JPH11275111A - Plant system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a system for permitting interruption from a maintenance/ inspection work side while maintaining an excellent operation state in the case of being provided with a LAN for plant operation control and the LAN for instrumentation equipment inspection capable of bidirectional information transmission with a portable information terminal. SOLUTION: Writing from the portable information terminal 12 to a process computer 8 is made possible through the LAN 6 for the plant operation control and a gateway server 30 is provided in the connection part of the LAN 6 and the LAN 7 for the instrumentation equipment inspection. Then, a setting tag part 31 corresponding to respective instrumentation equipments is provided in the process computer 8, a judgement part 32 for judging the propriety of the write from the portable information terminal 12 corresponding to the respective instrumentation equipments to the process computer 8 corresponding to the state of the setting tag part 31 is provided and the write is performed only in the case of judging that the write is possible in the judgement part 32.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention requires maintenance and inspection of instrumentation equipment provided in a plant, such as a gas production plant, while the operation is continued. Related to plant systems.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art The above-described gas production plant will be described as an example. The plant is always in operation, and a so-called LAN (Local Area Network) for plant operation control is constructed in order to perform this operation suitably. Have been. That is, as shown in FIG. 1, a main computer 8b for controlling plant operation and a plurality of main computers connected to the main computer 8b for controlling plant operation and provided in correspondence with a plurality of instrumentation facilities provided in various parts of the plant. A so-called LAN is constructed between the field computer 8a and each instrumentation facility managed by the computer 8a. The plant operation control main computer 8b and the field computer 8a are collectively referred to as a process computer 8. Such instrumentation facilities include:
Control equipment of the plant (for example, when the controlled object is a fluid flowing through the plant piping, a flow control valve 3 and the like);
Alternatively, a measuring tool (for example, a pressure gauge 5 when the controlled body has a flow rate of a fluid flowing in the plant piping) can be used. Therefore, regarding the operation of the plant, a desired good operation state can be maintained in the plant operation control LAN 6. In general, the so-called production team is responsible for the operation of such a plant.

On the other hand, each instrumentation requires regular maintenance and inspection. Here, such maintenance and inspection is performed by a different team (maintenance inspection team) from the production team described above.
But that is its role. A typical work of such maintenance and inspection is a so-called loop check. In the loop check, for example, the monitoring area of the measuring instrument is set to a simulated physical state (a predetermined pressure state in the case of a pressure gauge). Then, the relation between the output from the measuring instrument and the simulated physical quantity given truly is examined, and the operation is confirmed. In such confirmation work, there is an established sequence for each instrumentation facility, but as a practical matter, there are a very large number of instrumentation facilities to be checked, and the work place, time, and workers are different. To cope with this, the construction of a system that handles this in a unified manner is currently being planned. That is, in addition to the plant operation control LAN 6 described above, an instrumentation facility inspection LAN 7 is provided, and the instrumentation facility inspection computer 1 provided in the LAN 7 is provided.
0, the above sequence, the result of the previous inspection, furthermore, a failure diagnosis system, etc. are provided, and at the time of inspection of each instrumentation equipment, information corresponding to each measurement equipment is called, and maintenance and inspection work is performed rationally and promptly . On the other hand, since each instrumentation facility is scattered in various places, for example, a device for loop check is attached to each instrumentation facility, and a portable information terminal 12 connectable to the device for loop check, The inventors have proposed to construct an instrumentation equipment inspection LAN 7 capable of bidirectional information transmission via a communication section of the information terminal 12 and a communication line.

[0004] In maintenance and inspection work, it may be necessary to operate instrumentation equipment (particularly, control equipment) that is actually in operation, for example, to check the opening / closing time and trip time of a valve. Further, if the output characteristics of the measuring instrument have changed over time after the maintenance / inspection is completed, the operation control information needs to be changed in accordance with the change. Such changes in information have traditionally been
After a report from the inspection team to the production team, it has been performed according to certain procedures. That is, the maintenance worker once brings the result back to the center side, creates a maintenance inspection workbook, etc.,
It was supposed to inform the production workers of the results and perform appropriate processing.

[0005]

As described above, the construction of LAN systems according to the respective purposes has been promoted on either the operation side or the maintenance / inspection side of the plant. It is also necessary to directly operate the instrumentation equipment during maintenance and inspection work, as in
In this case, for example, it is necessary to infiltrate the control command information from the instrumentation equipment inspection LAN side to the plant operation control LAN side and write it into the control command information storage section of a predetermined field computer. That is, it is necessary to rewrite the contents of the information storage unit for each instrumentation facility of the field computer provided for the instrumentation facility. However,
When performing such writing, the maintenance / inspection operator may specify the wrong instrumentation equipment number, the form of the writing data is abnormal, or the writing data may flow through the LAN for plant operation control. May be large. It is an object of the present application to construct a system that can appropriately cope with such a case.

