SIL Monitors

SIL Monitors supplied by SA Fire Protection

The SA Fire Protection fire-fighting SIL Monitors Niagara series are electric type remote controlled water cannons intended to deliver large amounts of water or water foam solution towards remote targets. They are commonly used to protect petrochemical jetty or within the process areas to cool structures, vessels or fight potential fires of a considerable magnitude.

From the safety availability point of view, the remote controlled monitor architecture comprises of a Logic Controller and one or more final elements (Monitor assembly). The logic controller is the heart of the system and distributes the commands to the monitor itself.

In such system, or at least in the simplest version, the detector is not normally integrated and the system responds directly to human actions.

The Niagara monitors have been assessed and validated by BV as suitable for safety instrumented systems with an expected SIL2 level. The increased reliability performance of the Niagara series monitor is related to its particular design, which allows an automatic selfdiagnostic analysis to be performed. At regular intervals the self-diagnostic system implemented in the Logic Controller checks the correct operation of the monitor actuators on given commands, allowing for constant monitoring of any possible failure of the monitor and the nozzle. In case of an anomalous condition, a warning signal is sent to the control station.

Advantages:

A possible failure of a traditional electric remote controlled monitor can be detected only when periodic maintenance and test are performed.

The constant monitoring of the system status implemented in the Niagara series monitors, instead, allows a possible failure to be detected and repaired when the fire protection system is in “safe condition”, sharply increasing the reliability of the overall fire system on demand.

Such improvement reduces the probability that faults, taking places among regular maintenance intervals, will pass undetected.

Detecting a possible fault in a safety system in time, rather than in a fire condition, can make the difference on the emergency operation success.