Process Technology

With the increasing automation of process plants, process control technology (PCT) has become more and more important in safeguarding against plant risks in recent years. The development of guidelines and basic standards for functional safety at national level (e.g. VDI/VDE guidelines 2180, Namur recommendations) and international level (basic standard IEC 61508, series of standards for the process industry IEC 61511) has significantly accelerated the development of I&C components and automation technology components in the last decade.

Based on risk assessments and the development of safety concepts in interdisciplinary teams, the proportion of functional safety that is to be fulfilled by the safety instrumented system (SIS) for a specific safety instrumented function (SIF) is now determined. Other system risks can be covered in other ways, for example by classic safety valves or organisational measures.

The degree of functional safety to be covered by the PCT protective device (PCT-SE) is quantified in so-called Safety Integrity Levels (SIL).

During the life cycle of a safety instrumented system, numerous requirements are placed on the realisation of sufficient functional safety. In order to be able to guarantee this holistically across all phases, the relevant regulations stipulate various requirements that must be observed across all phases of a system's life cycle as part of legally compliant installation and system operation. This includes the definition of a target function, the underlying risk assessment, the specification of the PCT protective device, the design and planning, installation, testing before commissioning, operation, maintenance and modifications, and finally the decommissioning of the PCT protective device.