customizing your operator training simulation with simit

Customizing Your Operator Training Simulation with SIMITA Step-by-Step Approach

usa.siemens.com/summitUnrestricted © Siemens 2018

Unrestricted © Siemens Industry, Inc. 2018

2018 Automation Summit

• Title: Customizing Your Operator Training Simulation with SIMIT

• Track: Digitalization

• Presenter: Harry Pigler

• Company: Pigler Automation, LLC

• Session # (for your survey): 8.4


About Pigler Automation, LLC

Pigler Automation, LLC is a Siemens Solution Provider for PCS7 located in Longmont, Colorado

• Founded in 2005

• PCS7 Certified SIEMENS Solution Partner

• 10 engineers on staff

• Industries served: chemical, power, mining...

• We specialize in:

• Turn-key process control solutions• PCS7 conversions & upgrades• Onsite & remote support services• Customized Siemens PCS7 training

Photo is licensed under CC BY-SA


Biography

Harry Pigler

• Born and raised in Germany, US and Austrian Nationality

• Electrical Engineering Degree from Universität Erlangen-

Nürnberg, Germany (Dipl. Ing.)

• 20+ years employment with Siemens in Germany and the US

• Chief Operating Officer with Pigler Automation, LLC since 2005

• PCS7 Certified Process Control Engineer

Photo licensed under CC BY


Creating an OTS Tailored to Our Customer’s Needs

Our Task:

Create an Operator Training Simulation for a three-unit hydropower plant

Our Customer‘s Requirements:

• Simulation set-up should be portable and user-friendly

• Virtual Controllers should be utilized

• Medium-fidelity simulation desired

• For experienced personnel to train or refresh on rare but critical plant

upsets.

• Less-experienced personnel to train on normal operations (start-up,

shutdown, etc.)

• Order of events should remain time-critical, where an operator response

is required in real-time


Our Solution

• Medium fidelity OTS with customized breaker and generator control components

• Five distributed Virtual Controllers used

• 3 VCs for the Units• 1 VC for Station

Service• 1 VC for Switchyard


Our Solution

• Custom component created with SIMIT CTE to mimic both the governor and excitation controls

• Responsive to start and stop commands, mode changes, as well as MW and MVarsetpoints

• Flexible enough to use on wide variety of hydro turbines


Our Solution

• Ability to dynamically trigger specific tripping mechanisms

• Cause & Effect OTS dashboard provided with a variety of more focused failure scenarios, with expected outcomes for reference


Creating an OTS, Step-by-Step

• Real PLC or VC?• Quantity? Need to

Distribute?

Know your customer’s setup

• Training requirements• What scenarios to

focus on?• What level of fidelity?

Understand your customer’s scope • Core of work to be

done in SIMIT Simulation Platform

• Highly customized work to be done in SIMIT CTE

Design & Implement

• Get initial feedback• Make revisions to

process simulation as required

Test• “Train the trainers”• Provide support as

needed

Deploy


Our Focus Today: Design & Implementation Exercise

Globex Corporation desires an OTS for their auxiliary plant functions. Specifically, their plant power distribution & cooling water system


Our Focus Today: Design & Implementation Exercise

Our Customer’s Setup:

• All auxiliary plant functionality handled by one non-redundant PLC

• Single OS-server, one OS Client set-up

Our Customer’s Scope:

• OTS should be a low to medium fidelity, portable simulation• Use of a Virtual Controller preferred• Training should encompass valve feedback and pump failures,

as well as power circuit breaker failures during normal operation

• All events should occur in ‘real-time’

What We’ll Cover:

• Working with custom templates in SIMIT for pump feedback & fault response

• Creating custom components utilizing SIMIT CTE (Component Type Editor)

Photo by CC BY-SA


Page 18

Simulating Pump Responses with a Custom Template

• We need to simulate the response of two on/off cooling water booster

pumps

• Let‘s create a custom template in SIMIT based on the MotorLean

template available in the library


Page 19


• We create a new template

in the Project templates

folder named SimpleMotor

• Next, we copy in the

MotorLean components &

make adjustments

• Couplings renamed for

simplicity

• Motor name made visible

• Fault response logic

added

• Save!


