Functional Safety
The Global Interlock System (GIS) is designed as a stand-alone functional safety system for the observatory to protect personnel and equipment from hazards.
Functional safety refers to the concept of ensuring that a system, process, or product operates in a safe manner, particularly when it comes to preventing or mitigating hazards that could lead to harm, injury, or damage. The goal of functional safety is to minimize the likelihood and severity of accidents and incidents caused by system failures, errors, or malfunctions.
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Functional safety can be simply defined as:
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Components
The GIS consists of a number of interconnected Allen-Bradley GuardLogix safety PLCs that monitor the various subsystems of the facility. The PLCs are connected to various distributed I/O modules in and around the various subsystemsubsystems. The GIS uses it’s own private ethernet network.
Most of the components of the GIS are designed around a redundant safety architecture. In this design, the redundancy is used to ensure safety not to allow continued operation in the event of failure. A component failure results in the system transitioning to a safe, albeit non-operational condition.
The two three most recognizable parts of the GIS are the emergency stop devices and , the trapped key system and the HMI graphic interfaces.
Emergency Stop System
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The emergency stop devices, generally E-Stop Buttons, serve to provide a readily accessible means to shut down the observatory in case of an emergency.
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