Yokogawa Electric

Feb. 10, 2005
New safety system from Yokogawa

Yokogawa Electric Corporation has launched ProSafe-RS, a new safety system that has been designed for integrated use with process automation (PA) applications. This safety system is used to constantly monitor the status of oil, natural gas, petrochemical, and other process applications.

The ProSafe-RS safety system can be integrated with Yokogawa's CENTUM series of process control systems, eliminating for the first time the need to build process control and safety systems separately. As a result, plant information can be managed centrally, and the integrated information contributes to greater operational efficiency and safety.

Product Features
1. Integration with the Process Control System
The process control and safety systems can share the same control network and human interface station, as well as data. The ProSafe-RS can be operated and monitored using the equipment of the process control system. As operators can perform safety monitoring in an operation and monitoring environment that they are already familiar with, overall plant safety is greatly improved. And as a further example of the benefits that the integration of these systems can bring, alarms reported by the process control system and by the safety system can be simultaneously displayed on a single screen for quick response.

2. Outstanding Safety in a Single Configuration
Even if the I/O boards are mounted in a single configuration, Safety Integrity Level (SIL) 3* is achieved because the ProSafe-RS uses the same ultra-reliable technology that was developed for the CENTUM series. To ensure even higher levels of system availability and fault tolerance, both the CPU and the boards on the ProSafe-RS can be configured for dual redundancy, and this option is now easier to implement because the boards are half the size of those used in previous controller versions.

* SIL 3: SIL indicates the range of risk reduction. The risk factor of a plant with SIL 3 safety measures is in the range 1/1,000 to 1/10,000.  The risk factor of a plant with SIL 1 safety measures is in the range of 1/10 to 1/100.