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Entries tagged with: Iwan Van Beurden

A Ball Valve with Safe Failures! Really?

Look at the photo. What do you see? I see a ball valve with:

  • a valve body
  • a ball
  • a stem that can turn the ball

What are the high level potential failures for a ball valve?

A Spring Return Scotch-Yoke Actuator with No Safe Failures! Really?

scotch yoke

Look at the picture. What do you see? I see a spring return actuator with

  • a diaphragm chamber
  • a spring chamber
  • the scotch-yoke mechanism

What are the high level potential failures for a ball valve?

  • Scotch-yoke mechanism breaks, can no longer operate valve…

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  • by Iwan van Beurden, CFSE
  • Monday, July 23, 2012
  • Software

Analysis and Realization: Done. Let’s Start Operation… What’s Next?

Congratulations! You’ve completed the Analysis and Realization phases of the Safety Lifecycle, and are about to begin the Operation phase, but what’s next? Well obviously you need to do proof testing, but is there anything else? You may be familiar with the figure below:

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  • by Iwan van Beurden, CFSE
  • Thursday, March 21, 2013
  • Software

Changing the PVST Interval. Hey, my Architectural Constraints changed!

  • by Iwan van Beurden, CFSE
  • Wednesday, March 20, 2013
  • Software

Changing the PVST Interval. Hey, my failure rates changed!

I’ve been receiving several inquiries lately regarding the impact of the Partial Valve Stroke Test (PVST) interval on the failure rates of a final element. Specifically asking how does exSILentia® deal with this? exSILentia® allows users to specify if partial stroke testing is performed on their final…

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Fake Fact: Final Elements should not be included in SIF evaluation

Fake Fact: Final Elements should not be included in SIF evaluation

Ehh… If your safety action is stopping flow/closing a valve, how are you going to accomplish this if you consider that the remote actuated valve is not part of your SIF ?

So, what is this myth based on? The title of IEC 61508 reads “Functional safety of electrical/electronic/programmable…

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Functional Safety and Taxes: Are you an expert?

Today, April 15th, is tax-day in the US.  Ok, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has given us a few extra days this year (the tax filing deadline is not until April 18th).

There are a lot of similarities between how you do your taxes and how you handle…

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LOPAx™: This is Awesome!
  • by Iwan van Beurden, CFSE
  • Thursday, April 30, 2015
  • Software

LOPAx™: This is Awesome!

You will probably not hear me sing the LEGO® Movie’s “Everything is Awesome” song, I’ll keep that private (and you should be thankful to me for that). However as we just released the LOPAx™ module of the new exSILentia® v4 platform, I have come to…

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  • by Iwan van Beurden, CFSE
  • Tuesday, December 13, 2011
  • Certification

Make a list…and be sure to check it twice

Let me start by wishing everybody a Happy Holidays and Love, Health, Peace, and Safety for 2012. My 5-year old son is very excited about all the holiday decorations. As we celebrate Christmas in my family, we emphasize the birth of baby Jesus as the reason for Christmas, but,…

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My Proof Test Coverage is Better Than Yours!

  • by Iwan van Beurden, CFSE
  • Monday, May 23, 2016
  • Software

PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT: exSILentia® – PHA / PHAx™

Each month at exida, we strive to spotlight one of our products that makes the job easier for today's industry professional.  In this blog, I wanted to talk about the PHAx module as part of our exSIlentia Safety Lifecycle Suite.

Process Hazards Analysis (PHA)

Process…

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PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT: Practical SIL Target Selection - Risk Analysis per the IEC 61511 Safety Lifecycle

PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT: Safety Equipment Reliability Handbook, 4th edition

Each month at exida, we strive to spotlight one of our products that makes the job easier for today's industry professional.  In this blog, I wanted to talk about our latest edtion of the SERH (Safety Equipment Realiability Handbook)

The SERH provides a collection of failure rate data…

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Super-Duper Logic Solver Data; So what?

That is impossible! It has never happened before…

A week ago Sunday I was traveling to Baton Rouge, LA. I was flying out of Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) connecting in Houston (George Bush Intercontinental Airport - IAH) with my final destination as Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport (BTR). Under normal circumstances I would probably have flown directly…

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The exida Certificate Explained

The exida Certificate Explained

A manufacturer whose product passes the exida IEC 61508 Assessment Scheme will receive a certificate based on IEC 61508 and perhaps other functional safety standards. There is a significant amount of information on a certificate that may not be always trivial for a novice. This document explains how one…

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The Meaning of Tool Integration
  • by Iwan van Beurden, CFSE
  • Tuesday, June 14, 2016
  • Software

The Meaning of Tool Integration

What does tool integration mean? One can argue it is the ability for different tools to talk to each other and exchange data. Though this may be true from a typical software tool integration, a common definition of integrate, i.e. to bring together or incorporate (parts) into a whole…

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The Non-Hackable System – Wait a Minute, What?

The Non-Hackable System – Wait a Minute, What?

I had the privilege to attend the CDS-forum in Trondheim, Norway on October 15, 2019. The CDS-forum is a Norwegian Industry Forum for Cybersecurity of Industrial Automation and Control Systems. The forum is a co-operation between oil companies, engineering oil companies, consultants, vendors and researchers, with a…

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  • by Iwan van Beurden, CFSE
  • Thursday, February 26, 2015
  • Software

Using the PHAx™ Libraries

  • by Iwan van Beurden, CFSE
  • Tuesday, January 17, 2012
  • Certification

Why am I not on “the list?”