The Marathon 8500

• World’s largest cryogenics facility used InduSoft to simplify cumbersome DOS-based operator displays.

• Modular InduSoft architecture permitted parallel development and reduced engineering time and complexity of system upgrade.

• Browser-based displays make possible continuous remote monitoring.

• Close support from InduSoft permitted Brookhaven to protect value of the existing DCS used for cryogenics while integrating operator access to controls on new plant devices.

Patrick Talty, Applications EngineerCryogenics SystemsAccelerator DivisionCollider-Accelerator Department

These three screen captures show three versions of the main gas management displays.

Left:The DOS-based originals which were replaced.

Bottom Left:The current display as it appears on a remote web browser, and

Above:The same display viewed on the screen of a regular workstation.

World’s largest cryogenic plant upgradescontrol system with InduSoftBrookhaven National Laboratory sees unexpected benefits

of gold ions head-on in a subato-mic collision. The ion beams are directed by 1800 magnets spaced around a huge loop, and beneath silvery insulation layers, super-cold gaseous helium bathes each magnet. This keeps them cold enough for the magnet’s super-conducting wire to work proper-ly. RHIC operates at 4.5 degrees above absolute zero on the Kelvin

Background

The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, NY is presently the world’s largest and most powerful accelerator used for fundamental subatomic research. Hundreds of physicists use RHIC to study what the universe may have looked like in the first moments after its creation. RHIC drives two intersecting beams

Left: The 80K cooler maintains refrigeration of liquid helium when main refrigeration unit is offline.

Bottom Left: A single operator display shows status of all control elements on the 80K cooler system.

Bottom Right: Operators can check status of the newly added cold snake superconducting magnet (which is controlled by its own, separate PLC) on the same PCs used for displays from the older DCS.

Continued from front page...

The Initial Challenge: Upgrade hundreds of operatordisplays on legacy control system

Until three years ago, the Brookhav-en cryogenics control system was a CRISP DCS, with the actual control logic running on redundant VAX’s. The operator interface was based on an old Digital PC PCWS (‘PC Work Station’) and it had hundreds of oper-ator displays. The cryogenics engi-neering staff was very happy with CRISP running on a VAX for the control logic. With this kind of proc-ess, where you have helium at -450ºF, if all that gas warms up it wants to ex-pand. This means it can escape into the atmosphere through overpres-sure relief valves. Brookhaven has

• Helium re-liquefier used duringshutdowns to re-liquefy the boiloff and avoid product loss.

• 80K cooler, a liquid nitrogen-

based cryogenic system de-signed to maintain the RHIC accelerator between 80 and100K while the main refriger-ator is not operating.

• A “cold snake superconduct-ing magnet” used to run other

accelerators on site. (This is new and has a separate PLC forcontrol.)

able to feel the temperature of the can drop sharply.

The Brookhaven cryogenics compressors operate around the clock for months at a time.

The cryogenics system controls four separate processes:

• Helium refrigerator and com-pressor is the main process.

temperature scale. The helium gas used to chill them requires its own separate refrigeration unit—the world’s largest cryogenic facility.

The Brookhaven plant uses an expansion process, in which they compress helium and then expand it to cool it. You could see an everyday example of this process by taking a spray can and holding down the nozzle for a long time--you will be

Top Left: This D5 gas management display shows how much data can be efficiently displayed on a single operator screen.

Center Left: The Brookhaven main compressor first compresses the helium…

Bottom Left: …and then the main refrigeration unit cools it by expansion.

Top Right: The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider drives beams of gold ions through these tunnels, guided by supercooled magnets.

2. The cryogenics plant cannow use TCP/IP networkinginstead of DECNET forcommunications to the VAXcontrol computers. InduSofthas worked closely withBrookhaven and SalemAutomation, going throughseveral iterations to develop avery high performancedriver for this purpose. Theresult is faster commun-ication using commerciallyavailable hardware.

