What runs the back up electrical systems in the world? Did anyone say Diesel fuel powered generators! Just "FUEL" for thought! Any thoughts on what this might cause, if there is a shortage, and certain areas are already on backup power?

-- ED (FIXIT@GENERATE.COM), January 21, 2000

Answers

give it up guys.....there is no y2k problem......only normal glitches that should be expected......get on with your lives.....

-- jim sullivan (seamus83@yahoo.com), January 21, 2000.

Jim:

During the upcoming spring storms, after power is down (like it is every spring after the storms), we got, T.V., microwave, power for the P.C. and a WORKING SUMP PUMP.

Won't be sellin my genset for anything. This like most prep's are dual use, so I am getting on with my life. If are so concerned about moving on why lurk here?????

-- Squid (ItsDark@down.here), January 21, 2000.

Yea Big Guy!

Now while you are running off at the mouth. Give us a valid reason that there where, what? 93 oil incidents all of last year! And in just 19 days this year we have had 412 known incidents, some of them serious, and at least one really serious!

Why don't you crawl over to the Debunker's pad and foist this speal off on LL or Y2K Pro. Better yet go tell it to the great Mikey2k... Cry on their shoulders for awhile. I'm tired of your pathic whining and crying. Just admit that the thought of disruption in the JIT system scares you to death. (I'll admit it scares me); but I won't set around crying about it like you doing in here. Now go home to mommie (I'm sure LL is sympathic). ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Shakey~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

-- Shakey (in_a_bunker@forty.feet), January 21, 2000.

On Point, Ed:

Wire stories appearing January 3 and 4 reported that O'Hare Airport lost ATC system comuters following a "generator surge" which fritzed the computers and knocked out power. The power was restored when a back-up to the back-up was brought in. Presumptive reason for the generators was dirty or unreliable power, which has been a matter of note hjereabouts since the rollover. Whether other ATC towers were operating on generator power, or whether O'hare and others still are -- has not been reported.

HEY!!! any chance this would contribute to the "fuel surcharge"? or would that be STRICTLy a factor of increased AVfuel prices? Irrelevant I guess.

Also noted were those giant locomotive-sized diesel generators at many sites around DC. They'll have to run on something.

>"<

-- Squirrel Hunter (nuts@upina./celltotower), January 21, 2000.

Easy there, Shakey. It must be stressfull being asked a question you can't answer. Maybe Monday when you're carrying the tools for the craftsmen on the construction site they will explain it to you.

In the meantime, have you taken your meds today?

-- Mikey2k (mikey2k@he.wont.eat.it), January 21, 2000.

Well I'll be dogged! f it ai't litle Mikey boy.

How's it going kid? You find you bycycle yet? I DID carry the tools for my Journey men...Way back in 1966. But by 70's I had kids like you carrying my tools.

Let's see now, think it was in 1979. I put in my papers, and got to be the head guy for awhile. Now where was that...Oh! Yea! Down in old Arizona. But why befuddle you with ancient history kid.. I know how it is in the schools you kids go to these days. You have to be politically correct you know. So come on little Mikey, tell us your qualifications (other than being troll) and your moma dressing you funny.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Shakey~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

-- Shakey (in_a_bunker@forty.feet), January 21, 2000.

My qualifications: 4-year Electrical Engineering degree with a 3.9 GPA. 26 years' experience in avionics including software and hardware for embedded processors.

So did you give good head when you were the head guy? Oh, sorry that can't be it. You must have been the head guy on a Navy ship -- no, not the Captain, the guy who did the head cleaning.

-- Mikey2k (mikey2k@he.wont.eat.it), January 22, 2000.

Well Little Mikey

It sounds like you just might be in my age range then (56). And keeping up the avionics on air craft is an imporant job to do...

Makes those billion dollar a copy 750 megwatt coal-fired co-generation complexs seem tame. But shoot! We electricans did have sometime a thousand men on just one of them.

And though I only went to a union apprentice school four years (of course I was the first one to ever in history graduate from their school with a perfect score for all four years, and a Journeyman's test score of 100%). And That record stood untill three years ago, when a bright young fellow over in Albq. N.M. equaled me..

I won't go into the night schools over the years. Or the several states' contractors licences I have had.(The Superentendant "should" have a contractor's licence for the state he is running a job in. Gets you more getus in the pay envelope you know).

I but wonder though! Could you pass the Florida Block Test. It took me two times to do it...And I know electrical engineers who can't pass it period! But be that as it may, the last time I was out on a job. If you would have been there, I'd of been you boss LOL..

The bottom line I guess Mikey..Is that you just can't depend upon being the only one with either knowledge or experience out on the internet. As for myself. I am a good electrican! And I branched out from there, to instrument tech., to start-up engineer. I have tramped around the world! From Karg Island, to Tiawan and back.(Where ever the O/T was). And I knew how to treat my men. And because of it. I could be their boss on one job, and their tool partner on the next, with out any of them having anamosity towards me. So yes, I have somewhat more experience than you in life (this is in reference to your petty remarks about meds).

