In the future, the controllers can be easily modified or complemented when necessary with additional input or output modules. On the network side, the wireless option provides an additional degree of flexibility.

Learn more about ProSoft Technology’s Industrial Wireless Solutions here.

A water utility in Oregon needed to update the control equipment in its filter plant.

Some of the equipment was 25 years old and could only start a pump and give a run confirmation. The utility needed more information, including flow and pressure. It had legacy PLCs reporting through expensive phone lines. Industrial Systems was the contractor who sold the water district on installing Allen-Bradley® PLCs using a ProSoft Technology migration module to communicate with the older equipment via Modbus®.

Three Allen-Bradley® PLCs were installed with a ProSoft module in each for the remote site, the pump station, and the reservoir site. Modems were used to communicate to the master station. They are now able to get the data they needed.

Learn more about ProSoft Technology’s Migration Solutions here.

A major company known for engineering, building, and managing water treatment plants was faced with a new challenge.

At a French treatment facility designed by the company, an innovative method was implemented for a common wastewater treatment application involving sludge drying.

The sludge drying process is a residual element of the application that takes place once water has been cleaned and decanted.

 Radios and robots

In the solar sludge drying process developed by a subsidiary of the manufacturer, sludge is treated by a centrifuge and laid out in windrows in a greenhouse heated by solar radiation. An automated robotic turner is used to aerate the sludge and accelerate water evaporation. The robots are radio-controlled, which provides a more robust solution than the traditional wired approach. With wireless control of the robots, the entire operation is automated, and there is no further need for operators to enter the greenhouse.
  
The company decided to attach radios to the robots to enable information to be sent to and from the control station. This means the operator can control the robot remotely, program its movements, and know its current position. The robot has an onboard controller that interfaces with the radio.

“Implementation proved to be very simple, thanks in particular to ProSoft Technology’s technical support,” explained a representative of the system integrator. “As far as the choice of supplier was concerned, we stuck to the specifications given by RG2I, their local distributor. Our major concern was reliability. We had to have a reliable solution, with none of our users encountering any problems. This is indeed the case with ProSoft Technology´s wireless solution.”
  
So far, ProSoft Technology radios have been installed at half a dozen of the company´s sites.

A reliable transmission system

The wireless solution brought all of the advantages of wireless connection to industrial automation applications, while still offering high levels of reliability. In addition to its ability to withstand harsh operating conditions, it also improves the transmission of Ethernet data packets.

The standards set out in IEEE 802.11 (commonly known as “Wi-Fi”) bring an extremely high level of security, flexibility, and interoperability to industrial automation applications. Originally designed for office and home applications, these less-robust technologies have limitations when it comes to industrial protocol transfer, resulting in transmission problems for industrial automation systems associated with the radio transmission method used for Ethernet packets. But ProSoft’s wireless solutions ensure optimal transfer of data packets. To improve data packet transfer, the radios use a specific signal processing algorithm implemented by ProSoft Technology, which allows better use of the full bandwidth and supports the fast data transmission speeds demanded by industrial automation engineers. This is particularly vital for industrial applications (involving protocols such as EtherNet/IP™) with a need to transport non-critical messaging data but also critical industrial I/O data.
  
With its “Power over Ethernet” (PoE) specification, the power supply and connection of the radio system to the wired Ethernet is done via a single cable (instead of two), which greatly simplifies installation and reduces set-up times. Another valuable function of the wireless solution is that it supports serial encapsulation, which means that serial peripherals can be used and integrated into the main Ethernet architecture of the control system. The radio used in this application ensures high performance for both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz band configurations.
  
These wireless solutions are ideal for industrial applications: industrial grade enclosures, extended operating temperature ranges, compliance with shock and vibration resistance standards, certification for use on sites where there is a risk of explosion, fitting to DIN rails, and more. These factors were important to the system integrator in their decision to select a ProSoft wireless solution for their application.

To learn more about ProSoft Technology’s Wireless Solutions, click here.