[0006]

In order to achieve the above-mentioned object, both information including operation control commands are provided between a plurality of field computers for providing control commands for instrumentation equipment and a main computer for the field computer. A portable information terminal that is provided with a plant operation control LAN that performs bidirectional communication and that can be connected to the instrumentation equipment, and an instrumentation facility that can transmit bidirectional information via a communication line with a communication unit of the portable information terminal The characteristic configuration of the plant system provided with the LAN for use is as follows. That is, it is possible to write control command information for the instrumentation equipment into the field computer from the portable information terminal via the instrumentation equipment inspection LAN and the plant operation control LAN, and L for control
A gateway server is provided at a connection between the AN and the instrumentation facility inspection LAN, and a setting tag section corresponding to the instrumentation facility is provided on a computer in the plant operation control LAN, and each instrumentation facility is provided with a setting tag section. When the gateway server has a determination unit that determines whether control command information can be written from the corresponding portable information terminal to the field computer according to the state of the setting tag unit, and when the determination unit determines that writing is possible, Only the configuration is such that the gateway server allows the control command information to enter the plant operation control LAN. That is, in this system, a setting tag unit corresponding to each instrumentation facility is provided in a computer in the plant operation control LAN, and writing to a field computer corresponding to the instrumentation facility is performed according to the state of the setting tag unit. Judgment of availability is performed in advance. In practice, the gateway server determines whether or not the control command information is allowed to enter the plant operation control LAN, and in the allowed state, allows the control command information to enter the LAN. Command information is written to the appropriate field computer. For example, if the instrumentation equipment to be controlled is a plurality of valves, and there are valves that require maintenance and inspection work and valves that do not want the current settings to be changed, a setting tag corresponding to the former valve The part is in a write-enabled state, and the latter is in the opposite state. On the other hand, when the maintenance / inspection operator wants to perform maintenance / inspection of a specific valve in such a state, an attempt is made to write the control device of the specific valve into the field computer. In this operation,
From the portable information terminal via the instrumentation equipment inspection LAN,
The gateway server is notified that there is a request for writing to the specific instrumentation facility. In response to receiving this information, the determination unit of the gateway server checks the state of the setting tag unit corresponding to the corresponding valve. Then, in accordance with the state of the setting tag portion, intrusion of the control command information is allowed in a writable state, and the control command information is written to a field computer corresponding to the specific instrumentation equipment. Therefore, for example, by appropriately setting the setting tag section on the production team side, it is possible to judge whether or not writing from the portable information terminal side to the field computer from the maintenance and inspection worker side is appropriate. Maintenance and inspection can be performed as needed while maintaining the operation status of the plant system.

[0007] Further, information sent from the portable information terminal may be so-called abnormal data, which may be accompanied by a format abnormality or garbled characters. In such a case, it is not preferable to flow this information into the plant operation control LAN. Therefore, in the configuration described so far, the gateway server is provided with an abnormal data judging unit for judging whether the data sent to the plant operation control LAN is normal or abnormal. It is preferable to provide a prohibition unit that prohibits the entered data from entering the plant operation control LAN. That is, the abnormal data judging unit judges whether the data is normal or abnormal, and for the abnormal data, the prohibiting unit can prohibit the intrusion into the plant operation control LAN and the writing to the process computer. That is, it is possible to prevent inappropriate data from flowing to the plant operation control LAN.

[0008] The information sent from the portable information terminal is:
Originally, the information is flowing in the instrumentation equipment inspection LAN, so the amount is not limited. For example, in accordance with a command from a portable information terminal, data stored in an instrumentation equipment inspection main computer provided in an instrumentation equipment inspection LAN is called, and the plant operation control is performed with the data. In some cases, an attempt is made to access the local LAN. However, it is not preferable to flow an excessive amount of information into the plant operation control LAN at one time. Therefore, in the configuration described so far, it is preferable that the gateway server is provided with a data amount limiting unit that limits the amount of data sent to the plant operation control LAN. With this configuration, the write data amount limiting unit can limit, for example, the amount of data to be written, and simultaneously perform processing of a plurality of write commands.
The operation in the process computer can be maintained at a good level.

