PetroChina confirms efficiency of HoneyWell’s Wireless Solutions

The China’s largest oil/gas producer has selected Honeywell’s ‘OneWireless’ solutions in providing one single wireless network to support pressure data collection for the oil pipeline, valve position status of root valve of the tank and mobile station as the product proves successful in various aspects.

In a case study, PetroChina has laid out various benefits it gets from using the product installed at its Northwest Sales Center Xigu Oil Tank Farm as follows:

• Reduced installation and maintenance costs
• Reduced installation and commissioning time
• Remote wireless access to real-time data and control system information
• Ability to easily extend wireless network in the future
• One single wireless architecture supports wireless transmitter, mobile work station and wireless valve positioner
• Seamless integration of wireless system with control system improves efficiency

The wireless devices installed are:

• Five sets of multinodes to configure one single wireless network
• 20 sets of wireless pressure transmitters, supporting real-time data collection with one-second refresh speed
• Six sets of wireless valve positioners, collecting the valve position status
• Four mobile stations to access real-time data

How does it work? HoneyWell explained:

The multi-nodes installed at the XiGu tank farm automatically form the self-organizing wireless network, supporting wireless communication with the wireless pressure transimitters and mobile station. The wireless pressure transmitters are installed on oil pipelines near the pump room, on the northern side of the main control room and measuring points near the railway bridge. Wireless transmitters can automatically select wireless communication with the multinodes to build the wireless backbone network. The wireless valve posionters installed in the new tank farm area can collect the real-time valve position information of the root tank valve, and seamlessly integrate into the wireless backbone network and the control system.

The wireless transmitter adopts the 2.4GHz ISM band with the function of self-organization and self-healing. It can meet hazardous area requirements with a battery life of 4.5 years with one-second refreshing at normal temperature.

The mobile work station supports access to key process parameters, historical data, graphics, maintenance information and other important control system data on the railway loading and unloading dock with multifunctional nodes installed near the SCADA control room to browse SCADA data through a real-time mode using standard Modbus TCP.

The wireless system gateway acts an integral part of the Experion topology, supporting native communication between wireless I/O devices and Experion. This integration reduces the time required to manage the wireless field devices. Users can add, configure and modify these devices from Experion’s Control Builder, including building control strategies that include wireless field I/Os. Connections between ISA100 hardware-compliant devices and Experion controller function blocks are achieved easily, transparently and quickly with a click of the mouse.

Wireless field I/O devices and their parameters are exposed as native Experion points in HMIWeb Display Builder. Users do not need to use references to SCADA points and OPC parameters to integrate wireless I/O parameters but can now simply pick the wireless field I/O and its parameters and include in their displays.