Role of an Instrumentation Design Engineer for Beginners

An Industrial plant facility typically executed in mainly three domains:

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.

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.

Table of contents

 Instrumentation Design Engineer

 Field Instrument Engineering
 Control System Engineering
 Installation Engineering
 Package Engineering
 Control Valve Selection during Design Phase
 Typical Example
 Engineering Team Activities
 Instrumentation Design Softwares
 Special Studies during Design Stage
 Challenges during Engineering
 Tips for those who want to make a career in Design Engineering
 Engineering Design Job Profile Workload
 ISA Instrumentation Books
 Exercise for you
Engineering of industrial facility involves close coordination between various
disciplines like Process, safety, piping, civil, mechanical, electrical and
instrumentation, etc.
Instrumentation Design Engineer

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,
 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,

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.

Activity Interface Purpose

Process data/process datasheet for control valve to

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

Instrument team performs the sizing calculation by

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

Valve material specification / Piping material

Material specification are referred for Control valve body
From Piping Team
Specification material, Trim material, flange rating,  etc
requirements

Based on valve sizing and vendor offer; valve type

and size are indicated by the instrument team on
P&ID.
Selection By Instrument Team
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
 Activity Interface Purpose

testing or MOV related signals. Valve Typical to be

modified if required.

Utility Instrument Air required for control valve is given to

To Process Team
requirement process team for IA compressor / receiver sizing      

Utility In case of Electrical actuator, power requirement is

To Electrical Team
requirement given to electrical team for feeder and ACDB sizing

Face-to-face dimension, valve size, rating, facing of

Face-Face
To Piping Team control valve to be given to Piping team to incorporate
dimension
in 3D models

1. GAD of control valves to be given to the piping

team to reserve the space for accessibility and
maintenance.
General
arrangement To piping team The instrument team shall ensure accessories
drawing orientation and location for ease of maintenance.

2. Fire-proofing jacket dimensions, in case valve is in

fire zone

In case, steam jacketed control valve interface should

Nozzle interface
To Piping Team be done with piping for nozzle orientation for inlet
for utility
and outlet nozzles.

Special Case To piping team, In the case of hydraulic actuators, interface with the
Civil team, process piping team, civil team, process team, and the
team and electrical electrical team is done for Hydraulic tank, pumps, oil
team tubing/piping up to actuator, Panels, etc

(e.g. Steam Governing Control valves, although

 Activity Interface Purpose

vendor engineered item but interface required when

you receive documents.)

Typical 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.
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
  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

 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

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