In the present invention described above, a PHS (Personal Handy Phone System) is used as a communication line between the portable information terminal and the instrumentation equipment inspection LAN.
It has been specifically proposed to use a line. In PHS,
Data of 32 kbps (kilobits / second) can be transmitted and received digitally between the PHS terminal and the base station, and the premises line connected to the base station is completely digital and can be used in the LAN by using a high-speed digital line. It is possible to perform data communication between the computer and the PHS terminal, and eventually the portable information terminal, so that high-speed data transfer and high reliability can be obtained. Also, since the transmission output of the PHS terminal is small (about 10 milliwatts), the burden on the battery is small,
Since the weight can be reduced, there is no problem in terms of weight and space even if maintenance and inspection personnel are always available. The small transmission output of the PHS terminal has an advantage also with respect to the problem of radio interference in a plant office. Of course, the small transmission output of the PHS terminal means that the coverage area of one base station is small.
The installation location of the base station can be selected arbitrarily, and the base station can be arranged with the most effective distribution. The installation cost of the PHS base station is lower than that of other mobile communications. It is cheap. When PHS is adopted as mobile communication, as a preferred embodiment of the present invention, a PHS terminal and a portable information terminal are connected by an infrared interface (Infra-red Da).
If the connection is made by an optical communication interface standardized by the Ta Association, hereinafter also abbreviated as IrDA), for example, considering that it is used in plant equipment rather than using an interface such as RS232C using a relatively high voltage, The advantages are great from the viewpoint of explosion proof. It is also an advantage that many commercially available portable information terminals have an infrared interface.

[0010] In another preferred embodiment of the present invention, PH
If the S terminal and the portable information terminal are connected by a PC card interface, not only the PHS terminal and the portable information terminal need not be connected by a cable, but also an automatic call receiving function, as in the case of the infrared interface described above. It is also possible to freely send data to the portable information terminal from the center computer without the operator operating the PHS terminal. Further, if the PHS terminal and the portable information terminal are integrated, there is an advantage in portability as a device to be carried in a loop check operation.

[0011]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of a plant system 1 according to the present invention will be described. This plant system 1
For example, an LNG vaporization plant or the like can be mentioned. The plant is provided with a plurality of pipes 2 through which a plurality of types of gases flow. The pipe 2 is provided with a valve 3 for controlling the pressure of the gas flowing in the pipe, a limit switch 4 for the valve 3, and a pressure gauge on the lower side of the valve 3 for measuring the pressure of the gas flowing in the pipe. Measurement tools such as 5 are provided. That is, in this plant,
The valve 3 is an example of a control device. Further, for each system of the plant, such as the valve 3, the limit switch 4, the pressure gauge 5, and the like, a control device for controlling a state amount in the system and a measuring instrument for measuring the state amount are collectively referred to. And call it instrumentation equipment.

As shown in FIG. 1, the plant system 1 is provided with two types of LANs: a plant operation control LAN 6 and an instrumentation equipment inspection LAN 7. Since the instrumentation equipment inspection LAN 7 of the present application involves mobile communication by PHS, it can be regarded as a PHS-LAN.

The plant operation control LAN 6 is for the process computer 8 for a plurality of instrumentation facilities, and is configured to perform two-way communication of information including operation control commands within this system. According to this purpose, the process computer 8 includes a field computer 8a provided for each instrumentation facility and a main computer 8b for plant operation control which plays an integral role in the LAN. The field computer 8a is configured to be capable of bidirectional communication with an instrumentation facility (for example, a valve 3) and a measuring instrument (for example, a limit switch 4 or a pressure gauge 5) as a control device, and a control device according to measurement information from the measuring instrument. Is configured to be movable so as to be suitable for a predetermined purpose. Further, the main computer 8b for controlling plant operation includes
It is constructed such that a target value or the like suitable for the operating state is given to a, so that the operation of the plant can be maintained in a desired state as a whole.

Next, the instrumentation equipment inspection LAN 7 will be described. The instrumentation equipment inspection LAN 7 is constructed so as to perform a so-called loop check. As shown in FIG. 1, a main computer 10 for instrumentation equipment inspection connected to a LAN 7 for instrumentation equipment inspection constructed on the center 9 side, and a loop check distributed to each site on the plant equipment side. A portable information terminal (for example, PDA = Personal Digi
PH between tal Assistance and handy PC) 12
The connection can be made via the S line 13 so that bidirectional communication is possible.

