We are Engineering a Process Plant where the Hazardous Area Classification can be up to Zone 1 (Hydrogenation reactor) We want to use the Bus Technology. Foundation Fieldbus as well as ASI Bus.

We understand that FF can be used in Hazardous area.
Similarly can we use ASI Bus in Hazardous area? Are the Quick Connectors Cable can be made available in Hazardous area Specification? Is there any Distance Limitation if we have to use the ASI bus in Hazardous area as well as number of slaves that can be on single segment? Can Power still be drawned from the ASI Bus? Is there any power Limiting element to be added on the Trunk Line? Which are the Manufacturers for that?

 

Take a look at http://www.pepperl-fuchs.com/

Regards

Sterckx A.

 

Hi R V Kulkarni,

I believe that you are worried about your bus generating high energy and causing some accident (fire, explosion etc.).

Remember that there are cables carying very high amount of energy as compared to instrument cables like power to pumps and compressors going to the same hazardous area. But they follow approved engineering practices to ensure that any unwanted incident does not occur.

You can use any bus in hazardous areas by following approved standard engineering practices. In case any cable or connector for any bus is non-hazardous area type, then you can use conduiting to make it usable in hazardous area application. Modules that are not hazardous area classified can be used within exproof (or z purge) junction boxes.

Or if there are intrinsic safety modules for these buses, then the same can be used, but you need to follow approved engineering practices.

But you are going to add up in terms of cost by using a non-classified product in a classified area! In other words, in case you choose to use conduitinmg in one type of bus while the second one does not require conduiting, then there is obviously a cost addition to the first bus.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Anand Iyer http://business.vsnl.com/deneb_solutions/index1.html