The operator stations run on commercial PC’s and place minimal requirements on the hardware. A typical station includes a 2.8 GHz CPU with 512 MB of RAM, a 128 MB AGP bus video card.

The second phase of the upgrade involved rebuilding all operator dis-plays and is ongoing. This has result-ed in several unplanned benefits:

1. Because InduSoft makes use ofall the resources in a Windows

environment, the applicationsstaff has found it possible toconsolidate a number of screensand put all the data from threeor four old displays onto onegraphic. This simplifiesoperation.

tions driver allows them to talk directly to the VAX control system; no other HMI manufacturer offers this.

Since starting the project, Brook-haven has added an average of three or four InduSoft licenses per year, for a total of nine; one of these includes a 15-seat thin client license for brows-er-based displays over the internet. There are currently 10,000 I/O points viewable on the system, which figure includes both the legacy points and added data sources as well. There are a dozen operator stations, plus the web clients that anybody can pull up from any security enabled browser .

6,000,000 standard cubic feet in the pipes, and it would not be cheaply re-placed if we lost control of the proc-ess. This means reliability is very im-portant--and so staff wanted to be able to continue to use the proven control solution already in place.

The operator interface system was another story. The displays were cumbersome, inflexible, DOS-based and visually unappealing. The opera-tor’s system had limited connectivity, offered no way to import or export operational data across the network and had no practical upgrade path. However, because the system had hundreds of operator displays that would have needed to be rebuilt from scratch, the expense and downtime were a daunting prospect.

Solution: Migrate Existing Displays to Browser-Based InduSoft Operator System

Brookhaven has maintained a very close relation with the lab’s system in-tegrator, Salem Automation. During initial discussions about upgrading the operator interface, SA introduced the idea of using InduSoft and rec-ommended them because InduSoft had a history of a very close relation-ship to CRISP, the maker of the DCS for the control solution. In fact, In-duSoft already offered a migration tool for moving from CRISP to In-duSoft which meant that existing dis-plays could be re-hosted on newer hardware.

Once the decision was made to move to InduSoft, the legacy displays were migrated directly and seamless-ly. A unique InduSoft communica

Key Brookhaven personnel responsible for this project include:

Dieter Zantopp,Sr. Applications Engineer

Tom Tallerico,Research Engineer

Mike O’Donnell,Technical Associate

Patrick TaltyBrookhaven National Laboratory(631) 344-6195talty@bnl.gov

Top:Modular architecture simplifies use of rapid parallel development for applications such as this trend display.

Bottom:Brookhaven stores 6 million cubic feet of helium in both warm and chilled liquid form.

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from one file folder to another. Indi-vidual components can be developed and tested separately before merging.

Remote Monitoring

The ability to monitor operations from remote locations such as from home has given Brookhaven staff the flexibility to monitor things never seen before. This is not just new, it’s better.

Close Support

Not only could the InduSoft talk di-rectly to the VAX computers, but the InduSoft development staff worked closely with Brookhaven to continu-ously improve the driver—and they continue to do that.

Versatility

The fact that the InduSoft software is so versatile has come to the aid of the applications staff several times. For example, the OPC and TCPIP func-tionality mean that Brookhaven can use the InduSoft interface as a general purpose communications gateway.

3. Brookhaven has wrapped a lot of other applications into

this upgrade project, such asthe 80K RTP application.InduSoft integrates so wellthat operators often aren’taware that control processesmay be running on differenthardware.

Final Evaluation:InduSoft Meets Expectations and Modular Development Environment Supports Parallel ApplicationEngineering

The Brookhaven engineering staff found that InduSoft met and exceed-ed its expectations throughout the project.

Modular Development

In addition to a number of unplan-ned benefits encountered during im-plementation, staff has also found that because InduSoft is so modular in its organization it is very easy for team members to work independ-ently on a project and then merge their efforts easily. This is because dif-ferent tasks such as trending, com-munications and so forth are group-ed independently in the develop- ment environment. Upon comple-tion of a particular task, pulling it in-to the project is as simple as copying