International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET) e-ISSN: 2395-0056

Volume: 07 Issue: 06 | June 2020 www.irjet.net p-ISSN: 2395-0072

AUTOMATION AND SUPPLY OF DISTRIBUTED CONTROL SYSTEMS FOR

CRUDE OIL FIELD INDUSTRIES
Suparna Guruprakash1, Sree Rajendra2, Priyanjali Singh3
1Final Year Student, PG-IAR, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Malnad college of Engineering, Hassan.
2Associate Professor, PG-IAR, Department of Mechanical Engineering, MCE, Hassan

3Indutrial Guide, Design Executive Engineer, Yokogawa India Limited, Bangalore.

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Abstract - Establishment of an automation system for personnel to perform the control action remotely, providing
large-scale industries is certainly a tedious task to accomplish. a graphical display of the instruments that is being
But as the field of control and automation has improved monitored, multiple process site environments, wide area
tremendously, now more advanced and improved communication, closed loop control performed by sub-
communication protocols are being used, new technology is systems and relatively high content sequential control. The
being implemented, flexibility of an automation system has FCS gets input from various kind of field instruments like
increased, it has become reliable, effective and accurate results flow meters, pressure, temperature and fault indicator,
are being obtained. Automation system, now a days is used in gauges, I/P converters, pressure, level and temperature
almost all industrial sectors. Implementing an automation transmitter, turbidity and conductivity analyzer, sand
system benefits the proper functioning of the crude oil field. detector, opening and closing of control valve which comes
This automation system comprises of DCS (Distributed Control under analog signal whereas ON-OFF valve limit switch,
system). The primary aim of this is to maintain the desired solenoid valve, etc. comes under digital signals. Altogether
temperature and pressure while extracting the crude oil from they make the system more reliable, flexible and accurate
the deep excavated wellpads by hydraulic fracture simulation and also reduce total manpower. Initially the performance of
in the industry, which has been carried out in stages in order the field was monitored manually. The problems that arise
to increase the total hydrocarbon development of the oil hill due to monitoring of the functions of all the field instruments
reservoirs. The system is designed in such a way that the manually are, requirement of more man power for
redundancy principle id maintained in order to reduce the risk continuous observation, more chances of error. Also, there
of the data loss. The designing processes of the DCSs are done are chances of missing an alarm while keeping track of the
based on the end-users specification and requirement. The instrument activities which may result in disasters. To avoid
software being used here for the design of DCS Field Control such a scenario, the industry must be automated for its
Station (FCS) is CENTUM VP. better performance and improved accuracy.

Key Words: CENTUMVP, DCS, FCS, CPU, Hydraulic Fracture 2. PROBLEM STATEMENT
Simulation, Process Automation
The field of process automation has advanced in the several
1. INTRODUCTION industries; however few industries have not penetrated deep
into the adaption of the new technologies for maintenance of
The risk is the frequency of occurrence of problems which industrial control and safety. The maintenance of the desired
causes harm and also the grimness of that harm, gaining low/high pressure or temperature for the hydraulic fracking
freedom from the risk is called as safety. Oil industries or to just maintain the desired operating pressure or
intend to increase the rate of crude oil production in the temperature throughout the process however, traditional
most economical way. From the past few decades, oil pressure gauge or temperature meter is used to take the
industries have risen enormously with respect to size and reading as few plants or refineries assume that traditional
complexity. At the same time, by considering the factors like methods provides the accurate and précised values, but this
economy, safety etc., there is a need for more sophisticated method may create the hassles by paving the way towards
and vast featured control and automation system. On a the dangerous life hazards and the loss of productive time.
shorter note, as the business cycles has lessen; the numbers The purpose of DCS is to enable the control patrol to control
of customers have increased, distinctive clients require the hardware equipment at the plant site from the
diverse data. With an enormous development of designated place called control room and to monitor the
communication and problem-solving technologies, the behavior of the process variable with respect to time during
automation system has significantly increased both the process.
internally and externally. Centralized monitoring system for
the field instruments is necessary for a reliable and efficient
performance of the industry. It also benefits the operator

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Volume: 07 Issue: 06 | June 2020 www.irjet.net p-ISSN: 2395-0072

