TABLE OF CONTENTS In this book, Part I describes the engineering process and the participants and discusses project management concepts. Part III takes a real world scenario, defines a scope of work, and generates the design products necessary to meet the scope. To make the transition from managing the project to generating the product, some background information needs to be presented - hence, Part II.
The instrumentation and controls field is a very dynamic one. As a result, its boundaries are continually shifting. Take the DCS versus PLC issue, for example. There is still a unique market for each, but the overlap has grown so large that it is difficult to clearly articulate the differences. Even the cost gap has narrowed significantly. Yet, many have strong opinions about the superiority of one over the other for a given situation.
Before looking at design application, it is important to understand the nature of good design. What things must be considered when specifying a PLC? How do you design for a hazardous environment? Where do you go to study the industry standards on a topic?
Part II presents a technical overview of some of the more salient aspects of the instrumentation and controls (I&C) profession. It is broken into three chapters:
Chapter 4 provides some basic information about instrumentation signal conditioning. How is the output of a sensor processed into useful information for the operator? A scaling example...
