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Entries tagged with: ExSILentia

  • by Chris O'Brien, CFSE
  • Thursday, January 07, 2016
  • Certification

Best Practices in Achieving Functional Safety in Turbine Applications - Part 3

The adoption of the functional safety standards continues to gain momentum in turbine applications. Both industrial and power turbine sites are now requiring compliance to IEC 61511. This blog will review both technical requirements and market trends related to functional safety system design. Market trends will cover which standards…

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  • 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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Conceptual Design and SIL Verification’s Ultimate Resource

Conceptual Design and SIL Verification’s Ultimate Resource

Getting Good Proof Test Coverage Numbers

Getting Good Proof Test Coverage Numbers

Several years ago we recognized that proof test coverage was an important variable that must be considered when doing PFDavg calculations. We ran some models and discovered that the difference between “perfect” proof test coverage (100%) and a very good 90% could mean a whole SIL

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Getting Realistic Failure Rate Data - Part 5

Over the course of several blogs , I will talk about getting realistic failure rate data, where this failure data comes from, and how different methods of failure data analysis compare. I think if you understand this, you will begin to get a very good feel of what it…

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  • by Chris O'Brien, CFSE
  • Tuesday, February 05, 2013
  • Software

How Do You Handle Interposing Relays?

Many times in the design of a safety instrumented system it is necessary to utilize an interposing relay. Typically there is not a certified relay available. Since no certified product is being used it is important to follow the requirements to justify prior use and also to design…

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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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Make IEC 61511 into a Cookbook?

IEC 61508 and IEC 61511 are known as “performance” based standards.  Specific design rules, as found in “prescriptive” standards, are not included, allowing for innovation and new technology, as well as creativity and advancement.  However, it does imply that a certain level of competency is required.

Others would strongly…

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OREDA Data vs. FMEDA Data

  • 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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Random versus Systematic Faults: What’s the difference?

Random versus Systematic Faults: What’s the difference?

I saw and responded to a LinkedIn discussion on this very issue, where someone had asked “if I have a misaligned limit switch that fails dangerously, then is it random or systematic? “.  This is an intriguing question because many view human error as being systematic and, whereas, this…

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Reducing Project Lifecycle Cost with exSILentia®
  • by Kate Hildenbrandt
  • Wednesday, January 18, 2017
  • Software

Reducing Project Lifecycle Cost with exSILentia®

The international functional safety standard IEC 61511 provides the safety lifecycle as a steadfast guideline to assess and mitigate risk for manufacturing processes including refineries, chemical, petrochemical, pulp and paper, and power plants. To achieve a functionally safe system, it is essential to follow each…

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Still Using Excel to do PFD Calculations?
  • by Steve Gandy, CFSP
  • Monday, April 28, 2014
  • Software

Still Using Excel to do PFD Calculations?

It’s very interesting to me to find that people are still using excel to do PFD calculations.  Whereas this is probably okay for simple single element architectures (i.e. single sensor, single logic solver and single final element), it becomes extremely complicated when dealing with redundant architectures.  Moreover, for performing…

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Super-Duper Logic Solver Data; So what?

The Battle of the Failure Rates

Site Specific vs. Product Specific

During a field failure analysis study, it was discovered that the calculated failure rate of a specific device varied by more than 4X depending on installation site.  Particularly, it was one specific site with a high failure rate.  While any reliability engineer…

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The exida FMEDA Process - Accurate Failure Data for the Process Industries

In this blog, I will talk about the FMEDA method and how it can generate realistically accurate failure rate data.

The first question we have to ask is “why do you need failure rate data ?”

One of the fundamental concepts in today’s functional safety standard, IEC 61508 and…

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The Importance Of Considering Common Cause with Redundant Systems

The Importance Of Considering Common Cause with Redundant Systems

Common Cause is one of those variables that is not always considered important when it comes to SIL compliance.  And yet, for redundant systems, it can have a significant impact on the PFDavg and Risk Reduction achieved (in Low Demand mode) or PFH (in high or continuous mode).  Most of the…

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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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  • by Dr. William Goble, CFSE
  • Wednesday, February 27, 2013
  • Software

The Real PFDavg Variables

I was recently asked how the PFDavg value in an exida FMEDA report was calculated. Those PFDavg values are calculated using the exSILentiaTM program. The person who posed the question was using the equations from Part 6 of IEC 61508 and got a different value. Why?

exSILentia

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

Using the PHAx™ Libraries