3. OBJECTIVE makes it ideal for implementation in large scale continuous

processing plants. The control of field instruments by a DCS
Process automation requires a high level of redundancy in can be shown in the fig. 4.2, the following block diagram
order to maintain the required factors for the smooth
functioning of the plant operations. The plant architecture is
been interfaced along with the DCS with the help of
transmitters for the simulation of the hydraulic fracture of
the hydrocarbon basin. The standard analog signal range will
vary from 4-20mA, these signal transmissions are used to
replace the foundation field bus, a bidirectional digital
communication protocol for field transmission of data
initiation. The test signals sent through the calibrator for the
analog signals and digital bits using the P & ID control logics.
Thus varying the signals from the signal face plate which are
called on the HMI, reads the input in the form of P & ID
control function blocks for controlling the process plant with Fig.4.2: Block diagram of controlling of field
the desired operating range. instruments
For large industrial process, materialistic DCS network is
4. SYSTEM DESIGN shown below in the fig.4.3, in which various parts of the
field/site and several parts of the DCS network elements are
The basic goal of system design phase is to produce the interfaced together via the field bus [1]. Field bus are also
design of the process plant its requirements specifications, called as the data highway; the backbone for the DCS system
which describes the complete external behavior of the which provides the information to the multiple displays on
system. The emphasis in the system design is on identifying the various operator control stations sends new data and
what is needed from the system and how the system will retrieve past data from the archival memory, and acts as a
achieve its goal. The overall designing process flowchart of data link between the central control computer and the
this system is shown below in the fig. 4.1 other parts of the system network.

Fig.4.1: Flowchart of system design process Fig.4.3: The DCS network elements [1]

4.1. Distributed Control Systems 4.1.1. Design Criteria of DCS

Distributed Control System or DCS is designed for a process To provide the control actions, hardware designing is
plant with the distribution of autonomous controllers equally important. Establishing communication is one such
throughout the system. In a DCS, the independent primary task. To accomplish this, the System/cabinets are
distributed controllers in the system are under the designed considering the End-user requirements.
supervision of a central supervisory control resulting in
making this technique more reliable, cutting down the Factors considered while designing the cabinets are:
installation costs significantly by localizing the plants control
functions but at the same time enabling remote supervisory 1. Dimension of the cabinets must be properly decided
control of the entire process cycle. DCS systems are used such that all the hardware fit into it perfectly
exclusively on high valued and critical area process plants 2. The cabinets are provided with fan and filters. Fans
where safety and security are of utmost importance. The help in lessening the temperature at the interior of the
superior reliability and safety features of the DCS system cabinet. There are 2 fans, namely, suction fans and
exhaust fans. Suction fans suck out the heat from the

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Volume: 07 Issue: 06 | June 2020 www.irjet.net p-ISSN: 2395-0072

inside and sends outside while the exhaust fan brings 2. Network Accessories: LAN and Ethernet Switches
cool air from outside. Filters are used to remove the of 16 ports, 24 ports and 48 ports are used for
noise interconnection between the components. WAN
3. Wire/ Cable Sizes: Wire sizes depend on the rating of routers, GPS, which helps in time synchronization
current and typical loops in line with the End-user and Media converters, are also used for establishing
requirements. The thickness/size of the cables depends the network. Fig.1.6 shows the interconnection of
on the rating of the current. There are different types of the LAN and Ethernet switches
cables such as grounding cable, interconnection cable
and inter-panel cables (Analog, Digital signal cables)
4. Requirement of number of relays, barriers, Terminal
Blocks, Terminal Boards, depends upon the number of
I/Os specified by the end-user.
5. MCBs, requirement depends on the rating of the
current flow within the cabinet.
5. Duct Sizes are estimated based upon number of the
cable wires connected in the cabinet.
7. Fuses ratings required are given by the End-user
specifications.
The fig. 4.4 below shows the typical configuration of the Fig.4.6: Interconnection of network accessories [2]
system of DCS
3. Earthing: It is a process of creating an alternative
path for the flow of fault/excessive currents safely
into the ground in the presence of minimal
resistance or impedance. The DCS uses three ways
of grounding schemes while designing the DCS such
as System Earth is where the control systems are
earthed in order to avoid leaking/fault current
while tripping the fuse, Shield Earth, is where the
Analog equipment is earthed to avoid the power
surges and finally Panel Earth is used to avoid the
overall power system, electrical equipment and
personnel from the electric shock. The fig 4.7 below
shows the sample of the grounding scheme of the
DCS hardware system
Fig.4.4: Typical configuration of DCS cabinet

4.1.2. DCS System Hardware

There are few important hardware equipment which are

used in the designing of the DCS and they are as follows:

1. Cables: CAT series, RJ series connectors,

prefabricated cables, and Power cables are those
which are used for establishing communication
between the components as per requirements. The
fig.4.5 below shows the sample view of the cables Fig.4.7: Pictorial representation of the grounding
connectivity scheme (Earthing)

4. Power Distribution: Power distributions are of

two types UPS and Non-UPS supplies. UPS power
distributions are used as the standby generators
between the two utility feeds, especially where
power breaks are undesirable. Non-UPS supplies
are used for the components which doesn’t require
critical load of power, like Fan Failure Detection
Fig.4.5:Node Unit of the controller with Pre-Fab cables Alarm, Receptacle Box, Power Sockets, and Alarm
connected. Terminal Blocks. The fig 4.8 (a) & (b) shows the

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Volume: 07 Issue: 06 | June 2020 www.irjet.net p-ISSN: 2395-0072

typical of the panel wiring considered in the DCS

hardware.

