What is Intrinsic Safety?
Intrinsic Safety is a method of protection used in mainly Instrumentation, Control and Automation systems to prevent ignition in hazardous areas. If you are an Instrumentation, Control Systems, Automation or Electrical/Electronics engineer who wishes to understand Intrinsic safety in detail, then this Intrinsic Safety training course helps you learn all that you need to know about the subject.
What are Hazardous Areas?
Hazardous Areas are those places in a plant, facility or site where flammable or explosive mixtures of gases, vapors and dusts are likely to be present. The equipment and instruments used in these hazardous areas need to be such that their use will not be the cause of fires or explosions. These kind of equipment are referred to as “explosion protected” equipment.
Note: Many people use the term”explosionproof” to refer to any explosion protected equipment, however this is not correct, explosionproof is just one of the many methods of protection used in hazardous areas. Intrinsic Safety, Increased Safety, Pressurization, Purging are other commonly used protection methods.
Hazardous Areas are not found only in the usual suspected places like Oilfields, gas processing plants or Chemical manufacturing sites; indeed they can be found in mundane locations like grain silos or sugar processing factories too (where dust explosions can take place). Even metal dust can cause explosions.
Why is Intrinsic Safety used as a method of protection?
Intrinsic Safety is a preferred method of protection used in hazardous areas, because it is a preventive technique. These Intrinsically safe systems prevent high levels of energy from reaching the hazardous area and causing explosions.
Using Intrinsically safe loops have several advantages as given below.
What are the advantages of using Intrinsic Safety?
Intrinsic Safety is popular due to the following advantages that it has.
- It is the only technique permitted to be used in Zone 0, where explosive mixtures of gases or vapors could be continuously present.
- One can do live maintenance on the instruments. This is very useful while troubleshooting in a running plant. There is no need to power off or isolate the field instrument or control valve before opening the cover.
- There is no need of using special explosionproof junction boxes or cable glands. One can use weatherproof boxes.
What about Intrinsically Safe motors?
Note that it takes a very small amount of energy to be the cause of an explosion and hence IS systems are low power equipment. Thus most IS protected equipment are instrumentation and control system loops, Intrinsic Safety cannot be used for heavy electrical equipment like motors.
Why should you take this Intrinsic Safety Training Course?
Also Intrinsic Safety loops need to be designed, installed and maintained by trained personnel only. This online Intrinsic Safety training course is an easy way to learn everything in one place. You will learn everything about intrinsic safety design by using suitable instruments and associated apparatus.
Most Instrumentation engineering curriculum in colleges and universities do not cover this subject at all. Most engineers learn this by themselves on the job, while having to refer to different books, guides and standards. This can become tedious and time consuming. The easier alternative is to take this Intrinsic Safety training course and learn everything that you need to know. This is part of having competency in hazardous areas.
What does the Abhisam Intrinsic Safety Training Course include?
The Abhisam Intrinsic Safety Training course is the easiest way to learn and understand how to design Intrinsically Safe instrument loops using various sensors, transmitters, barriers (either Zener barriers or Isolators), learn what are the important aspects of international standards such as IEC 60079 and NEC, how Intrinsically Safe devices are used in Fieldbus networks and what you need to carry out inspection and maintenance. This is essential to maintain intrinsic safety certification of your installation.
Where can I learn about Explosionproof, Increased Safety, Pressurization, Purging and other methods of protection?
You can take the Abhisam Hazardous Area Instrumentation training course that covers all of these protection methods in detail.
Does this course cover Hazardous Area Classification?
The basics are covered in this course, so that you know the differences between say Zone 0 and Zone 1, or Division 1 and Division 2.
However , if you wish to learn about area classification in detail, including how to assess hazardous areas and carry out Hazardous Area Classification, then you need to take the Abhisam Hazardous Area Classification training course.