Relocation of the cabinet room and control room within the plant area
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The central control room for the old equipment in the plant, as well as the on-site cabinet rooms, are located in the on-site equipment area (not within the equipment building). They are at a distance from the Class A process equipment that does not meet the fire separation requirements specified in the \"Code for Fire Protection Design of Petrochemical Enterprises GB 50160-2018\", and therefore require rectification. Due to the enormous workload associated with relocating the cabinets on site, a complete relocation is not feasible. It is planned to keep the cabinet room in its original location, while only the central control room will be moved; all operators and their computers will be transferred to a new control room built outside the equipment area. Has anyone ever carried out similar renovations for a control room relocation? Is the entire cabinet room and control room being relocated? Just relocate the control room? Or, when inspected by experts, how are the issues related to the lack of proper fire separation distances in the on-site cabinet rooms within the equipment addressed?
Ask the expert in charge of your factory whether it’s enough to just move the control room.
If the cabinet room is blast-resistant, there is no need to relocate it. However, for safety reasons, the personnel in the control room must be located away from the production area in any building. If the cabinet room is not blast-resistant, see if it’s possible to enclose it from the outside, for example.
Ask whether it’s possible to avoid relocation and instead just build a firewall; there seems to be a requirement regarding the thickness of such a firewall. If that’s feasible, it’s also necessary to check whether the site meets the conditions for building a wall
Shock resistance cannot be achieved merely by strengthening the walls. Neither the foundation nor the pile foundations have been modified. This is merely a measure taken out of necessity due to **policy constraints. Hahaha
The issue of distance in old factory buildings is a long-standing problem; re-planning may also give rise to new safety distance concerns. If new control rooms that meet the requirements are available, the cabinets need not be moved, and coordination should be sought. However, preventive measures must be taken into account. When the equipment located in cabinets in areas prone to explosions is not explosion-proof, the cabinet room should be equipped with positive pressure ventilation, and anti-static grounding should be considered for such rooms. The antistatic grounding should be applied to the antistatic flooring, raised floors, workbenches, etc. inside it.
Refer to the design specification HGT20508 for control rooms in cabinet areas (available online); for Class A process units, there are requirements regarding safety distances, and there are also design specifications for explosion protection. The cabinet area and the control room can be separated from each other – typically, the cabinet area is located next to the MCC, with a required safety distance from the process units, while the control room is usually located behind two sets of doors, housing multiple production units together.