With recent technology advances, intrinsic safety now offers the safest, most cost effective and easiest way to deploy solutions that safeguard your process operations.
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In every industry I can think of, exploding equipment is most certainly a bad thing. In process industry settings, however, the risk of explosions is very real. And the stakes'from impacts on revenue and the environment to loss of life'are far too great to ignore.
Engineers designing electrical equipment and processes for use in hazardous areas are offered a multitude of different methods for explosion protection. These range from exclusion methods, such oil immersion or purge and pressurization, to containment in the use of explosion-proof or flame-proof enclosures, as well as energy limiting technologies, such as non-incendive, increased safety or intrinsic safety. These principles and techniques have some inherent advantages and disadvantages. There are also some ideal applications, for example, protecting an entire control room using pressurization.
In the correct situation, however, intrinsic safety stands out as the safest, least expensive and easiest to deploy. Let's examine why.
First, intrinsic safety is the only method of explosion protection approved for Zone 0. This is the most hazardous area recognized by ATEX, IECEx and NEC (article 505) and is considered hazardous 'continuously.' The reason for this is that intrinsic safety is required to withstand two electrical faults and remain safe. It must also be immune to some of the issues arising from mechanical explosion-proof installations, such as improperly sealed conduits and damaged or improperly secured enclosures. In additional to superior safety from explosions, intrinsic safety is also inherently safer for personnel as its energy limiting principle typically only allows for up to 30 V or 100 mA to the hazardous area.
Intrinsic safety technology, such as the ELX EtherCAT Terminal series from Beckhoff, offers benefits in safety, cost and ease of implementation.
In many cases, non-hazardous rated equipment can be used in an intrinsically safe circuit if it meets certain criteria. These devices are considered 'simple apparatuses,' which means they are not capable of generating more than 1.5V, 100mA or 1.5 W or they dissipate more than 2.5 W. These devices include thermocouples, switches, RTDs and LEDs and are typically much less expensive and more readily available than hazardous area approved devices.
Another area in which intrinsic safety is less costly than other forms of explosion protection is the ongoing maintenance of the process or machine. Since they use energy limitation as an explosion protection concept, the devices in the hazardous area can be worked on without removing power. Additionally, maintenance time and effort can be significantly reduced because no gas clearance is required, and additional time is no longer needed to access electronics inside explosion-proof enclosures.
One of the biggest deployment advantages to intrinsic safety is the ability to use mostly safe area wiring practices. Of course, there are some wiring rules to follow, i.e., intrinsically safe and non-intrinsically safe wiring must be separated by 50 mm, and intrinsically safe wiring must be identified by a label or light blue cable jacket. However, all other aspects of wiring'when to use cable tray, types of glands, etc.'are similar to safe area wiring practices. This is in comparison to the multitude of rules regarding explosion-proof wiring installations, such as how and where conduit must be sealed as well as the type of cables and fittings required by the electrical codes. Intrinsic safety is also much easier to deploy than purge or pressurization systems as there is no need for a supply of inert gas to pressurize the enclosure nor the tubing and fittings associated with this gas supply.
The ELX series offers a range of intrinsically safe 'blue terminals' for hazardous environments, enabling communication from Zone 0 up to the cloud.
Exciting technological advancements in intrinsic safety technology are making these deployments even simpler. An example is the integrated intrinsic safety in new EtherCAT I/O terminals. These components combine explosion protection with a standard, DIN-rail-mounted I/O terminal. Other vendors offer some sort of integrated approach to explosion protection, but many result in different form factors than their non-ex counterparts and they cannot be integrated directly into the same I/O node with non-ex terminals.
The integrated approach provides many other benefits. For starters, it eliminates the need for a third-party intrinsic safety barrier. This not only greatly reduces the size of the enclosure that houses the control system, but it also cuts the number of time-consuming wiring terminations in half. This also eliminates the need to add another vendor to the bill of materials. Another noteworthy benefit of these integrated technologies is that engineers can take advantages of all the benefits of EtherCAT technology, including:
In terms of safety, cost and ease of deployment, the benefits of intrinsic safety are clear, and I/O technology advances series make this even more obvious. Engineers should evaluate whether this method fits their application and implement it as appropriate. It's also important to work with technology partners that take the risks just as seriously as you do and provide solutions to help keep your team, company and equipment safe.
