With more than 200 field devices, Cocamar has one of the largest PROFIBUS PA installations in Brazil, says Cesar Cassiolato from smar.

Cocamar, one of most important comestible oil refineries of South America, located in Maringá city, with the biggest Brazilian cooperative industrial area, inaugurated at the end of 2001 its new refinery where its capacity of processing 200 ton of oil per day was increased to 420 ton, thanks to a investment of approximately U$3.5 millions involving a new vegetable oil refinery, a multi combustible boiler system, an energy debasing system and a big cereal dryer system. smar supplied the PROFIBUS PA devices for the process automation solution in this new comestible oil refinery.

The PROFIBUS PA System

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The PROFIBUS system is installed in the soy and multi oil refinery where the flow, acid and soybean dosing controls as well as the water, steam, level and temperature control are performed. Smar provided Pressure, Level, Flow Transmitters (LD303) and Temperature Transmitter (TT303) as well as the Positioners (FY303). For the control loops where the 4-20mA signals are available, smar provided the exclusive converters at the market, IF303 (4-20mA Converter to PROFIBUS PA) and FI303 (PROFIBUS PA Converter to 4-20mA) to make the integration.

All field devices are integrated to other manufactures like Siemens, P+F, Krohne and Metroval where the system interoperability is verified. The system operates with Siemens PLC (S7-400) and also with ASI network from P+F.
The PROFIBUS PA segment configuration, where are located the smar devices, was performed using Simatic PDM tool.

Conclusion

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The new plant is operating since september 2001. "System interoperability and startup were excellent and the plant is operating very fine. The cost reduction and the simplicity of PROFIBUS were confirmed and now we are observing maintenance behaviors, which also show a great improvement" says the COCAMAR automation Engineer José Cândido.