 
With a pumping station that is 25 stories tall, the Changi Water Reclamation Plant, located on the diamond-shaped island of Singapore

, is the cornerstone of the Singapore Deep Water Sewage System. This system is responsible for purifying wastewater for consumption throughout the City/State of Singapore. The NEWater plant, which went online last summer, produces 50 million gallons of treated water daily. That’s the equivalent of 90 Olympic –sized swimming pools.
 
"The designers have incorporated a space saving design concept - things like stack treatment tanks and also stack treatment facilities like our sludge treatment facilities. All the treatment facilities are stacked on top of the other so as to save space," said Yong Wei Hin, assistant director of Changi Water Reclamation Plant.
Such a concept is the first in the world.
 
This monumental project needed low maintenance costs, real-time communication, with remote diagnostics and needed to be integrated with an already existing asset management system. Due to mandatory connectivity requirements, it was decided to use PROFIBUS DP V1 as the protocol for communication. This complicated matters since both Schneider Electric and Rockwell Automation PLCs were both used in the plant.
 
Schneider Electric contacted ProSoft Technology to allow the PLCs to communicate with PROFIBUS DP. With the PROFIBUS integration via 160 ProSoft Technology PROFIBUS DP V1 Quantum modules, the plant’s overall system architecture now provides high-speed communication as well as power to devices over the bus, making it possible to have very large networks.
 
The addition of the PROFIBUS DP V1 module to ProSoft’s ProTalk line of Quantum modules has helped Schneider Electric open a new avenue of communication possibilities.
 
"Schneider Electric is very strong in the process industry and wanted to bring valuable solutions with PROFIBUS and FDT/DTM technology," said Ken Roslan, Strategic Marketing Manager for ProSoft Technology. "We were able to help them expedite time-to-market and get the customer acceptance and final buy-in."
 
The Changi Water Reclamation Plant is equipped with 160 ProSoft PROFIBUS DP V1 Master modules allowing constant communication with end devices. The mega-water treatment project has a long list of field devices in a wide-ranging PROFIBUS network including Magnetic Flow Meters, Thermal Mass Flow Meters, Pressure and Differential Pressure Level Transmitters, Radar/Ultrasonic Transmitters, Dissolved Oxygen Analyzers, Temperature Transmitters and Electric Actuators.
 
The PROFIBUS DP slave devices mainly came from vendors like SIEMENS (ET200M I/O’s), Yokogawa (Flow transmitter & Differential Pressure sensor), Vega (Ultra Sonic sensors, Level sensors, etc), ABB (VSD), Schneider Electric (VSD & DOL starters) and Siemens (VSD).
With Intelligent Field Device Management (FDT/DTM), ProSoft Technology as a third party has helped Schneider Electric to integrate PROFIBUS device level to its PLC.
 
The PTQ-PDPMV1 functions as a PROFIBUS DPV1 Master. Developed upon Quantum backplane transfer technology the protocol module sends information back and forth through the Quantum processor. It collects all the necessary information on the configured PROFIBUS DP network. Built on Siemens ASIC ASPC2 Step E with Infineon C165 Microprocessor, the module’s Firmware is flash-upgradeable, and allows for slave messaging, extended diagnostics and alarm handling, and notification, and more.
 
The Changi Water Reclamation Plant has been operating successfully since June 2009.

Californians have always been faced with the problem of how best to conserve, control and move water. California has a wide diversity of climactic and geographical contrasts. The northern part of the state, with its alpine forests receives as much as 100 inches or more of rain per year, while the central and southern parts of the state range from arid desert to fertile farm land with some areas receiving less than 2 inches per year. Population centers have grown up in locations where there is not a sufficient water supply. The central valley, running from Sacramento to Bakersfield, contains some of the most fertile farm land in the world, most of which is dependent on irrigation. Because of this need to conserve, control and move water to areas of need, California developed the State Water Project, the largest state-built water development project in the United States

One water district is a small part of this statewide water project. Located in the southern portion of California’s fertile San Joaquin Valley, the district supplies irrigation water for over 45,000 acres of crops including grapes, citrus, almonds, and pistachios.

A while back, the district decided that the level of reliability was not acceptable in its current system. Parts were no longer available for their legacy system and buried wire was degrading with age. So, the district decided to upgrade its system to allow remote control of facilities and monitoring of power usage and quality, and to enhance the ability to perform load shifting for remote facilities.

