CAM-306

The reactor is pushing foam out of the manway and down the whole shell

Mid-afternoon in the reactor bay. White foam keeps pouring out of the open manway: it covers the head, runs down the whole shell and is already spreading across the floor. A column of vapour rises above it. An operator in an orange vest stands in front of the control panel, the red beacon lit; another comes running with an extinguisher. IRIS sees the foam come out and from which second. What reaction is going on inside is told by the temperature and pressure instruments, not by the camera.

CAM-306 · REACTOR R-2 · FOAM OVERFLOW

What IRIS understands

What it recognises in this scene

foam coming out of the reactor manway
column of vapour above the reactor
foam spread across the floor
operator in front of the control panel
colleague arriving with an extinguisher

What this camera measures

An alert says something is happening. The reading says how much.

2 minTime since the foam came out
3People in the bay
1Extinguishers taken off the bracket
3Cones in the area
16:07Time of the alert

The figures on this screen are an example from the illustration, not any client's measurement.

The rule

You decide once. IRIS applies it always.

foam or liquid appears coming out of a reactor manway

Then

alert the shift supervisor with the camera, the reactor and the time
save the video from the second the foam appeared
log the alert with the reactor and the time for the batch report

The instruction that set it up«Tell me as soon as foam or liquid comes out of the manway of any reactor in the bay.»

What changes

What changes for whoever answers for the plant

A reactor overflow is seen on the floor before it reaches the control screen, and whoever sees it has to go and find somebody. With the camera, the shift supervisor gets the alert and the picture while the foam is still on the shell, and with the exact minute it started. That minute is what later lines up with the instrument curve when the batch is investigated, and it is what turns an argument into a report.

What people usually ask

Does IRIS know what is reacting inside the reactor?

No. IRIS sees the outside: the foam coming out of the manway, the vapour and the liquid on the floor. What happens inside — temperature, pressure, agitator speed — is told by the reactor instruments, and without them there is no measurement. What the camera adds is the picture and the exact second the foam appeared, so it can be put next to the process curve. The two together explain the batch; either one alone does not.

Is a camera any use if the reactor already has a level alarm?

Yes, because they look at different things. The probe reports a level inside the vessel; the camera sees what has already come out and where it went: the head, the shell, the floor, the bund. And it sees whether anybody is nearby. IRIS does not replace the plant control system: it works alongside it and adds the picture of the exact minute, which is precisely what the control system does not have.

Can it mistake cleaning steam for an overflow?

It can, and that is why the plant writes the rule. It defines which reactors are watched, in which time bands, and what has to be seen to raise an alert: foam on the shell, not vapour alone. If that bay is steam-cleaned every morning, that band is left out. IRIS does not decide what counts as an alert: it runs the rule it was given, and that rule can be tuned whenever it needs to be.

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