Application news: Ammonia plant to use triple-redundant control system for compressors

By Control Engineering Staff October 4, 2006

The new ammonia plant under construction by Egypt Basic Industries Corp. (EBIC) will implement triple modular redundant (TMR) systems for its integrated turbine compressor control and emergency shutdown systems. Located in Ain Sokhna, part of Egypt’s Suez Industrial Zone, the new plant is planned to produce 2,000 metric tons per day of anhydrous ammonia, making it the largest in the country. Invensys Process Systems is providing five control systems featuring Tricon TMR architecture.

Three Triconex TS3000 TMR systems will be deployed for air compressor, feed gas compressor, SynGas compressor, and ammonia refrigeration compressor controls. Their control functions include governor, surge control, equipment protection, and vibration monitoring, along with ancillary equipment and supports such as lubrication systems. Bently Nevada will provide the vibration monitoring equipment. Emergency shutdown functions will be controlled by two Tricon TMR systems. These will protect the main plant, as well as loading and storage facilities at the nearby Sokhna Port.

The five systems combined will connect with more than 1,100 I/O points around the complex. Using one platform for the entire system simplifies engineering and reduces spare parts requirements, while minimizing operator and maintenance training. The HMIs use Wonderware’s InTouch software for its reported flexibility and user-friendly process visualization. Invensys expects the entire system to provide support for future plant changes or expansions.

TMR technology claims exceptionally high fault tolerance with the ability to reduce nuisance trip rates to less than one in 500 years. This provides high reliability for critical rotating equipment installations in a variety of applications, including gas and steam turbines, compressors, and generators. Triple redundancy requires “two-out-of-three voting” to provide high-integrity, error free, process operation.

Kellogg Brown & Root designed and is building the plant, and will operate it when it comes on line in March, 2008. Invensys will provide application programming, testing, training, and site support during plant commissioning. Egypt Basic Industries Corp. exports ammonia primarily for fertilizer feedstock.

— Daily News Desk, Peter Welander ,process industries editor , Control Engineering