“The water district needed a name-brand solution with local support,” said the operations manager for Prousys, Inc., the system integrator chosen to construct the new system. “We recommended Allen-Bradley® hardware.”
 

Allen-Bradley processors were installed to replace the aging Westinghouse PLCs at each of the five remote well sites. In order to monitor power usage and detect anomalies in the Multilin PQM Power Monitors, a ProSoft Technology Modbus Communication Module was installed in each processor.

“This is a perfect example of how ProSoft modules are used ever day to connect Allen-Bradley hardware with other networks,” said the ProSoft Regional Sales Manager who worked with the district. “We receive numerous requests on a daily basis for modules in the water/wastewater industry. Because our modules are designed to be used as ‘in-rack’ solutions for Allen-Bradley processors, it is a cost-effective way for plant managers to use their existing Allen-Bradley equipment with other network’s protocols.”
 

A SCADA Master Control system was also installed consisting of an Intellution Fix/DMACS HMI and an Allen-Bradley PLC with two ProSoft DF1 Communication Modules in order to poll five well sites, three pump stations, four reservoirs, and five check stations via a Data-Linc radio and modem.
 

Redundancy is a key factor in most water systems. Prousys installed and configured a second Intellution HMI to provide control redundancy. In the event of a failure in the primary controller, the system switches to the backup, ensuring seamless control in the plant.

“The system will keep right on running if the HMI goes down,” explained Prousys’ operations manager.

 The system’s pump stations are controlled according to the levels in the associated wells. The precise operation of the system depends on the accurate measurement of system levels and flows across the entire water system. Flow and level meters relay these measures back to the central control room for monitoring and control. Allen-Bradley PanelView™ terminals were installed at each of the three pump stations.
 

“The new system now gives the water district full control of all remote sites,” said Prousys’ operations manager. “The SCADA system can now track station flow rates, overflow events, well level, in-flow, and out-flow. They also have the capability to detect numerous system failures including power, high/low voltage, phase imbalance, high/low amperes, frequency, load factor, and low water level. Since the ProSoft modules communicate over the backplane with the Allen-Bradley processors, they were critical to the success of this project. ProSoft provided the ‘missing link’ in the communication chain, seamlessly allowing connectivity between these differing networks.”
  
 Learn more about ProSoft Technology’s solutions for Rockwell Automation® platforms here.

In an Illinois city, the water department’s 28 employees were scrambling to meet the needs of their consumers. The treatment division’s responsibilities included the operation and maintenance of fourteen wells, a lime softening treatment plant, three booster pumping stations, four elevated tanks, and one ground storage reservoir. The distribution division was charged with operating and maintaining 170 miles of water mains, reading and maintaining more than 13,000 services, and the installation and repair of water mains, valves and hydrants.

All of this activity was being accomplished with an outdated system containing RTUs that performed only minimal SCADA and licensed-frequency radios that sent data at a mere 300 bits per second. Overall, the system was complicated to understand, expensive to service and difficult to repair.

The water department turned to SCADAware, a local system integration firm, and expressed their desire for a new system, built from the ground up. In an effort to control costs, and allow the city to create, install, maintain, and repair its new system with minimal outside help, SCADAware’s president recommended a PC-driven, license-free, frequency hopping spread spectrum solution.

The water department’s new system now uses a primary and secondary server within its water treatment plant for HMI and PC-based control. The computers collect and monitor data from all of the city’s wells, tanks, and lift stations via a ProSoft Technology wireless serial network. Programmable Field Couplers allow water treatment personnel to make adjustments and activate controls. A SIXNET Ethernet-to-Serial is used to convert the incoming serial data to Ethernet, allowing the data to be accessed on the plant’s LAN.

“The monitoring of wells and tanks using the wireless network cut down on drive time and time away from the department,” said ProSoft’s Wireless Manager. “The sophisticated software alerts water department employees of problems, reducing response times.”

Although justifying upgrades of this nature can be very challenging for municipal departments, the team at the water department felt that this upgrade would have an immediate, positive economic impact on performance and efficiency. They were right.

