Tuesday, June 3, 2014

The tunnels of Italy's A12 Motorway are safe with a little help from Wonderware

Thousands of vehicles pass through the tunnels of the A12 Motorway every hour and concentrations of exhaust gas can quickly rise, reducing visibility and making the air unbreathable. These conditions can have a disastrous effect on motorists. Proper ventilation is essential and this requires specific methods for extracting harmful emission.  Using the Wonderware solution, operators can determine the amount of harmful gases inside the tunnel enabling them to manage the extraction of noxious fumes.
 

Dissipating Harmful Emissions in the A12 Tunnels using Wonderware Software


Thousands of vehicles pass through the tunnels of the A12 Motorway every hour and concentrations of exhaust gas can quickly rise, reducing visibility and making the air unbreathable. These conditions can have a disastrous effect on motorists. Proper ventilation is essential and this requires specific methods for extracting harmful emission.  Using the Wonderware solution, operators can determine the amount of harmful gases inside the tunnel enabling them to manage the extraction of noxious fumes.

In case of fire, the air ventilation system features fans whose rotation speeds and direction are automatically adjusted to enable the efficient extraction of smoke and gases that could potentially feed the flames.

It’s a delicate balance, especially in tunnels such as Saturnia which is equipped with 14 fans.  In this tunnel, a complex measurement system was installed to perform smart calculations based on exhaust gas concentration, smoke opacity, wind and atmospheric pressure, in order to optimize the operation of each fan.

“A motorway is always open and any failure can endanger the lives of people. During the design stage, we focused on the reliability and redundancy of all installed systems to guarantee optimal control under any circumstance.”

Eraldo Benedetto
Automation Manager
Giordano & C. S.p.A.

More information


For more information on this success story, you might want to check out the following links:

  1. The A12 Motorway
  2. Wonderware Supervisory Control

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