IS & Ex


Wireless gas detection from Yokogawa and GasSecure

September 2015 IS & Ex

Yokogawa and GasSecure, a Dräger owned company, have announced the delivery of their first SIL2-certified wireless gas detection system for use at an LNG facility in northern Europe.

Yokogawa has been developing a wide variety of ISA100 wireless technologies and field wireless devices such as adaptors that enable conventional wired devices to access wireless networks. It supplies these technologies and devices to plants and other facilities primarily in the upstream oil and gas sector. GasSecure has developed ISA100 wireless gas detectors that can detect leaks of explosive hydrocarbon gases and are certified for compliance with the ATEX directive and the IECEx Certified Equipment Scheme. These detectors are installed on offshore oil and gas drilling platforms and at tank farms, industrial plants, and the like. GasSecure has already supplied a number of these products to leading oil and gas companies around the world.

In 2014, GasSecure and Yokogawa concluded an agreement under which the two companies would jointly develop a wireless gas detection system that would meet the customer requirements of both organisations.

This system uses GasSecure’s GS01 wireless gas detectors to measure hydrocarbon gas concentrations. Using the ISA100 wireless communications protocol, the GS01 establishes a link with a Yokogawa YFGW510 access point and sends data to a host system via a Yokogawa YFGW410 field wireless management station. Although the GS01 uses a low-power infrared sensor and is extremely energy efficient, it has a very fast response time. This capability of the GS01 and the utilisation of dual redundant communications by Yokogawa’s field wireless products make them essential components for the construction of a fast and highly reliable monitoring solution.

To meet its customers’ safety requirements, GasSecure has made enhancements to the GS01 to obtain SIL2 certification for this device. For its part, Yokogawa has modified the YFGW410 so that it now supports the PROFIsafe safety communication standard, and has verified that both companies’ products perform and operate as specified.

Future direction

In the oil and gas, chemical, and other industries, safety is a paramount concern at production, storage and processing sites. Field wireless systems can be installed in difficult-to-wire locations and have lower cabling costs than wired systems. For these reasons, they are ideal for systems that collect production information such as flow rate, pressure and temperature. And unlike other wireless technology platforms, they can be used to construct systems that perform gas detection and other safety functions, and are well suited to this purpose. With the release of SIL2-certified wireless gas detection systems, Yokogawa will actively promote its field wireless equipment and systems, and will expand this business.

For more information contact Christie Cronje, Yokogawa South Africa, +27 (0)11 831 6300, [email protected], www.yokogawa.com/za



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