The loop check point 11 is a place where a pressure gauge 5 for measuring a physical quantity of a controlled body which is a fluid flowing inside the pipe 2 or the like laid on the plant facility side, for example, a pressure, is provided. The portable information terminal 12 is connected to a loop check device 14 attached to the loop check point 11. Loop check device 14
Is an external cylinder 15 as a pressure source and an input connection port 15
The pseudo pressure adjusted to the pressure value required for a
And an output connection port 15b for supplying the power to the power supply. The pseudo pressure supplied from the loop check device 14 can be adjusted within a predetermined range. The measurement mode required at each loop checkpoint 11 basically includes three to five reference pressure values and their values, and differs for each loop checkpoint 11. In addition, since the total number of loop checks is as many as several thousand, pressure adjustment as a mode setting of the loop check device 14 is controlled by the portable information terminal 12. An electric or optical cable is connected between the portable information terminal 12 and the loop check device 14 by a communication interface to give this control command. The portable information terminal 12 is linked to a unique tag number assigned to each loop check point 11,
The measurement mode, for example, the first reference pressure value = 0, the second reference pressure value = 2, the third reference pressure value = 4, the fourth reference pressure value =
6. A control signal is read out from the memory card storing the fifth reference pressure value = 8 (unit: kPa) and sent to the loop check device 14 so that the pseudo pressure having the pressure value is output from the output connection port 15b. It can be sent.

A PHS terminal 16 functioning as a communication unit of the portable information terminal 12 is carried by a maintenance and inspection worker. During the loop check operation, the PHS terminal 16 connects to the PHS line 1
3 and a base station 19 to establish a two-way data communication state, and a connection state to the portable information terminal 12 via an infrared interface (for example, IrDA interface).

The instrumentation equipment inspection LAN 7 includes an instrumentation equipment inspection main computer 10, and is further connected to a PHS controller 18 via a router 17. The PHS control device 18 is connected to a base station 19 constituting the PHS line 13 via a private digital line 20, and
It is also connected to the private branch exchange 21. That is, PH
If the signal transmitted from the PHS terminal 16 via the base station 19 and the private digital line 20 is telephone voice, the S control device 18 switches to the private telephone exchange 21 if the transmitted signal is data communication. LAN for instrumentation equipment inspection
Switch to 7. In any case, the signal sent from the private branch exchange 21 or the instrumentation equipment inspection LAN 7 is sent to the destination PHS terminal 16 via the base station 19. Since the service area of the base station 19 is several hundred meters, the base stations 19 are distributed so as to cover all the loop check points 11. Since the private branch exchange 21 is connected to the public line and the company telephone network, the PHS terminal 16 can also make a call with an outside line telephone or a company telephone.

With the above configuration, the loop check device 4
When a pseudo pressure set from 0 to the reference pressure value is supplied to the loop check point 11, the pressure gauge 5 measures the pseudo pressure, and the measurement information is indicated by a measuring instrument (pressure gauge 5), a field computer 8a, and a plant operation. It returns to the portable information terminal 12 via the control LAN 6 and the instrumentation equipment inspection LAN 7. By checking the feedback information and the true pseudo pressure value, a so-called loop check of the measuring instrument can be performed.

After checking the measuring instrument using the above-described loop check function, if the output of the measuring instrument has changed over time, the output can be corrected or this instrument can be corrected. In some cases, an operation of correcting the opening degree of the valve 3 corresponding to the above from the control command information level is required. Further, there is a case where the maintenance and inspection side wants to perform an operation of actively operating the valve 3 in the operating state and checking the operation time of the limit switch 4 provided corresponding to the valve 3. In such a case, basically, the contents of the control command information storage unit (not shown) for the specific valve secured in the storage device (not shown) of the field computer 8a are positively changed. It is necessary to rewrite (specifically, write).

For this purpose, the plant system 1 of the present application
In the portable information terminal 12, the PHS
It is connected to the instrumentation equipment inspection LAN 7 via the line 13 and is capable of writing control command information to the process computer 8 (specifically, the field computer 8a) via the plant operation control LAN 6. Furthermore, a gateway server 30 is connected to the connection between the plant operation control LAN 6 and the instrumentation equipment inspection LAN 7.
And a setting tag unit 31 corresponding to each instrumentation facility is provided in the computer 8 (specifically, the field computer 8a) in the plant operation control LAN 6. The setting tag section 31 is configured so that the setting tag section 31 for the corresponding instrumentation facility is in an alternative tag state by an external input. The gateway server 30 is provided with a determining unit 32 for determining whether or not writing to the field computer 8a from the portable information terminal 12 corresponding to each instrumentation facility is possible according to the state of the setting tag unit 31. Only when the determination unit 32 determines that writing is possible, the LAN
A configuration is adopted in which intrusion into the computer is permitted and writing to the field computer 8a is performed.

