Software ensures Gautrain’s success

12th April 2013

By: Chantelle Kotze

  

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Global engineering specialist solutions provider Kentz installed and commissioned the ArchestrA system platform software for the Gautrain rapid rail link project and has dealt with the system’s minor “teething problems, such as nuisance alarms, code faults and timing issues”.

“These problems do not affect the operation of the Gautrain but resolving them ensures that the system performs efficiently and punctually,” says Kentz electrical engineer Sheldon Frade.

Engineering and information technology company Invensys Operations Management’s operating division, Wonderware, together with Kentz, installed and is controlling the ArchestrA system platform software for the Gautrain.

The ArchestrA system platform and the Wonderware InTouch human–machine interface (HMI), which controls the station and tunnel management system (STMS) for the Gautrain system, are responsible for monitoring and controlling the various subsystems, such as the ventilation and fire detection and prevention systems.

The STMS is further responsible for energy monitoring and control, elevator and lift control, lighting control and water management, as well as the heating, ventilation and air-conditioning subsystem.

Kentz manages not only the STMS but also the Security Access Management System (SAMS), which uses the Inet Seven website hosting system with Schneider Electric’s Vista building management supervisory control and data acquisition (Scada) system.

During 2012, Kentz was awarded the maintenance contracts for the tunnel ventilation, fire protection and water management subsystems, as well as the STMS and the SAMS. The maintenance contracts include equipment checks at predetermined intervals, corrective maintenance, preventive maintenance and predictive maintenance.

The STMS and the SAMS interact with Gautrain system operator Bombela Operating Company’s (BOC’s) 10 Gb/s broadband Linux-based Scada system, which controls the signalling and tracks and interfaces with the closed-circuit television, public- address and voice-alarm subsystems.

Frade says each of the different subsystems has to be monitored constantly and alarms and conditions need to be filtered so that only certain information is passed on to the operational control centre (OCC) at Gautrain’s Midrand train depot.

The ArchestrA servers are also located at the Midrand train depot and are connected through a fibre-optic network to the local STMSes situated at each of the ten train stations along the 80 km Gautrain railway system that runs between Johannesburg and Pretoria.

Kentz was required to simultaneously platform-test Phase 2 of the Gautrain project during the commissioning and the normal oper- ation of Phase 1 in a pressured environment.

BOC requested that Kentz run the second bench of platform tests before the launch of Phase 2 in March 2011, which required Kentz to undertake development on Phase 2 of the system while commissioning Phase 1, says Frade.

Owing to this request, Kentz had less than 12 hours to incorporate Phase 2 into Phase 1 of the system without interfering with the section of rail between Sandton station and OR Tambo International Airport that was already commissioned.

The ArchestrA system platform, however, enabled testing and the making of changes without interfering with the normal operations of Phase 1 of the Gautrain system.

Despite the pressured software development undertaken by Kentz, the company successfully developed and installed the software in the short time frame as required by the Bombela Civils Joint Venture, says Frade.

System Overview
The ArchestrA system platform required 800 analogue inputs and 35 000 digital inputs, and produces 7 200 digital outputs, while all the initial development of the system platform was undertaken by one person, notes Frade.

The extendable system significantly reduces the development time of subsystems and is easily maintained using template-based and object-orientated structures.

However, a challenge for system integra- tors is the development time it takes to implement a platform, notes Frade.

Wonderware’s ArchestrA and InTouch HMI enabled Kentz to create standardised, reusable visualisation applications that could be deployed across the entire train network from the central Scada system at the Midrand depot.

The most compelling design aspect of the ArchestrA system platform, which uses the InTouch interface, is its reduced development time as a result of the system platform’s ability to develop the subsystems from the main ArchestrA Scada system and to populate the subsystems, says Invensys Operations Management Southern Africa marketing head Jaco Markwat, adding that this feature reduces the extra costs of buying software, servers and server licences.

ArchestrA automatically populates the subsystems, significantly reducing engineering time, he says, pointing out that the expansions to the subsystems are also faster as the ArchestrA system uses the generic template to accelerate design time.

It also provides a high-performance process historian with history archiving and retrieval, along with an industrial Web-based information server that simplifies the organisation and delivery of operations information to all functions within the network.

Remote maintenance is also possible and makes fault finding easier, as errors can be detected from a central log file without a technician having to be on site at the specific station, says Kentz maintenance technician Hennie van Tonder.

Edited by Tracy Hancock
Creamer Media Contributing Editor

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