Keeping Three Underground Stations Safe from Smoke and Fire
The Melbourne Underground Rail Loop (MURL) Fire and Life Safety System Upgrade project covered the design, installation, and commissioning of a Smoke Management System at each of the three MURL underground stations.
Fire and Life Safety System Criticality
The Smoke Management System reduces or eliminates the hazard of smoke or fire at each station by extracting smoke through the draught relief shafts, making the stations safer for the public using them every day.
Siemens S7-1518HF CPU Type Approval
Applying for Type Approval of the Siemens high-availability, failsafe PLC CPU for use in a SIL 2 system, Parasyn contributed to the SPA/MTM process by gathering and assessing the required information about the device pair, alongside formal form submission and cataloguing of the supporting digital information. Beyond a few minor questions shortly after submission, the approval team requested no further information, finding the package sufficiently thorough. Full Type Approval was granted some months later, after passing both the provisional and full approval stages.
CMS Development Environment
Parasyn led the design and setup of the test and development environment for the control system, covering SMCS, BMS, and CMS components, in an unused section of Flinders St station. That design included networking, 19-inch rack layouts, power distribution and calculations, PLC I/O wiring, room configuration, and heat dissipation calculations. Parasyn worked with and supervised multiple parties, including MTM and external contractors, on the test network, interconnection to local station networks, and provision of AC power and air conditioning, while also configuring and integrating the various PLC systems and sourcing scarce PLC components as the test equipment evolved.
Station Periphery
Parliament Station's sliding doors needed to integrate into the control system, and Parasyn led the investigation and solution options for that work, collaborating with the parties responsible for installing and maintaining the doors, including interfacing to their control boards and cable landing. The solution was documented, implemented, and has functioned successfully since.
Design Management
Across the Gate 1, Gate 2, and IFC phases of the project, Parasyn was integral to CMS network design, control system design, and design reporting, including document reviews and critical review feedback.
Testing and Commissioning
Parasyn supported the Principal System Integrator through commissioning and testing, fine-tuning the control system, troubleshooting, reviewing test procedures, and providing performance feedback, effectively acting as owner's engineer. Working mainly with the Southern Program Alliance (SPA) and the Principal System Integrator (Synertec), commissioning required close coordination with various electrical and mechanical contractors.
Challenges
The MURL Smoke Management System's complexity presented real challenges during commissioning and testing. The system spans many field devices: dampers, mechanical fans, air handling units, variable speed drives, emergency power generators, chillers, pumps, and valves. Integrating all of it into a centralised, high-availability safety control system demanded detailed planning, effective coordination, and a strong grasp of the system as a whole.
Long physical distances between control panels and field equipment made wiring faults difficult to trace and time-consuming to navigate, and several pieces of equipment needed further manufacturer fine-tuning, requiring additional rounds of testing. Working on a live system added its own pressure, scheduling tests and managing the risk of introducing faults to fully operational stations already serving the public and monitored by operators.
Customer Insights
The MURL Fire and Life upgrade is a one-of-a-kind project requiring some of the best automation and control systems consultants in the country, and Parasyn was one of the control systems experts contracted to the job. Parasyn brought proven experience with the Siemens Simatic family of industrial control hardware, including PLC S7-1500, Scalance, HMIs, and RIOs, and was pivotal in testing, commissioning, and troubleshooting through the TIA Portal.
In one instance, Parasyn troubleshot a lingering PLC-to-PLC communication issue within a station, working with the principal contractor to identify underlying networking issues that had previously been missed, and setting up the correct network protocols to restore PLC-to-PLC communications, critical at the time since the issue was holding up other aspects of project commissioning. During early commissioning, Parasyn's TIA Portal expertise also identified several incorrectly wired field devices using the platform's graphical programming languages, speeding up the project timeline while confirming the PLC code matched the control philosophy.
Parasyn were pivotal to the completion of this project, and their knowledge around Siemens devices, programming, and networking ultimately accelerated and shortened our project timeline.