Do you know what to look for in a good Control Valve Design? Do you know what you should NOT do with control valves? Learn from Hans D. Baumann’s experience in his book: Control Valve Primer: A User’s Guide Fourth Edition which covers topics such as flow characteristics, control valve installation, environmental concerns, valve sizing, fail-safe [...]
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ISA Automation Week 2012 Program Chair Q&A
This year’s ISA Automation Week will be held in Orlando, Fla., on 24–27 September at the Orange County Convention Center. It will offer a world-class, unbiased technical program built around “operational and technical excellence.” ISA Insights recently sat down with Peter Martin, ISA Automation Week 2012 program chair, to find out more about this year’s [...]
Measuring level interfaces
Measuring the interface between two liquids in a tank presents unique challenges Finding the interface between two liquids in a tank is critical for some processes. A common measurement in the oil & gas, chemical, and petrochemical industries is detecting the interface level between two liquids in the same tank or vessel, such as oil [...]
ISA Communications Division to host Wireless Factory Automation Workshop
Market developments form the foundation of the premier ISA Wireless Factory Automation Workshop, with a focus of “The Last Meter – Leveraging economies of scale of mass market technologies to meet factory automation wireless communication needs at the edge of the architecture.” The ISA Communications Division will host this workshop on 16-17 April at the [...]
Fossil Fuel Committee Publishes Functional Requirements
Organizations that operate fossil fuel plant control room simulators deal with different operator and training practices. Yet they share common goals when it comes to personnel safety, maximum equipment availability and lifetime, and ensuring efficient operations. When the ISA77.20 subcommittee reviewed the existing standard, ANSI/ISA77.20.01, Fossil Fuel Power Plant Simulators: Functional Requirements, they updated many [...]
ISA author shares early machinery days with servomotors
Gary Kirckof, P.E. finds servomotors exciting. So much so that he wrote a book on the topic called Servomotor Sizing and Application. “What’s exciting,” says Kirckof, “is servomotors can do more than just move an object from point A to point B. Collectively the motors can move linkages, such as robots, but they do so [...]
ISA introductions: North Dakota State College of Science Section
ISA Insights asked the North Dakota State College of Science ISA Student Section to participate in a brief question and answer session to familiarize ISA members with this section. Shane Suko, associate professor of Electrical Technology at North Dakota State College of Science, participated in this introduction. Insights: Describe your section to other ISA Members [...]
Enhance your skill sets with ISA technical training and resources
Opportunity abounds for career-oriented automation professionals who want to enhance and develop technical knowledge and professional skills, especially when these skills can lead to higher wages, elevated workplace status, peer recognition, and so on. For many, however, the challenge is getting started. A wealth of information, training programs, and other technical resources are readily available [...]
Uninterruptible power supplies, cybersecurity
… Once a hacker has gained access to a moderately secured network, they can easily determine the IP addresses of every device on the network. Using port scans, they then can determine if the device communicates through HTTP, SNMP, Telnet, MODBUS, etc. Once the communications protocol has been established, the hacker will first attempt to [...]
Q&A: ISA Boston Section
Insights: Describe your section to other ISA members as if you were speaking to someone hearing about it for the first time. The Boston Section has for many years been an active section, always seeking to encourage others in the Boston Section. We find new members can offer new ideas for plant tours and dinner [...]