Tried and tested by decades in the harshest environment: Saia®PCD
Thousands of Saia®PCD controllers have been tried and tested for years in the harshest of all environments: the ship’s engine room. Here the air is salty and thick; heat and humidity prevail; everything vibrates. But despite all this, even the oldest Saia®PCD4 controllers are still in operation, without any special measures.
For three years, Brunvoll has relied on the latest Saia® technology with PCD3. Due to our leadership in web-based automation, new possibilities have opened up that increase the scope of our offering and bring Brunvoll further competitive advantages, more efficiency, and significant cost reductions.
Contrasting demands for operator guidance
High above in the bridge of the ship, the helmsman is master of many megawatts of power. Using a joystick, he decides the speed and direction, thereby influencing several drives running in parallel – as if it were child’s play. There is no sign here of the rugged environment far below in the engine room. Between bridge and engine room are up to 15 decks, rather like a small high-rise building.
Apart from their main drives, large ships have several manoeuvring drives mounted laterally. Each drive has its own hydraulic system and its own Saia®PCD controller. Control elements and display instruments in the switch cabinet allow each drive to be controlled from the engine room too.
The contrast between demands on operator guidance on the bridge and those in the engine room could not be greater. Here prestige applies. Everything shines and lights up. A general overview is central, but the individual details of all drives are not ignored. These are looked after by another Saia®PCD3 as the central system for coordination of all drives. A redundant-type bus system, which satisfies strict safety standards, is where all operational data runs together, and where new correcting variables are calculated and passed on to the individual drives. Third-party systems, such as radar and GPS, are connected to this central controller across other interfaces.
New approach to control and monitoring thanks to web technology
In the past, Brunvoll had to implement and maintain two control concepts: a workmanlike one for the engine room and a fine one for the bridge.
Two years ago, Brunvoll bought the first Saia®PCD micro-browser Web-Panels, which are intended to replace the existing, conventional panels on the bridge as well as the electromechanical display instruments in the engine room.
In future, Brunvoll will only implement and maintain a single control concept. All user interfaces will be stored as web projects in the individual controllers. It will therefore be possible to call them from anywhere. In the engine room, the MB-Panel replaces the existing “wired” visualization with its lit keys and displays. On the bridge, everything is scalable and can be used according to requirements, from MB-Panels to eXP-Panels, from 5.7’’ displays to 15’’ displays. A single project for the most diverse requirements saves engineering and production time.
A wide variety of components for control and monitoring is reduced to a few items: the Saia®PCD Web-Panel. For this we have developed on Brunvoll’s behalf a customized, configurable rotation object, so that all dynamic processes associated with the drives can be represented efficiently: motor load, thruster position and degree of propeller adjustment.
Next project in our sights: motorized handle tracking (joystick)
On the bridge of large ships, operator guidance for the drives is provided in multiple versions. When putting into port, control devices on the extreme left or right are used. When cruising at sea, those aligned centrally are used. In this way, the helmsman always has the optimum viewing angle on his surroundings, whether near or far.
Handles built into the different control stations must always stand in the current position, regardless of where the ship is being steered from, i.e. the handles must track manual operation. Prototypes have been built with handles from Brunvoll that have been equipped with Saia® stepper motors, which in turn are driven by a further Saia®PCD3. This concept is currently in its test phase.
Successful partnership: Brunvoll – Saia
We like customers like Brunvoll: reliable, highly productive and innovative, and always striving for innovations that ultimately serve the customer – in this case, the ship owner.
Suppliers must also live up to these aspirations. For Saia-Burgess Controls, Brunvoll is in every regard a perfect example: the requirements for high quality in standard products, the will and the ability to respond to special demands and produce solutions by collaborating well with the customer, from prototype to production readiness.
With Saia®PCD, we are well positioned and full of confidence for the next 20 years.