Westinghouse team chose a network based Maxiflex and Maxilarm system manufatured by Omniflex, following successful installations at other BNFL sites.
The full 633 DAS system, as it is called, comprises 19 separate Maxiflex and Maxilarm nodes connected on a 500m dual Conet network and communicating with a new plant SCADA system.
Conet is the world’s most rugged LAN, allowing reliable industrial strength communications on existing plant wiring to 10km in a full peer-to-peer configuration. Capabilities for report by exception, dual redundancy and multiple network segments to suit the plant topology are features of the Conet network.
The installed system has already made a significant contribution to the efficiency of the plant. In particular, Maxilarm’s ability to time-stamp the digital inputs to a resolution of 10 milliseconds, synchronised across the network, has been welcomed by the operators.
“We have used data acquisition systems from Omniflex before, and have always found them very reliable” comments Springfields based design engineer.