Fig.5.1: Block diagram of process flow of the system

implementation

5.1. Project Design Engineering

Fig.4.8 (a): Typical of Non-UPS Power supply
To implement the designed DCS based on the requirements
this phase is the core base of the implementation. The
process automation of a crude oil plant/field and their
operations are explained in the below subsections:

5.1.1. Power Consumption and Heat dissipation details

The components are wisely divided between both the

feeders such as 230V AC and 110VAC which convert the
incoming power to 24V DC, and ensured that the total power
consumption of all the components connected to a feeder
Fig.4.8 (b): Typical of UPS power supply doesn’t cross the rating of that feeder. Once, it is ensured
that the power consumption of all the feeders is within the
5. SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION AND METHODOLOGY feeder rating, based on the feeder the power consumption
helps in sizing of the feeders. The Heat dissipation is
The system implementation briefs out how the system calculated as it’s a measure of energy lost due to other
components are brought together to achieve the final result. forces. The current flow of each component and cabinet is
Hence the hardware module is first built and the functional calculated using the formulae;
logic blocks with the P & ID is been designed and dumped
into the HIS. Initially the DCS is built and tested whether it For 230V AC Supply
can control, monitor accepts the incoming signals from the I=P/ (V*ϕ)
field and provides the signals to the HIS. The functional Where ϕ represents the power factor
logics which are loaded into the HMI are programmed using
CENTUM VP for the creation of the overall field view in a For 24V DC Supply
graphics style. The system implementation of DCS system is I=P/V
categorized into two parts and they are as follows:
5.1.2. System Configuration
 Project Design Engineering
 System Design Engineering The system configuration is a schematic representation of
the process control station, in which the operator station,
The fig.5.1 below shows the block diagram of the process engineering work station and the control station are
flow of the system implementation interconnected to each other through a TCP/IP link layer
called the data link layer as all the system is been controlled
by the network switch which produces the data to each and
every work station, process control station and the logic
controllers. The fig.5.2 below shows the system architecture
of the interconnected station.
.

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Fig.5.2: System Configuration

5.1.3. Control Room Layout Fig.5.4 (a): Front loading of DCS

The control room layout provides the overall system design

which has to be optimized. This layout gives the information
of the estimated space available for the cabinets, consoles.
This provides information about size, numbers and
dedicated positions of the designed cabinets/consoles which
can be accommodated in the control room. The fig.5.3 shows
the schematic design of the control room

Fig.5.4 (b): Nest loading report

5.2. System Design Engineering

System Engineering starts with a specification prior to the

system installation, which includes a various variety of tasks
as designing, system generation, testing and addition &
Fig.5.3: Sample schematic design of the control room changing of functions and designing of the P &ID function
layout blocks which is used to display the signal/graphics on the
screen of HMI
5.1.4. Front loading and Nest Loading
5.2.1. DCS Engineering Station
The DCS or any other DCS consists of a minimum of one FCS
and a HMI. In FCS there are different nodes which consist of This station, manages both engineering and maintenance of
different cards to which the inputs are connected and the the CENTUM VP. The DCS engineering station consists an
outputs are taken out after processing. The selection of cards automation design suite/organizer, controller manager and
and the number of cards depends on various and different several optional operating functions. The fig.5.5 below
parameters or based on the end user requirements. The shows the DCS engineering station configuration.
selection of these cards and loading them in each node taken
into account of all parameters is called as Front Loading. The
arrangement of I/O cards based on the type of signals is
known as Nest Loading. The fig.5.4 (a) & (b) below illustrates
the sample pictorial representation of front loading and nest
loading.

Fig.5.5: DCS engineering station configuration [2]

