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from the Instrumantation and control department... Difference between safety plc and normal plc?

Posted by Pratyaksh Patel

on 1 November, 2010 - 10:25 am

What is the difference between the safety plc and conventional plc? and what are the similarities? can conventional plc use as a safety plc? patel.pratyaksh [at] gmail.com Reply to this post...

Posted by M Griffin

on 2 November, 2010 - 1:51 am

>What is the difference between the safety plc and conventional plc? A safety PLC is designed such that a failure will (probably) not cause an unsafe condition. >and what are the similarities? They can both control things, although the conventional PLC will probably offer more features, cost less, be more readily available, etc. >can conventional plc use as a safety plc? No, that is why we have safety PLCs. However, most PLC applications do not require safety PLCs as safety is provided by other means. Reply to this post...

Posted by Phil Corso

on 2 November, 2010 - 9:22 pm

Pratyaksh... >>What is the difference between the >safety plc and conventional plc?<< And lot's of money! Regards, Phil Corso Reply to this post...

Posted by Ultima Weapon

on 3 November, 2010 - 2:58 pm

isn't all installed PLC are equipped with many hardwares add ons to reduce all unsafe condition if "failures"occurs, isn't safety plc's are more focusing to be used at extremely hazardous area by minimizing the occurrence of explosion by the "accidental" sparks and shorts circuits? please enlighten me. I have just meet Yokogawa salesman last month and asking the same question. Reply to this post...

Posted by M Griffin

on 3 November, 2010 - 8:01 pm

In reply to "Ultima Weapon": Safety PLCs refer to PLCs which have features such as redundant processors, I/O, and communications so that a hardware or software failure will (probably) not knock out the entire control system. They are intended for applications where a loss of control leads to an unsafe condition rather than just a loss of production. As for operation in an explosive atmosphere, that is another set of considerations altogether. A safety PLC may not be rated for this type of application. Reply to this post...

Posted by Ultima Weapon

on 4 November, 2010 - 9:46 am

>In reply to "Mr. M Griffin" if then as your explain to me that these Hardwares "backups" are the one that give the difference between "normal"PLC and safety PLC, then why the "normal PLC that also added the same features as you mentioned before, are not considered as one of those safety PLC's? I have seen some System Integrator do these kind operation long ago and yes they were mean to minimalize the unsafe condition that occurs when system are fault, and I mean unsafe condition that not include with accident or such as, per details I don't know for sure, I'm still trying to contact the person In charge of the project, I haven't contact him for a year. And back to my question, if a "normal"PLC are as Installed as I mentioned above, can it considered as safety plc? although it's not what it is, because it was added and re-configured such a way, so it have the ability for act as safety PLC. or as information that "Demigrog"are given, it's need another vital aspect, Auditing and the most expensive,certified? Thank you. Reply to this post...

Posted by M Griffin

on 5 November, 2010 - 3:53 am

I said that a safety PLC will usually use redundancy while a regular PLC will usually not. However, redundancy is not by itself sufficient to make something a safety PLC. Some conventional PLCs will use redundancy (in some configurations it's called "hot backup") to improve reliability. To look at it another way, some conventional PLCs may use certain features such as redundancy to make make it less likely that your plant will shut down if something goes wrong. Safety PLCs on the other hand will be designed to make it more likely that your plant *will* shut down (safely) if something goes wrong. If you are baking biscuits you are mainly worried about whether your day's production of biscuits will be ruined if something goes wrong. If you are making chemicals you are probably more worried about whether you will wipe out Bhopal if something goes wrong. Auditing and certification doesn't by itself make something a safety PLC. What these can do is prove that it *is* a safety PLC. Where I live we must by law provide a report from a qualified engineer (and not just any engineer) that a piece of equipment meets all the applicable safety requirements (including laws, regulations, and industry standards) before we are permitted to place it into operation. If the design of the system is such that the PLC must be operating correctly in order for the equipment to detect a problem and shut down safely, then that engineer is going to want to see some appropriate paperwork that says that another qualified person has studied the design of the PLC and said that it is capable of doing so. *However*, just sticking a safety PLC into a machine doesn't by itself make everything safe. The entire system design must be taken into account, and the PLC is just one component in the system. For the type of equipment that I have been involved in, safety PLCs are rarely used. Typically, the control system safety is provided by safety relays and other similar devices which operate outside of and independently of the PLC. In those applications the safety relays (and light curtains, etc.) will over-ride the operation of the PLC so a failure of the PLC will have no effect on the safety of the equipment. This is a very common situation, which is why most PLCs are not safety PLCs. This is very convenient from the point of view of the equipment owner as this tends to be cheaper overall and much more flexible. However, not all production processes lend themselves to this sort of simple design which is why safety PLCs exist. I won't try to cover the design details of how a safety PLC works internally, because there is probably more than one way to do things. However, if you look at how safety relays, emergency stop circuits, light curtains, and other such safety circuits work you will get a good idea of what the design issues are. Reply to this post...

Posted by Ultima Weapon

on 5 November, 2010 - 10:01 am

In reply to "Mr. M Griffin" Thank you very much, I finally see where it is going, now I can do more deep discussion with the yokogawa person. Reply to this post...

Posted by Demigrog on 3 November, 2010 - 11:28 am The biggest difference is that safety certified devices have been... safety certified. Often it is the exact same hardware or software platform as a non-safety device from the same manufacturer, but a much higher level of scrutiny has been placed on the software, hardware, and system designs to ensure that there are no surprises in the operation of the device. For example, Source code is audited and checked for industry standard practices for reliable coding. That audit process is horribly time consuming and expensive, so vendors don't want to do more of it than necessary. That often means they cut features from the product to reduce the amount of code that needs to be audited and reduce the chance that the code has to be re-audited after a patch release, etc. I should also point out that using safety certified devices does not make a control system safety certified; the entire system has to be audited and certified as a whole. Reply to this post...

Posted by kalan on 5 November, 2010 - 12:56 am Just to add on: > The biggest difference is that safety certified devices have been... safety certified. < e.g. certified by TUV, which conduct the verification based on certain standard, such as IEC61508 & IEC61511. Scan time (less than 150ms for Safety PLC) and internal diagnostic capability also are among the main difference between the safety & normal PLC. Perhaps the next question is what plc should be used for a particular site? It depends to the specific site application. One approach is to conduct Instrumented Protective Function (IPF) exercise (also based on certain IEC standard, may be known as other exercise at other location) to determine Safety Integrity Level (SIL) of all the instrument loops at that

particular site. With that information available, then necessary decision could be made as to what kind of PLC should be used. Certified SIL3 Safety PLC shall be used when there are SIL3 loops at that site. Otherwise, if there are no instrument loop performing safety function, then normal PLC should be sufficient to be used (e.g. Demin Water Plant). Hope that make sense. Reply to this post... Your use of this site is subject to the terms and conditions set forth under Legal Notices and the Privacy Policy. Please read those terms and conditions carefully. Subject to the rights expressly reserved to others under Legal Notices, the content of this site and the compilation thereof is 1999-2012 Nerds in Control, LLC. All rights reserved. Users of this site are benefiting from open source technologies, including PHP, MySQL and Apache. Be happy.

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