Instrumentation Design Engineer

[Link]/instrumentation-design-engineer

Jatin Katrodiya February 26, 2021

An Industrial plant facility typically executed in mainly three domains:

Contents
1. Engineering,
2. Procurement, and
3. Construction.

Once construction is completed then it is commissioned with respect to design (Engineering)

requirement.

After the commissioning phase plant is handed over to the Operation and maintenance team for
further production and related maintenance.

Engineering of any plant deals with lot of documents, specifications, drawings, calculation,
special studies, reports, and modelling work etc.

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Procurement deals with floating RFQ (request for quotation) for material and services, getting
offers from vendors, aligning commercial & logistic aspects and issuing purchase orders etc

Construction deals with installation / erection of all items purchased by procurement as per
drawings and in accordance with documents produced by Engineering.

Engineering of industrial facility involves close coordination between various disciplines like
Process, safety, piping, civil, mechanical, electrical and instrumentation, etc.

For detailed Control and Instrumentation Engineering, one should understand list of deliverables,
its purpose, and contents inside document or drawing.

For any typical project following are drawings/documents generated by the instrument Engineer.

A Control and instrument (C&I) engineer performs field instrument engineering, control
system engineering, installation engineering, and package engineering.

Field Instrument Engineering

General specification of Instrumentation / Design Basis

Instrument Index
Datasheet of Valves, Instruments (Pressure, temperature, flow, level, Analyser, Fire and Gas
devices, etc
Selection/ sizing calculation for control valves, flow elements/ meters, thermowell, DP Level
calculation, Pressure safety valve,

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 Level Sketch drawing
Voltage drop calculations
SPI / AVEVA / COMOS database setup

Control System Engineering

Specification of Control and Safety systems

I/O List including alarm and trip summary
Serial interface database
System Architecture drawings
Functional schematic, Graphics
Logic Diagram / write-up
Trend, Control group
Auxiliary/ Hardwired console layout
Interface with Electrical
Intrinsically safe calculation
UPS Load list / requirements
SIL verification calculation
FF Segment Validation

Installation Engineering
Standard installation drawing
Hook up diagram
Instrument Air Supply and distribution layout
Main cable tray/ trench/ duct routing drawing, Cable Tray sizing, Junction box grouping
Fire and Gas detector layout
Control room Building layouts
Cable block diagram / Instrument Cable Schedule and Termination details,
Instrument Loop drawing/wiring drawing
Instrument location / Junction box location drawings
MTO for installation materials
3D modelling review

Package Engineering

Specification of MMS, HIPPS, BMS, WHCP, Packaged control system, etc

Interface with Field instrument engineering, Control system Engineering and installation
engineering.

MMS: Machine Monitoring system,

HIPPS: High integrity pressure protection system,

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BMS: Burner management system,

WHCP: Wellhead control panel

For each deliverable an Instrument engineer must closely coordinate with other discipline either
for seeking input or providing output.

Project success lies in timely and correctly co-ordinating with other disciplines.

Control Valve Selection during Design Phase

Following is a typical example for Control valve interfaces for various input and output with
multiple disciplines, but not limited to.

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Activity Interface Purpose

Control Valve From Process Process data/process datasheet for control valve to
Process data Team instrument Team by process team (which includes
flowrate, diff pressure, temperature, density, etc) A special
requirement such as Max flow limitation, the applicability of
fire zone, etc to be indicated by the process team

Sizing By Instrument Instrument team performs the sizing calculation by tools

calculation Team like Conval and/ Instrument datasheet with indicative Cv is
sent to vendors for their offer. In case of
cavitation/flashing, process data should be cross-checked
with the process team for further selection

Material From Piping Valve material specification / Piping material specification

Specification Team are referred for Control valve body material, Trim material,
flange rating, etc requirements

Selection By Instrument Based on valve sizing and vendor offer; valve type and
Team size are indicated by the instrument team on P&ID.
Special attention for severe service like high temperature,
cryogenic service, Large size valves, Governing valves etc

P&ID Interface To Process Team Legend mark up to process team to be provided in case of
additional accessories like Partial stroke testing or MOV
related signals. Valve Typical to be modified if required.

Utility To Process Team Instrument Air required for control valve is given to process
requirement team for IA compressor / receiver sizing

Utility To Electrical In case of Electrical actuator, power requirement is given

requirement Team to electrical team for feeder and ACDB sizing

Face-Face To Piping Team Face-to-face dimension, valve size, rating, facing of control
dimension valve to be given to Piping team to incorporate in 3D
models

General To piping team 1. GAD of control valves to be given to the piping team to
arrangement reserve the space for accessibility and maintenance. The
drawing instrument team shall ensure accessories orientation and
location for ease of maintenance. 2. Fire-proofing jacket
dimensions, in case valve is in fire zone

Nozzle To Piping Team In case, steam jacketed control valve interface should be
interface for done with piping for nozzle orientation for inlet and outlet
utility nozzles.