More specifically, the case where the writing is control command information for the control device of the instrumentation equipment will be described. The operation control setting tag unit (one type of the setting tag unit 31) for each instrumentation equipment is transmitted to the field computer 8a. Only when the operation control setting tag section corresponding to any one of the instrumentation facilities is in the operation control permission setting tag state, the determination section 32 transmits the information from the portable information terminal 12 to the instrumentation facility. The control command information is allowed to enter the plant operation control LAN, and writing accompanying the entry is allowed. That is, the operation control setting tag section (setting tag section 3
1) is set to an alternative state of either the operation control permission setting tag state or the non-operation control permission setting tag state. This tag setting is generally handled by the production team, and based on the production plan, maintenance / inspection schedule, and the like, tagging of the instrumentation equipment that can be accessed by the maintenance / inspection team on the writable side is performed. In addition to the tagging described above, a structure for simply performing tag setting for the purpose of accessing the process computer 8 may be adopted.

Now, the gateway server 30 described above
It also has functions other than the above. That is, the gateway server 30 is provided with an abnormal data judging unit 33 for judging whether data written to the process computer 8 is normal or abnormal. A write prohibition unit 34 is provided for prohibiting writing to the data.
Examples of such abnormalities are format errors, garbled characters, and the like.

Further, the gateway server 30 is provided with a write data amount limiter 35 for limiting the amount of data written to the process computer 8 via the plant operation control LAN 6. Therefore, the configuration is such that the amount of data that can be written in a single operation is limited, and that multiple processes are not performed in a multiplexed manner.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic block diagram of a plant system according to the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Plant system 3 Valve (instrumentation equipment) 4 Limit switch (instrumentation equipment) 5 Pressure gauge (instrumentation equipment) 6 LAN for plant operation control 7 LAN for instrumentation equipment inspection 8 Process computer 12 Portable information terminal 30 Gateway server 31 setting tag section 32 judgment section 33 abnormal data judgment section 34 prohibition section 35 write data amount restriction section

 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continuation of front page (72) Inventor Takayuki Moriyama 4-1-2, Hirano-cho, Chuo-ku, Osaka-shi, Osaka Inside Osaka Gas Co., Ltd. (72) Katsuyoshi Nakayama 4-chome, Hirano-cho, Chuo-ku, Osaka-shi, Osaka 1-2, Osaka Gas Co., Ltd. (72) Inventor Hajime Morioka 1-2-2, Hirano-cho, Chuo-ku, Osaka-shi, Osaka Osaka-gaso Co., Ltd. (72) Inventor Motohiro Horio Hirano, Chuo-ku, Osaka, Osaka 1-2-2 Chomachi, Osaka Gas Co., Ltd.

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A plant operation control LAN for performing bidirectional communication of information including operation control instructions is provided between a plurality of field computers for giving control commands to the instrumentation equipment and a main computer for the field computers, A plant system provided with a portable information terminal connectable to the instrumentation facility, and a LAN for instrumentation facility inspection capable of bidirectional information transmission via a communication unit and a communication line of the portable information terminal, From the portable information terminal, the instrumentation equipment inspection LAN,
A control command information for the measurement equipment can be written into the field computer via the plant operation control LAN, and the plant operation control LAN and the instrumentation equipment inspection L
A gateway server is provided at a connection with the AN, a setting tag unit corresponding to the instrumentation facility is provided on a computer in the plant operation control LAN, and the portable information terminal corresponding to each instrumentation facility is provided. A determination unit for determining whether control command information can be written to the field computer from the gateway according to the state of the setting tag unit, and the gateway only when the determination unit determines that writing is possible. A plant system in which a server allows the control command information to enter the plant operation control LAN. 2. An abnormal data judging unit for judging whether the data sent to the plant operation control LAN is normal or abnormal, wherein the gateway server is provided with an abnormal data judging unit for judging the data judged abnormal by the abnormal data judging unit. 2. The plant system according to claim 1, further comprising a prohibition unit for prohibiting intrusion into the plant operation control LAN. 3. The plant system according to claim 1, wherein the gateway server is provided with a data amount limiting unit that limits an amount of data sent to the plant operation control LAN.