Jesse Hill is process industry manager at Beckhoff Automation.
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SubscribeWhen thinking about heavy equipment, we often think of large construction sites or sprawling farms. Municipalities, however, are another often unseen source of heavy equipment labor. When roads need salting or a pipeline is being built, municipalities are the ones placing orders and hiring crews. Increasingly, as the world moves towards a greener future, municipalities and their residents are thinking about the negative effects their daily activities can have on the environment. We've already seen unprecedented support for the adoption of electric busses and trucks. Furthermore, mayors and town councils are pushing the adoption of clean technologies at an increasing rate ' their residents want it, their state and federal governments want it, and their budgets, stretched in part by the fluctuations in diesel pricing, practically demand it.
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From laying new pipe to moving mulch, property management requires a variety of tasks that utilize heavy equipment. With diesel being the old standard, municipalities haven't had many opportunities to reduce their emissions and go green with their equipment fleets. HEVI equipment is the perfect solution for helping your town meet new environmental goals while providing an improved experience for both operators and the local community.
Electric equipment benefits local governments on so many fronts, from appeasing citizens to cutting costs. Let's dive into some of the ways HEVI can help you bring your town into the new frontier of electrification.
Let's begin with safety. Any town that stores large quantities of diesel fuel at their municipal facilities faces a slew of risks, both to your budget and the safety of your employees and residents. For one, diesel fuel is expensive to properly store, as any on-site tank must be specially designed to meet environmental regulations. Any spills or mishaps that might occur are a huge liability ' especially as diesel's highly flammable nature makes it a fire or explosion risk.
Beyond the material risks to people at your facilities, your budget will suffer as well. On top of the various expenses relating to permitting and securing the fuel, fuel theft accounts for a significant percentage of the overall costs of managing a diesel supply, and requires expensive telemetric systems to monitor and control. If you're operating a fuel depot for various tasks across multiple sites, the need to plan downtime for refueling and sorting your fleet becomes a big drain on resources.
Electric equipment, on the other hand, can eliminate these hurdles.
Health and safety are the first and most obvious of all the electric equipment benefits for municipalities. With zero operating emissions, HEVI's loaders, excavators, and forklifts not only reduce your impact on the environment, but also remove harmful diesel particulate matter (DPM) from the air. Whether you're working indoors or out, the absence of emissions will improve health outcomes for your operators as well as the residents around your sites.
Noise is also a critical benefit of switching to electric equipment. Particularly for the work municipalities require, which can often take place right in the middle of busy communities, HEVI equipment's low noise levels are a huge quality of life increase. A diesel engine is literally harnessing explosions to do its work ' which means residents will be suffering from all that noise as you work to improve their community spaces. Give your residents some peace by swapping to electric equipment that's so quiet, you can have a conversation right next to it as it runs.
The noise and emissions benefits are clear victories for your town, without even addressing the logistical hurdles it can help you overcome. Without diesel tanks and refueling stations, your municipality can avoid the costs associated with maintaining a fuel supply. From fuel storage to refilling tanks, many old processes and systems will become defunct ' and you can funnel those resources into maximizing the output of your electric equipment while still saving money. Investing in DCFC charging infrastructure in available commercial and industrial zones, you can create not only an easy-to-manage refueling process for your vehicles, but also a useful network to help facilitate the electrification of other vehicles, like trucks and busses. This network will also help the public at large, as their new EVs will be able to charge at work or while shopping.
If the DCFC charger installation process is too much, HEVI provides multiple charging solutions to enable you to realize all of the aforementioned electric equipment benefits with ease. The smallest and most flexible of these options, HEVI's DCH220-10 can be used with common 220V outlet, the same outlet that electric dryers use. With this flexibility, almost any site, whether residential or commercial, can become a charging station for your equipment. Our other non-stationary charger is the DCH480-30. This option enables you to reduce your charge time by running electricity through a 480V line. Although 480V outlets often require specific permits and installation, the DCH480-30 reduces overhead compared to diesel tank installation. For any municipal operation that sees its electric equipment at a single site for long durations, the DCH480-30 can enable continuous uptime with simple overnight charging.
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