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Urenco
has recently completed the first phase of its new
Uranium enrichment plant at Capenhurst near Chester, England. The new
plant provides fuel grade uranium hexafluoride for power stations
across the world, including the USA, a number of European countries
and Japan. Urenco’s ability to increase its world wide market share in
an increasingly competitive business area relies upon its unique
process technology.
Aston Dane plc was
awarded the contract for the development and supply of the plant
control systems against major international competition. A key
requirement needed the system to provide continuous control of the
process 24 hours/day, 365 days/year. The plant is designed to run
continuously for up to 20 years with no planned downtime and the
control system availability had to be consistent with this aim.
A further requirement the
successful system supplier had to satisfy was the provision of a total
automation package which included, amongst other things, long-term
support; important to maintaining reliable and safe service of the
plant.
The new control system
represented a major advancement for Urenco in the technology used for
control and monitoring of the plant. Careful consideration of training
and support issues was necessary during the development period to
ensure smooth transition to a fully operational condition.
Project Scope
Aston Dane worked with Urenco to help define its control system
requirements, investigating various systems and configurations before
recommending the solution adopted.
The system is a fully distributed arrangement employing Rockwell
Automation PLC5’s and RSView SCADA HMI. The 30 PLC’s and 14
workstations are connected via a fibre-optic Ethernet network with
in-built redundancy and are structured to provide the minimum number
of critical points of failure. Additionally, 18 local operator
interfaces, in the form of Allen- radley Panel View 900 units, are
provided at key locations on the plant to enable effective operation.
Interfaces to specialist weighing systems and other third party
products complete the system.
Emulation Software
A further feature of the Allen-Bradley range of programmable
control equipment put forward by Aston Dane was the capability of
Rockwell Software’s Emulate5 package to emulate multiple PLC’s within
a single desktop PC. This capability was used to provide a compact
Training System emulating complete sections of the plant and capable
of running a variety of process scenarios. The availability of the
Training System also had a considerable impact on the time and effort
needed for development and final testing. |
