Richard Loiselle

LED Lighting for Oil and Gas Facilities

Industrial petrochemical facilities have predominantly used high-intensity discharge light sources and installation practices unchanged for several decades. Today, new light-emitting diode (LED)-based products are being developed, and there appear to be many advantages to this technology; however, caution is advised in its application. This paper examines LED lighting technology, standards, and available products along with design and application considerations. Moreover, presented are case studies of LED luminaire retrofits in existing facilities. This paper discusses the results of the studies as they relate to safety, environment impacts, capital and operating costs, design implications, and installation improvements.

Industrial Lighting Safety, Can You See the Problem?

This paper demonstrates that an improved understanding of the industrial lighting environment, and the tasks that workers have to perform in these environments, may improve safety and health performance. It shows how occupational health & safety and the Illumination Engineering Society (IES) safe lighting conditions and standards are often misinterpreted or ignored and the effects this may have. The paper describes how industrial lighting systems are designed and built and maintained. Statistical data from actual work sites are discussed to illustrate the issues associated with poor lighting. Safety issues with regard to maintaining lighting systems are also explored. A case study involving many of the above elements are outlined. Conclusions and recommendations are presented to further the understanding of industrial lighting and safety

Can you see the problem

This paper investigates the lighting systems performance in occupational safety. Industrial safety experts continually strive to improve their site safety records with countless initiatives, all driven by a desire to improve worker safety.

Essential motor health monitoring

This paper explores what motor monitoring tools are available today to give the user proper tools to make informed decisions about when a motor needs maintenance, or even replacement before an unexpected failure occurs. It will first present a new approach to detect motor abnormal temperature rise which is possible due to degradation of the cooling system. This new functionality will compare expected motor temperature at a certain load current with an actual temperature obtained from RTDs, and is applicable to all motors thus equipped. Specific data is presented for the applicability of this monitoring technique to breathing versus enclosed motors. Significant deviation between expected and actual motor temperature rise values are an indication that the motor cooling system is not working properly and maintenance is required. This essentially means condition-based assessments of motor cooling versus routine, time-based motor cleaning. Secondly this paper will present other useful information, which can be obtained from modern digital relays, including learned data and trending of the motor starting currents and time, frequency and causes of the motor stops, increase/decrease of the load and unbalance over time, emergency restarts, motor operating temperature trending and many others.

Fire-Rated Cables Standards: Recent Developments for Safety, Facility, and Design Engineers

There have been a number of recent developments regarding standards for fire-rated cables, notably including a new test method for the petrochemical industry. It is vitally important that safety, facility, and design engineers are able to stay educated on these new standards and practices. This article is intended to serve that purpose: it will summarize current standards and will introduce the new IEEE 1717 Standard for Testing Circuit Integrity Cables Using a Hydrocarbon Pool Fire Test Protocol currently under development with the IEEE Insulated Conductor Committee (ICC). The scope of IEEE 1717 is to provide cable and/or system requirements and methods to perform circuit integrity cable testing on energized low-voltage power, control, and instrumentation cables at temperatures and heat fluxes simulating a hydrocarbon pool fire (HPF). The article will explain the reasons for choosing the Underwriters Laboratories (UL) 1709 furnace test with the electrical setup from UL 2196 as the basis for IEEE 1717. It will cover the recent draft of American Petroleum Institute (API) 2218 “Fireproofing Practices in Petroleum and Petrochemical Processing Plants” and related fire tests that are mentioned in UL 1709, American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) 1529, and UL 2196. In addition, API 14 FZ “Recommended Practice for Design, Installation, and Maintenance of Electrical Systems for Fixed and Floating Offshore Petroleum Facilities for Unclassified and Class I, Zone 0, Zone 1, and Zone 2 Locations” will be reviewed.