Page 20


• We then create a charts folder

named Cooling Water and drag

and drop the Simple Motor

template into it

• The Instantiate template dialog

will appear – enter the correct

values for each placeholder

• Rename the chart 10-M-0110


Page 21


• We can use the SimpleMotor

template to quickly create the

logic for the second booster

pump


Page 23

OTS Dashboard Screen

During an operator training session, we

want to minimize the need to switch

between SIMIT screens

• An overview screen will contain the

basic OTS controls to trigger various

equipment failures

• Connectors bridge the signals

between charts

• A switch control component is used to

initiate a pump or valve feedback

failure during training


Page 24

Simulating a Power Circuit Breaker

We need to simulate the response of a Power

Circuit Breaker (PCB) with auto recloser action for

use in the Power Distribution System simulation

• The auto recloser should check for a fault

condition

• If the fault condition is no longer active AND

the last command to the breaker was to

close, the recloser should close the breaker

Photo licensed under CC BY-SA


Page 25

Simulating a Power Circuit Breaker, Our Options

We could create a macro in SIMIT, which

is a similar to a Chart-In-Chart setup in

PCS7

• Macros utilize components from the

library as building blocks

• Easier, sometimes faster to use

• Is part of the basic SIMIT package

• Less flexible than using SIMIT CTE

• No link or faceplate available


Page 26

Simulating a Power Circuit Breaker, Our Options

We want to be able to visualize the power

distribution system on the OTS Dashboard in SIMIT;

therefore, we will require the PCB to have its own

link and faceplate in SIMIT

• We would also like to avoid creating a

complicated macro

• Don‘t want to be limited by the SIMIT library

components as our basic building blocks

...We need to create a new component in SIMIT

CTE

Photo licensed under CC BY-SA


Page 27

Creating a PCB Breaker Component in SIMIT CTE

The SIMIT Component Type Editor (CTE) tool is

used to create custom components

• Standalone tool

• Additional SIMIT license required

• Less intuitive, but more flexible

• Software programming experience required

• Be prepared for old school troubleshooting:

!!No Debug Functionality Available!!


Page 30


• First, we select Connectors to

open the connection editor

• Connectors need to be defined –

these are the input and output

signals of the component

• Each should be assigned a

unique name, type and direction

(input or output)

• Inputs can be assigned default

values

• The Number field should always

be a 1


Page 31


• Parameters can be defined in order to configure instances of the component

• In Parameter, we can create two new parameters:

• An integer, BreakerNumber, will contain the breaker‘s assigned tag

• A text entry, Area, will contain the breaker‘s location


Page 32


• Connector signals do not retain memory between cyclic executions of the component in runtime,

instead they are re-calculated with every execution

• State variables serve as the memory of the component, and will retain their value between cyclic

executions

• In States, three new variables have been created to retain the components open/close, fault and

recloser state


Page 34


All code is placed inside

of a BLOCK in the cyclic

calculation area

• Code is executed in

a sequential fashion,

from the beginning to

END_BLOCK

• The block itself is

executed cyclically

• Script syntax can be

found in the SIMIT

Simulation Platform

manual, by pressing

F1, or by selecting

Help Show help in

the SIMIT CTE

toolbar


Page 35


Connectors with the Symbol

& property view usage

assigned will be displayed

automatically on the basic

symbol

• The basic symbol is the

graphical representation

of the component used in

SIMIT charts

• Input and output

connections are

displayed with green and

red arrows


Page 36


A Link (block icon) has been

created for the component to

act as a different graphical

representation in SIMIT

• The breaker status will be

indicated by the color of

the block

• An open status will be

gray in color, and a

closed status will be red

• Holding Shift & Ctrl while

dragging and dropping

the basic symbol will

display the component‘s

link in SIMIT


Page 40

Putting it all Together, Finalizing the OTS Dashboard


Page 41

Testing the OTS


Page 42

What’s Next

• More SIMIT OTS work on the horizon

• We are currently working on a Pigler Automation SIMIT

component library for Hydropower Plants

• Pigler Automation to continue to participate in SIMIT

beta testing

Photo licensed under CC BY-NC-ND


Page 43

Customizing Your Operator Training Simulation with SIMIT

Name: Harry Pigler

Company: Pigler Automation, LLC

Email: [email protected]

Phone: (866) 871-1456 ext. 2

Cell: (303) 817-1121

Session # (for your survey): 8.4

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