Industrial safety systems

An industrial safety system is a countermeasure crucial in any hazardous plants such as oil and gas plants and nuclear plants. They are used to protect human, industrial plant, and the environment in case of the process going beyond the allowed control margins.

As the name suggests, these systems are not intended for controlling the process itself but rather protection. Process control is performed by means of process control systems (PCS) and is interlocked by the safety systems so that immediate actions are taken should the process control systems fail.

Process control and safety systems are usually merged under one system, called Integrated Control and Safety System (ICSS). Industrial safety systems typically use dedicated systems that are SIL 2 certified at minimum; whereas control systems can start with SIL 1. SIL applies to both hardware and software requirements such as cards, processors redundancy and voting functions.

There are three main types of industrial safety systems in process industry:

These systems may also be redefined in terms of ESD/EDP levels as:

The safety shutdown system (SSS) shall shut down the facilities to a safe state in case of an emergency situation, thus protecting personnel, the environment and the asset. The safety shutdown system shall manage all inputs and outputs relative to emergency shutdown (ESD) functions (environment and personnel protection). This system might also be fed by signals from the main fire and gas system.

The main objectives of the fire and gas system are to protect personnel, environment, and plant (including equipment and structures). The FGS shall achieve these objectives by:

Due to closing ESD valves in a process, there may be some trapped flammable fluids, and these must be released in order to avoid any undesired consequences (such as pressure increase in vessels and piping). For this, emergency depressurization (EDP) systems are used in conjunction with the ESD systems to release (to a safe location and in a safe manner) such trapped fluids.

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