Customizing Your Operator Training Simulation with SIMIT

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

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Unrestricted © Siemens Industry, Inc. 2018

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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


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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


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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


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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


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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


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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


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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


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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


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Our Focus Today: Design & Implementation Exercise

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


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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


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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


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• 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!


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• 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


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• We can use the SimpleMotor

template to quickly create the

logic for the second booster

pump


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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


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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


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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


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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


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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!!


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• 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


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• 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


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• 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


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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


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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


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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


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Putting it all Together, Finalizing the OTS Dashboard


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Testing the OTS


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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


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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

Customizing Your Operator Training Simulation with SIMIT

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