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5.2.2. CENTUM VP The data can be monitored by accessing data item PV in data
faceplate block from the HMI.
An integrated production control system which monitors
and controls the various plant sites such as oil/gas refineries, 5.3. Methodology
upstream etc. The engineering of the control station is
performed from the DCS engineering station and engineering The main motto of the designed system is to monitor and
of the field controller and the HMI is done from the control the desired pressure and temperature continuously.
engineering operator station of the CENTUM VP. The fig.5.6 If there occurs any variation in the pressure and
below shows the CENTUM VP integration system. temperature during the hydraulic fracking simulation of the
hydrocarbon basin while extracting the crude oil from the
deep wellpads, the signals from the field will get interfaced
at the DCS which in-turn will send to the filed controller
through the Ethernet cables which is connected from the
terminal boards to the controller where in the typical range
of analog signal that a controller can accept is 4-20mA, The
signals can also be in the form of 1 or 0. However, when the
field equipment like gas detectors, pressure transmitters etc,
give the current output not in the range of 4-20mA. This
recommends for the need for an intrinsic safety as the
signals will be immediately sent to the HIS which is loaded
with the functional logical blocks of the P & ID graphics leads
to an extensive way for the indication of the exact spot at the
field site and gives and alarm as their needs an action to be
taken care by the control room panel personnel. The fig.5.8
Fig.5.6: Example of CENTUM VP integration system [2] below shows the block diagram of the signal flow of the
5.2.3. Vnet/IP (Control Network) input and output loops.
An Ethernet-based and dual redundant control network
which provides real-time communication with high
reliability used normally for transmitting control data. The
fig.5.7 below illustrates the example of the Vnet/IP network
configuration

Fig.5.8: Signal Flow block diagram of input and output

loops (vice versa)

6. Experimental Results

Once the programming is completed and communication

between the cabinets and the controller has been set up, it is
Fig.5.7: Vnet/IP network Configuration [2] necessary to know if the logic set behind the program is
giving out the output as desired. To ensure this, few tests are
5.2.4. Function Block carried out.
The software of the DCS used here is CENTUM VP, the 6.1. Factory Acceptance Test (FAT)
software program is in the form of predefined function
blocks which are interconnected according to the control The FAT is conducted at the supplier’s site where the end
logic scheme to create the appropriate logic structure. user inspects, witness and validate the working of the
system before the system gets dispatched to the plant site.
5.2.5. Data face plate block During the FAT process complete system checks, complete
hardware checks are carried out. Due to the absence of the
A data faceplate block is a function block that maps data of field instruments to which the system will be connected at
controllers and the global variables. This faceplate block plant site, calibration devices are used to replicate the
maps data of controllers to data item Process Variable (PV).

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signals from/to the field instruments. The basic idea is that  All the HMI stations are connected as per the
all analog signals are 4-20 mA and all digital signals are 0 or configuration
1. This 4-20 mA signal is sourced from the calibration kit for  All the network components are connected as per
testing purposes. The checks that are done during FAT are- the configuration
 All the printers are connected as per the
 Physical inspection of all components and cabinets configuration
 Power supply connection and distribution checks  The network connectivity between various systems
are carried out before turning on the system is in order
 System checks are carried out to check redundancy
of power supply and network communication 7. CONCLUSION
 Hardware checks are carried out in the form of
Loop checking, to check if the physical connections Creating an automated refinery is easy but looking at the
and wiring of the system is done correctly and also safety and the remote controlling and monitoring of the
to check if proper addressing has been given to the overall refinery/plant in order to reduce the hazardous life
field instruments at the software side risks caused to the working personnel is the most tedious
 Software checks are carried out by running the DCS task. Hence, few MAC after a several surveys they introduced
system in Test Function mode a way for the automation to supply a control and safety
 Heat-soak testing is done to check if the system can system which is integrated into a single system to online
perform well at different temperature levels monitor and control the overall plant/refineries. This design
aims at the automation and supply of DCS for crude oil field
6.1.1. System Redundancy Checks industries in order to maintain the desired temperature and
pressure during the development of the hydrocarbon basin
Most of the DCS are designed with redundant elements. of the oil hill reservoirs by hydraulic fracture simulation
Redundant engineering increases the system’s reliability by process. To design a DCS we came cross the system design,
utilizing backup processor/components in case of primary its implementation and finally the working of the control
processor failure. system. These signals are sent across the FCS from the field-
The redundancy test is carried out for the following site/ Junction box station/transmitters/valves and then
components: those signals are indicated on the HMI with the help of the P
 Central Processing Unit (CPU) & ID control functional blocks interfaced via VNET/IP
 Power Supply Unit (PSU) communication protocol throughout the system architecture.
 Vnet/ IP The one of the major concept is to find out the desired
 Input-Output module outcome is at FAT and also to attain the redundancy of the
 Extending Serial Bus (ESB) components used in the field controller.
The Fig.6.1 below shows the sample screenshot of CPU
redundancy check. 8. REFRENCES

[1] “Process control in chemical industries”, Journal

on DCS, 2002.

[2] Yokogawa e- manual for Centum VP hardware

and software, “Integrated Production control
system CENTUM VP system overview”, 32nd
edition, January 17th 2020.

Fig.6.1: Sample screenshot of CPU redundancy check

6.1.2. System Configuration check

The various systems and the components of the project are

connected as per the system configuration. The purpose of
this test is to verify that all the systems are connected in line
with the overall system configuration. This test is necessary
to ensure that-

 All the controllers are connected as per the

configuration

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