“The easily administered SCADA system and the wireless network allowed the city to have the flexibility to upgrade and change their system as the need arises,” said a ProSoft Wireless Engineer. “Future expansion has now become more affordable for the water department. The present solution has also become much more efficient and less burdensome to maintain.”

For more information about ProSoft Technology’s Wireless Solutions, click here.

In a China city, 7 huge pumping stations went on line pumping wastewater to Pudong for final treatment before being discharged into the East China Sea. These pump stations are part of the 6th phase of the city’s wastewater treatment plan.

A SCADA system was installed as part of the new plan to control, collect, and monitor data from the 7 pump stations. The DNP protocol is used by the Master to communicate to all the stations, which include both Allen-Bradley® and General Electric equipment.

 Water management is a major issue in China. Sixty percent of China’s land mass and half of its population only receive 20 percent of the nation’s water resources. In addition to this uneven distribution, soil erosion, deforestation, land conversion, excessive water usage, drought and inefficient or non-existent wastewater management have caused China’s government to recognize the vital need to address these problems in order to maintain the nation’s development.

The Master station, using MITS’ MOSAIC data acquisition and control technology, communicates to both Allen-Bradley and General Electric hardware. Many water control systems are PC-based and require a high level of manual intervention, but the MITS system is highly automated. While monitoring the passage of water, automatic adjustments can be made to make the most efficient use of energy and pumping equipment and pinpoint problems in emergencies.

DNP Protocol Specified 
 Immediately following the installation of the central control system, Rockwell Automation® was contacted to bid on the installation of the SCADA system. In order to communicate with the end devices, the DNP protocol was specified.

Since both General Electric and Allen-Bradley equipment were used in the plant, a DNP interface was needed to allow them to communicate with all of the DNP compatible end devices. The local Rockwell Automation office touched base with the company’s Water Industry Solution Center in the United States and was advised to contact ProSoft Technology.

 “Since ProSoft’s DNP module has two communication ports. The end user was able to install a PLC-5® backup system as well as a redundant communication system,” said the ProSoft Regional Sales Manager who worked on the application.
 

Learn more about ProSoft Technology’s Water and Wastewater solutions here.

Mit den PROFIBUS-Modulen und dem Industrie-W-LAN von Prosoft Technology können kritische Daten über ControlLogix-Prozessoren an ein Hochwasserschutzsystem übermittelt werden.

Bei einem Upgrade der Systemsteuerung eines Hochwassersperrwerks kann man sich einen Systemausfall nicht erlauben. Sollte es bei einem Hochwassersperrwerk zu Funktionsstörungen kommen, hätte das gravierende Folgen für Tausende von Wohnungen und Unternehmen.

Die technische Modernisierung eines Hochwassersperrwerks ist eine Aufgabe, die nicht über Nacht erledigt werden kann, sondern viele Monate in Anspruch nimmt. Da das Sperrwerk auch während des Upgrades stets voll funktionsfähig sein muss, sollte diese Aufgabe im Vorfeld gut durchdacht und jeder Schritt wohlüberlegt sein. Es müssen verschiedene Fehlerkontrollsysteme und Redundanzen vorhanden sein. Wer behauptet, Redundanzen seien überflüssig, hat sich noch nie mit einem Hochwassersperrwerk beschäftigt.

Die Mündung des Dartford Creek wird von zwei 20 Meter hohen Betontürmen eingefasst, dem Dartford Hochwassersperrwerk der britischen Umweltbehörde in Kent, England. Bei Bedarf wird das Dartford Sperrwerk zusammen mit dem größeren Themse-Sperrwerk flussaufwärts geschlossen. So wird verhindert, dass bei hohen Pegelständen in der Themse-Mündung Wasser in den Fluss Creek zurückfließt und Dartford und Umgebung überschwemmt.