And the funny part of it is...I could do your job ( saving for the avionics part)! But you can't do mine LOL Kind of like being a fixed wing pilot and trying to fly a copter ( a thing I understand is a no no). But that a copter pilot can fly a fixed wing craft much easier).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Shakey~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

-- Shakey (in_a_bunker@forty.feet), January 22, 2000.

Upon re-reading your snot nosed posting Mikey. Only an avionics engineer knows about the cunninglas aspect of keeping your job! After all, what with all those kids just out of engineering school, willing to work for less. You have to do something to keep that job!

Personally I thought once or twice about opening a house of Ill Repute just across the street from a "out in the boon docks job". And running it "by hand". But I was always afaird that my engineer partner would run out of spit.And cause us to burn up a couple of D&**KS before we could stop production.. Be a lot of law suits if that where to happen! Haaaaa! HAAAAAAA!!!! Ye! I laugh at my own jokes to !!!!!!

Your's is still in your mouth..ROTFLMAO..

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Shakey~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

-- Shakey (in_a_bunker@forty.feet), January 22, 2000.

Last I heard, West VA is planning to run on diesel till late spring. Anyone here from W VA that can confirm/deny/link?

-- Hokie (Hokie_@hotmail.com), January 22, 2000.

Shakey, everyone has their own area of expertise. No, I don't know the National Electrical Code but do I have similar expertise in other areas. I have to deal with a wider range of issues than selecting which gauge of wire to use. Someone who installs the equipment I design into aircraft does not have the detailed knowledge of its inner workings that I do, though one tried to argue about it with me once. (reminds me of you). Just because you install a control system into a plant and hook up the wires doesn't mean that you have detailed knowledge of its inner workings. Clearly, you don't.

I've survived 3 layoffs in the last year, so I guess I produce more for the extra $ I'm paid than a young engineer. As far as my snotty answer, yes it was. But I don't have a monopoly on having made snotty posts. We could make this "conversation" nice or naughty, but frankly I'm getting bored with you since you have no facts to offer, just a lot of insults.

-- Mikey2k (mikey2k@he.wont.eat.it), January 22, 2000.

Shakey, I normally have respect for my elders, but you are a complete and utter raving lunatic. You are seriously in need of help. People like you just don't seem to get it, it's over....

Have a look at this, it might help you:

http://www.americanwasteland.com/Y2KPage.html

-- Mr. Sane (hhh@home.com), January 22, 2000.

Mikey and Sane?

oh well! There is no telling about one's own personal estimate of one's self.

As for the Nation Electrical Code! No power house I know of uses it (it is the minium safty rules regulations). Power Generation complexes have their own electrical code. To the exent that I have never ever seen a state electrical inspector come out on a job (power house).

I re-read your back ground training; it still says electrical engineer! No familarity with the National Electrical Code? Strange! I would have thouught that you might have at least picked one up, while in school.

And it is clear that you do not have a conception of the construction feild either. There is very little (hook'em up) with out a devil of a lot of in feild design work (The Electricans have to move their physical work, equipment etc. for all other crafts! Why? I never found out. But it is still a fact of life). Thusly we have an on site IT shop and a bank of design engineers. And the companies I worked for did their OWN plant design, from the ground up!

Secondly, you would not lasted with that attitude at either Westinghouse or G.E.! Yo must be precise when installing the turbines! There is no tolerance with the turbines laddie!

You really should get away from the design table and out in the real world for a bit! And as for your lasting three cut backs! Congradulations! And I mean that! I have a union ticket to fall back on (they can keep their rump kissing job descriptions) I do not have to play by that game like you poor guys do....

And lastly Mikey. In construction! There exhists the basest of all humor! I will not in the future resort to base humor. If you do not (the head job ploy was really beneath you! Don't you think?). But if you wish to go that way...Then Mr. Design engineer, I can satisfy your curosity as to how "Low" humored a construction man can be!

But enough. You have had a cup of coffee. And it is a good morning to be on the net! And since I don't mean you ill will (and I do not think you do to me either). I wish you a good morning, untill we next meet.

And SANE! Jump up on a fence post and churp me another number! And next time, if and when I want to hear from you! I'll jerk your chain!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Shakey~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

-- Shakey (in_a_bunker@forty.feet), January 22, 2000.

Shakey, if this is a truce, then I welcome it. Perhaps we can continue to talk on more technical issues.

