FEATURE PLCs, Industrial PCs & HMIsy
Upgrading the rail commuter experience Beckhoff’s control systems prove critical to smoke control in the London Underground
A
s half a million Tube passengers travel through central London every day, the capital’s jam- packed train carriages are
already at overcapacity. Transport for London, or TfL’s, Crossrail project needed to ensure that all standards for smoke ventilation were met in tunnels and stations. To put the right smoke control system in place, Kernow Controls and Intecre turned to Beckhoff ’s simulation technology. With this, the proposed controls installation was signed-off fi rst time, which is rather rare in today’s strictly-regulated rail industry.
Elizabeth line
London’s Elizabeth line is projected to serve 200 million people a year, with ten newly built and 30 upgraded stations. The line spans over 100 kilometres from Reading in Berkshire to Heathrow in the west. Kernow Controls, a buildings control specialist, was brought to deliver the scheme design for the smoke control systems’ (SCS) automation solution at Whitechapel Station. “A correctly-working SCS redirects
hazardous smoke and fumes in the instance of a fi re,” said Drew Dorling, Managing Director of Kernow Controls. “The aim is to ensure a smoke-free pathway for fi rst responders, fi re offi cials and members of the public. But, there’s an added complexity here, as the SCSs need to be integrated with the Crossrail system-wide control centre for remote override and control. Responses to events must be co-ordinated on a system- wide level.”
Choosing automation In the early stages of the design process, Kernow Controls selected Beckhoff Automation as its desired manufacturer for the Crossrail project. The brief for the project was not specifi c to any product or manufacturer, but it quickly transpired that the project’s demands would need a robust system operation. This led the Kernow team to Beckhoff .
“Having worked with Beckhoff ’s team
before through Intecre Limited, we were already aware of the company’s extensive product range and supplementary software. More importantly, we knew that Beckhoff ’s equipment off ers fl exible integration paths to third-party systems and fi eld devices, as well
22 September 2020 | Automation Automation helps upgrade the London Underground lines
as management-level equipment,” said Dorling. Before now, system simulation and virtual commissioning have been predominantly associated with improvement and optimisation of systems belonging to smart factory. Today, the full extent of the technology’s capabilities is demonstrated beyond a manufacturing environment, as in this particular project.
Central platform Building on Beckhoff ’s core principle of incorporating all automation functions into a central platform, TwinCAT involves a programmable logic controller (PLC), motion control, robotics, high-end measurement technology, the Internet of Things (IoT) and human machine interfaces (HMIs). For the Elizabeth line, Beckhoff ’s automation-level controllers have been integrated using industry standard protocols to the management-level HMI. At this level, intuitive touchscreens provide real-time and historical data, status, alarms and graphical visualisation of the smoke control system. Kernow Controls suggested to include automated test routines for all safety- critical equipment. This was adopted by Crossrail’s Chief Engineering Group (CEG) after all initial tests were complete, and instructed across all the station’s SCSs. The enhancement was incorporated easily into the operational system software, via Intecre’s modular software approach, ensuring a simpler implementation, with no rework to the core smoke control. Full regression tests
of the core functionality were carried out in a simulation, and all new functionalities were tested in the same way. It was a powerful demonstration of the system’s robustness, maintainability and fl exibility. The end result provides London
Underground (LU) with the opportunity to conduct regular system tests, activated manually or scheduled automatically, to ensure that all components within the system are health-checked. Combined with the automated test results, this solution provides documented evidence for compliance, fault identifi cation and reporting. The data details compliance with relevant standards, and highlights any system faults and the health of the system in a format that doesn’t require the station manager to have specialist engineering knowledge.
Reduced costs “By using Beckhoff ’s cutting-edge technologies with Kernow Controls’s domain expertise and Intecre’s modular software and modelling approach, we can identify issues within an environment with complex interfaces across many systems,” said Mark Lazarides, managing director of Intecre Limited. “The modelling and simulation of systems and their physical responses off er valuable insight before any change becomes costly.” Intecre developed the TwinCAT software in line with Object Oriented Design (OOP) principles. While this off ers many benefi ts for testing small units of the software,
automationmagazine.co.uk
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46