Hoch oben zwischen den beiden Betontürmen sind zwei Stahltore befestigt, die jeweils 30m breit sind und über 160 Tonnen wiegen. Wie eine riesige Guillotine kann ein Tor an seinen Halteketten langsam auf das Flussbett abgesenkt werden, um das hineinströmende Wasser zurückzuhalten. Bei Bedarf kann das zweite Tor langsam auf das erste Tor heruntergelassen werden. So können die beiden 160 Tonnen schweren Stahltore zusammen einem Pegelstand von bis zu 10,4 Metern standhalten. Die Tore werden durch direkt angetriebene Ölhydraulikmotoren angehoben und abgesenkt. Das Antriebssystem besteht aus zwei 18,5 kW Pumpen-und Motoreinheiten für den Arbeits- und den Standby-Betrieb. So kann jedes Tor in 15 Minuten angehoben oder abgesenkt werden. Werden die Tore nicht gebraucht, werden sie in der höchsten Position mit hydraulischen Verriegelungsmechanismen arretiert. Somit stellen die Tore kein Hindernis für den Schiffsverkehr auf dem Creek dar. Man geht davon aus, dass das Hochwassersperrwerk bedingt durch den Klimawandel in den nächsten 25 Jahren im Schnitt 50 Mal pro Jahr zum Einsatz kommen wird.

"Auf das Hochwassersperrwerk mitsamt seinen redundanten Sicherungssystemen muss man sich immer voll verlassen können“, sagte Andrew Garwood, Senior Contracts Manager im Bereich Steuerung bei Qualter Hall & Co Limited, Barnsley. Erst in jüngster Zeit hat sich gezeigt, dass das Hochwassersperrwerk allmählich in die Jahre kommt. Im Zuge einer umfassenden technischen Modernisierung wurde die gesamte Systemsteuerung des Sperrwerks überholt. Die ursprüngliche Systemsteuerung war ein vollständig verdrahtetes, Relais-basiertes System, das bereits über 30 Jahre alt war. Ersatzteile waren kaum noch zu bekommen.

Qualter Hall führte die von M&E vergebenen Arbeiten im Auftrag des Generalunternehmers Birse Civils durch. Das Unternehmen, das damit nicht nur die Funktion eines Systemintegrators übernahm, sondern auch die entsprechenden Maschinenbau- und Elektrotechnikleistungen erbrachte, war auch für die Modernisierung der Systemsteuerung verantwortlich. Die Ziele waren klar: Oberste Priorität hatten Sicherheit und Zuverlässigkeit. Denn falls es je zu einem Hochwasser kommt, kann dieses in der gesamten Umgebung erhebliche Schäden anrichten.

Qualter Hall, der als Systemintegrator eine Vielzahl von technischen Lösungen im Programm hat, entschied sich, ProSoft Technology zu kontaktieren, da dieses Unternehmen, unterstützt durch Rockwell Automation, eine zuverlässige, kostengünstige Lösung anzubieten hatte. ProSoft Technology ist ein von Rockwell Automation zertifizierter Partner.

In jedem der 20m-Türme befinden sich zwei separate ControlLogix-Prozessoren von Rockwell Automation für den redundanten Betrieb. Mit diesen wird das Öffnen und Schließen des Sperrwerks gesteuert. Viele der eingesetzten Bauteile standen mit der Systemsteuerung über PROFIBUS-oder Siemens-Schnittstellen in Verbindung. Zwei PROFIBUS-Master-Kommunikationsmodule (MVI56 und PDPMV1) von ProSoft Technology wurden in den ControlLogix-Systemen installiert. So wird die Kommunikation der Prozessoren von Rockwell Automation unterstützt.

"Die ProSoft Technology Module wurden eingesetzt, um PROFIBUS DP in die ControlLogix-Einheiten zu integrieren. Nun gibt es vier separate PROFIBUS DP-Segmente für den redundanten Betrieb", sagte Andrew Garwood. Im Zuge der Systemüberholung wurden zwischen den beiden Türmen Glasfaserkabel installiert. Bei der Installation lief die Kommunikation über das 802.11 Industrie Hotspot W-LAN von ProSoft Technology.

Kontakt:

Telefon: +49.171.7100728
germany@prosoft-technology.com

Imagine pulling up to the golf course parking lot, taking your clubs out of the car and noticing the course itself looked like a barren desert.  Doesn't sound too appealing, does it? 

