News | July 13, 1998

Fisher-Rosemount Sees the Future of Fieldbus at a Canadian Paper Mill

Fisher-Rosemount/PlantWebick Basta

A 450,000 m.t./yr papermill in Avenor (Gatineau, Quebec) is the site of the first paper-industry installation of a Foundation Fieldbus control network, including field devices as well as field-based control software. The system, built primarily around components from <%=company%> (Austin, TX), was used by F-R as a demonstration of how its technology, and the Foundation Fieldbus standard, is delivering on its long-awaited promise for digital sensing and control.

The mill processes a combination of virgin and recycled pulp, and adds kraft pulp (produced elsewhere) to produce finished newsprint to customer specs. The F-R system runs the kraft pulping section, and uses level, pressure and temperature transmitters, a non F-R, 4-20-mA pulp consistency transmitter, and several brands of control valves equipped with F-R actuators.

Fig. 1: The Foundation Fieldbus delivers on the promise of digital sensing and control.

Four control loops are running, with PID function blocks (a feature of Fieldbus) running in transmitters and an F-R DeltaV controller.

The results: a tenfold speedup in configuration; a substantial savings in wiring costs (because multiple wires aren't needed to carry both signals and control messages), and the ability to add diagnostics, asset management and other plant-management functions. "To configure a system like this, I would normally expect to use a crew of three workers to get 10 or so instruments set up per day," says David St. Onge, a pocess technology manager for Avenor. "This setup went very quickly and smoothly." Avenor executives say that they also chose Foundation Fieldbus as a strategic decision to become familiar with the new technology. "This is the future of process control," concludes St. Onge.

F-R used the occasion also to roll out new control elements, and to update its PlantWeb technology for tying field-based control to plant information management. The new devices are the Model 3244MV temperature transmitter and the DVC 5000f series Fieldvue valve controller. Coming up soon are meters for flow and oxygen, and transmitters for pH and a new actuator. The PlantWeb Builder solution is a combination of equipment, systems engineering, training and related services for a complete control package.

Fig. 2: Some of the components of the Foundation Fieldbus control network.

Having been one of the strongest proponents of the Foundation standard, F-R also got a few digs in at the Profibus camp. (Profibus is a primarily European-based fieldbus standard for digital signaling and messaging. While both parties have a stated objective of complementary, if not interoperable, communications, both are competing to influence international standards bodies such as the International Electrotechnical Commission [IEC].) F-R says that Foundation Fieldbus has a broader base of support, and is technically better-citing, for example, its device description language (DDL) and its specification for defining function blocks. A next round of voting at the IEC level will occur during late summer, and F-R expects that the Foundation Fieldbus will win out.

Of course, F-R expects Foundation Fieldbus, and the way it is implemented with PlantWeb, to be a commercial hit for itself. "We are confident we've done it right," asserts John Berra, president of F-R. The company says that well over 200 DeltaV systems have been installed since that system's introduction several years ago. Nine plants, with applications including chemicals, refining, and pilot plants, will be installing PlantWeb systems this year.