04-05-2017, 12:54 PM
An industrial safety system is a crucial countermeasure in any hazardous plant like oil and gas plants and nuclear plants. They are used to protect human, industrial and environmental plants in case the process goes beyond the allowed control margins.
As its name suggests, these systems are not intended to control the process itself, but rather protection. Process control is performed by means of process control systems (PCS) and is interconnected by security systems so that immediate action is taken in case of failure of process control systems.
Process and safety control systems are usually combined under a single system called the Integrated Control and Security System (ICSS). Industrial safety systems typically use dedicated systems that are certified by SIL 2 as a minimum; While control systems can begin with SIL 1. SIL applies to hardware and software requirements such as cards, processor redundancy and voting functions.
Types
There are three main types of industrial safety systems in the process industry:
• Process safety system or process shutdown system (PSS).
• Safety Shutdown System (SSS): This includes Emergency Shutdown (ESD) and Emergency Depressurization (EDP) systems.