Lush green grass, bermuda or otherwise, and surrounding vegetation such as trees and bushes, go hand in hand with golf. The only desert-looking formations one would normally see at a golf course, and try to keep out of, are those pesky sand bunkers. 

The foliage of the world's prestigious golf courses doesn’t grow by itself. Golf courses where world-renowned golfers have won championships, and those where you try to improve your handicap, need an efficient, economical irrigation system. Too little water and the course will start looking like that barren desert. Too much water and the fairway's bermuda grass could start becoming like the rough. 

Tending to a golf course cannot be done in autopilot, but the water irrigation system, with a proper PLC, can ease the burden. 

PKM Solutions Ltd installed a Rockwell Automation® Micro850 for Woburn Golf Club's water irrigation system in Thetford, U.K., but that alone wouldn't do the job. Woburn consists of three courses, each of which has 18 holes. 

They needed a texting module to start and stop the system remotely. They also needed remote notifications sent to their cell phone.   

PKM Solutions chose ProSoft Technology's ILX800-SMS Texting Module. The module gave the PLC bi-directional text messaging capabilities. In fact, it was the “only PLC system that would text to each other to start and stop the other PLC.”

The golf course has three sites that work in conjunction with each other. There is a water reservoir and two filling tanks. “When one of the filling tanks is low, it sends a text message to the reservoir to fill, then a text notification to stop,” said Paul Mold, PKM Solutions Director.   

The alternative would have been to run cable from the reservoir to each filling tank, which would have resulted in downtime - and golfers don't like downtime at their favorite course. 

Mold said Woburn Golf Club is very pleased. "This option has saved them the expense of running long lengths of cable across their course, which would mean downtime and a lot of expense." 

To learn more about ProSoft Technology’s Wireless Solutions, click  here. 

By Lauren Robeson

Four water treatment plants sit in the Milan area, part of northern Italy. Novus s.r.l., a company that specializes in water treatment technology and a service center for a Canadian UV system manufacturer, needed to oversee the control of the plants’ water treatment sensors…from the manufacturer’s headquarters, where system specialists are constantly present and ready to support customers worldwide. 

The manufacturer is a leader in the UV water treatment systems market that wants to provide its customers with top-notch technical support. The company knew that constant monitoring of its plants would allow it to obtain savings in terms of energy consumption, because it would allow Novus’ specialists to check the running parameters and adjust the system settings in the plants in real time.

Novus wanted to explore options to let it have a centralized monitoring system to support its customers on daily operations and troubleshooting. This would also help them reduce travel expenses.

E.S.A Engineering, a system integrator in Italy, proposed using ProSoft Technology’s ICX35 Industrial Cellular Gateway, which would communicate with a FactoryTalk® View SE SCADA system. In addition to allowing the company to monitor the plants at all times, the gateway supported 4G LTE with fallback to 3G, enabling high-speed data rates, clear communications, and longevity for the application.

With the gateway, Novus specialists would be able to analyze in real time the running parameters from each system under the real water conditions, and suggest the right settings to customer operators and maintenance technicians. This would help them decrease power usage while maintaining disinfection requirements.

E.S.A Engineering Technical and Sales Engineer Salvatore Perrucci had prior knowledge of ProSoft solutions’ quality and technical support.

“In more than 15 years, ProSoft products have always met our expectations, and they are very easy to use because of the good-quality manuals,” Mr. Perrucci said.

Beyond the benefits brought by 4G communications, Novus appreciated streamlined communications between the SCADA system and the plants’ controllers thanks to the gateway’s Ethernet Layer 2 connections. The company also enjoyed real-time control for diagnostics, in addition to optimized maintenance.

(While Novus opted to use a VPN private server for its application, the Industrial Cellular Gateway can also be used for secure remote access via ProSoft Connect, a cloud-native platform.)

With this new setup, Novus is able to propose to its customers remote supervision of the system and reply exactly to the HMI in the field in order to share data with customer maintenance technicians in real time.

And at the end of the installation an extra perk was discovered: The server, through the modem connected to the PLC, allows the specialist in Canada to work on the PLC like it was on his desk.

Learn more about ProSoft Technology’s Industrial Cellular Gateway by clicking here.