Integration of the Process Control Systems for the Automation of the Lhc Cooling and Ventilation Plants

For several years ST/CV at CERN has amassed considerable experience in designing and operating cooling and ventilation plants for the particle beam accelerators and physics experiments. To achieve optimal plant operating conditions a complete study of the control objectives is required. This implies to define carefully the control architecture at the beginning of the process control design stage. The process control design stage integrates the cooling and ventilation requirements, taking into consideration various and complex industrial processes organised in a large geographical disposition. The fact of rejecting specific solutions, and therefore marginal processes, allows opting for industrial control architecture, which are more flexible and capable to cope with the continuous technical evolution provided by industry. In the context of the LHC project ST/CV has produced, in collaboration with other control-oriented groups, a concept of control architecture, oriented towards PLC standards, TCP/IP Ethernet communication links and local monitoring. One major consideration is that this architecture is designed to gradually and smoothly integrate process control projects for the LEP to the LHC migration of the ST/CV plants. In this paper we present the characteristics and the requirements of the ST/CV processes and describe the control architecture currently in use.