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FieldConnex—Fieldbus with DART

De facto standard today: High-Power Trunk Concept

In explosion hazardous areas, intrinsic safety is required in order to work on plant components without a hot-work permit. To date, I.S. protection has been limited to 2 Watts or less, not enough electrical power to fully utilize the benefits of intrinsically safe fieldbus infrastructures.

The High-Power Trunk concept (HPTC) was the first real breakthrough in this field. It was introduced in 2000 and has contributed to a wider acceptance of fieldbus concepts in process automation. In addition, the HPTC puts an end to limited cable lengths per segment and opened the way to economic fieldbus solutions within hazardous areas.

With the HPTC, the supply power is provided via a trunk conforming to Ex e classification. The supply energy for the individual devices is limited by field barriers, supplying intrinsically safe energy to all FISCO or Entity field devices.


DART fieldbus—innovation combined with protection of investment

With DART technology, it is possible to have a fully intrinsically safe (Ex ib) High-Power Trunk. With this concept, only the trunk is protected by DART. Up to four DART Segment Protectors can be connected to one trunk and provide devices with an intrinsically safe power supply according to FISCO and Entity requirements. This is very similar to the current High-Power Trunk. Protection of investment included: All today certified field devices can still be used.

The trunk can have a maximum cable length of 1,000 meters. Installation is quite simple and allows the connection of a high number of field devices.



FieldConnex: Fieldbus with intrinsically safe High-Power Trunk. Ample power for all existing field devices

Mastering any situation

With DART, sparks have no chance, no matter where the fault might occur in the fieldbus structure. Under normal circumstances the electric current flows without restriction. DART detects a fault in the electrical system at the outset and switches it off before the energy released reaches a safety-critical level. The design of the DART power supply modules and the respective DART Segment Protectors provide a solution where all possible faults that lead to the formation of a spark are safely detected and controlled.

The future starts now

DART does not require any new hardware but can be integrated seamlessly into any existing fieldbus infrastructure. Existing field devices with intrinsic safety according to FISCO can be used for DART without any limitations.

The first DART products for the High-Power Trunk will be available in 2010—something to look forward to.


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The High-Power Trunk Concept has paved the way for bus systems in the process industry. But it took DART to enable a fully intrinsically safe fieldbus infrastructure …