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 Activity Interface Purpose

Special Case To piping team, In the case of hydraulic actuators, interface with the piping
Civil team, team, civil team, process team, and the electrical team is
process team done for Hydraulic tank, pumps, oil tubing/piping up to
and electrical actuator, Panels, etc (e.g. Steam Governing Control
team valves, although vendor engineered item but interface
required when you receive documents.)

Typical Instrument Design Example

Below is a typical example showing how international codes & standards and local regulations are
considered for Control Valve during the design or engineering phase.

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Engineering Team Activities
Activities done by Engineering team during procurement phase

Material requisition to approved vendor list

Evaluation of offer submitted by vendors
Technical queries to vendors
Technical bid analysis
Purchase requisition
Vendor drawing review

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 Review of client/ PMC comment on Engineering and/vendor documents
Prepare Comment resolution sheets
Inspection
Change order if any, PO amendments inputs

Instrumentation Design Softwares

Software used in instrument calculation/layouts/modeling but not limited to following

3D modelling software – Plant Design System (PDS – 3D) / Smart plant 3D (SP – 3D),
Plant design management system (PDMS)
3D review Software – Smart plant reviewer/ Naviswork Freedom
2D CAD Software – Microstation / AutoCAD
Instrument Database – Smart Plant instrumentation – SPI (Intools) / AVEVA / COMOS
Instrument Sizing – SPI / Flowel / Conval / InstruCal, PRV2Size, Instrument Toolkit®
SIL Study – ExSILentia, SIFPRO, SIL Comp
In-house developed tools like voltage drop calculation, IS calculation etc are also used.

Special Studies during Design Stage

Special Studies performed during Engineering in which C&I Engineer participation is needed
(these are multi-disciplinary studies), but not limited to following

HAZOP Study
Alarm Management Study
SIL Study

Studies performed during Engineering by Control system vendor along with C&I engineer, but not
limited to following

Hardware Freeze
Software Freeze
Automation Architecture and network philosophy

Challenges during Engineering

Lack of co-ordination across the disciplines and Ignorance
Improper/insufficient specification / requirement from client / owner
Tight schedule, difficult project location / weather condition
Lack of knowledge and/ lack of awareness on Codes and standards

Tips for those who want to make a career in Design Engineering

Never stop learning

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 Try to figure out input and outputs for each deliverable
Learn and practice codes and standard
Figure out details mentioned in each document and question why?
Start with small activities
Understand the process first then think about the instrument
Never assume something (e.g. You just can’t select 3” Control valve in 8” line. Know your
input and question them)
Document everything in detail
Share your knowledge. Be it maintenance or operation issue or Root cause analysis
Read technical articles, processes, and trends
Seek Guidance from Seniors, mentors, industry specialist
It is not rocket science. However, you must know the impact of wrong selection / wrong
design, etc (e.g. How can you imagine 2 barg range of pressure gauge in the line where
pressure is 20 barg?)
Don’t hide your mistakes. Just correct it before it is too late.

Engineering Design Job Profile Workload

Design jobs are mostly office jobs, you must love documents, computer screen.

Sometimes you are also involved in Factory acceptance test or inspections at vendor’s workshop.

Control and Instrumentation (C&I) Engineer also needs to support/answer site queries.

Design engineers are sent to the site for close co-ordination with construction and commissioning
teams.

As the production drives the commissioning, Commissioning drives the Construction, Construction
drives the Procurement, and procurement drives the Engineering, your focus must be first time
right, on time, with consistency and quality.

Any delay in Engineering results in an overall schedule delay. In case of ambiguity, delay,
bottlenecks raise the hand.

Better value engineering results in cost-saving for the project.

ISA Instrumentation Books

Books to read (ISA), but not limited to below

1. Instrumentation and Control Systems Documentation

2. A Guide to the Automation Body of Knowledge

3. Electrical Instruments in Hazardous Locations

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4. Control valve Primer

5. Industrial Flow Measurement

6. Applying FOUNDATION Fieldbus

7. Alarm Management: Seven Effective Methods for Optimum Performance

8. Safety Instrumented Systems: Design, Analysis, and Justification

9. Industrial Network security

10. Advanced PID Control

Do you know any other good books? Share with us through the below comments section.

This article does not show all the activities performed by C&I engineer during design phase, also
does not indicate how to do that.

The aim of this article is to show the role of C&I engineering during the design phase to the extent
possible.

Users are advised to do engineering activities under supervision. Get used to codes/standards
and best engineering practices.

Exercise for you

Please share your answer in comment box

1. Suppose because of the HAZOP study outcome, one pressure transmitter is added. Which are
documents you revise?

2. Suppose you are doing junction box grouping, if you found that one transmitter is wrongly
assigned to that JB. Which are documents you revise for correction?

3. If you receive input for a process that where line pressure is revised from 20 barg to 50 barg,
what is the impact on instrumentation if that line has a flow meter, control valve, pressure
transmitter, and safety valve?

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