An electrical engineering curriculum does not include the National Electrical Code nor any other similar standard, including the Federal Aviation Regulations that I use in my job. I estimate that 3/4 of what I learned in college is not used on the job, and 3/4 of what I use on the job I didn't learn in college -- well not directly. I view college as sort of a boot camp where developing thought processes are as important as learing facts. My course instructor for electric machinery derived a long involved formula in class which he asked for in class. He allowed a small index card with notes for the test but I didn't write small enough to include the sizable formula. No problem -- I just re-derived the formula and got an A on the test. (But don't ask me to repeat it today as it's been a number of years ago on a subject I don't deal with in my work -- but learned once I could refresh this with a little study)

For a period of time I worked for a company that made power conversion equipment and saw some spectacular failures including pyrothechnics and this was with equipment rated for 75 kVA or less. The effects were more spectacular than dangerous, but with a power generation station it could be both. Aircraft are designed with redundant systems for those functions whose loss of availability could cause the aircraft to crash. This is more than just having multiple engines -- it includes indicators for attitude, altitude, and airspeed. Also multiple power busses. This is to prevent a single-point failure of probability 10E-9/hour from causing an aircraft crash. Just about anything has a higher probability of failure with an electronic unit having a failure probability of perhaps 10E-4/hr to 10E-7/hr depending on its complexity, the quality of the components, and the enviroment in which it's operated.

Under a Failure Modes and Effects Analysis, there is another class of functions that are not required to get the aircraft on the ground but could fail in ways that would cause the aircraft to crash. A malfunctioning autopilot could go hard-over and cause the aircraft to crash but on the other hand could simply stop controlling in which case the pilot can land the aircraft (but alerting the pilot of the failure is important). A similar problem could be television. If the TV quits working then no one dies. But if the TV develops a short in the wrong spot and it's not fused a fire could result and kill people.

If a power generating plant has components which can fail and kill people or even cause expensive damage, then there should either be a redundant component to continue the function or a monitoring system to shut it down and limit the collateral damage. If this is not the case, then I have to wonder why. Perhaps the standards to which power generation stations are developed need an overhaul.

All of this is before we bring Y2k into the equation. I'm not summarily rejecting Y2k as the cause but imposing a large burden of proof on it as the cause particularly if there is another more likely explanation. Since power generation has been going on long before there were any computers except possibly some simple logic using relays, why does the date enter into the control of power generation at all. Yes, I imagine that on a hot summer afternoon the operators of our power system have one eye on the thermometer and the other on the clock deciding when to bring their reserve generating capacity on line. I also recognize that power line frequency is tightly controlled but the objective is stability of the power system rather than keeping the electric clock in your home accurate. If the system lost a couple of seconds during some type of fault, I doubt that the frequency will be increased to catch up everyone's clock but rather the frequency would be restored to 60 Hz. If there are other processes which involve the date then perhaps you can explain.

-- Mikey2k (mikey2k@he.wont.eat.it), January 22, 2000.

My dear Mikey2K

I'll ty to answear in part some of your questions. But first! I would like to make a personal observation or two here.

The first is that there is a fundimental "seemingly" lack of understanding, which seems to run through out the forum's personages. For one, collectively, there is a immence amount of our civilization's intellectual and technological minds posting here. To be truthful! I cannot remeber a time where I have seen such a great collection or body of knowledge present in one place. Either via internet or in physical terms.

But it seems as if (almost) none of us. And at times I will include myself. Seem to realize that we are "experts" in our own feild. And have little or no working knowledge of another's expertise. Or in other words...There are no "generalists" here.

If, as I think it will be. Something does happen to de-rail this high technologically great society. We will be out on a limb, both as a people; and as civilized beings. I can build you a generation complex. But I cannot repair my car (cars require computers now to run). I cannot build, from the ground up, a turbine. Nor can I ever hope to do your job Mike. To re-build a civilization, we will need badly, the generalists! And time will not be on our side. To re-build anything, while under the "gun". Is a difficult proposition at best, impossible if panic is all around you.

As far as Y2K! It is a "trigger" for all the rest that can happen! And Y2K is still with us! I don't want it to be so, but never the less it is a fact. As for a power generation complexs needing to know time... For one thing, all power complexes must be able to syninc (sp) their output ( phased volltage) into a common grid! The output voltage, coming from many different power generation plants MUST be phased with each other. Or..WELL I surely would not want to be on a turbine floor of a generation station station which became "out of phase" The trubines have a habit of Blowing right out of their housings and distributing their casings and entrails all over the surrounding land scape! I witnessed what a turbine could do way back in the mid 70's at the Huntington Canyon power station in Utah... Some time ago TPTB decided that Hydrogen was the best turbine coolant to use! Now to my way of thinking, I'd of used nitrogen or something that didn't react to a spark! But we use Hydrogen.

Mike. For the most part, all the enormous back up systems that you refer to. Are found in nuclear power stations. I have never thought for a second that an American built nuclear power station would go "China Syndrome" on us. But it is possible that an accident might occur, which would take one out of the generation loop for a indeffinate period of time.(And great damage done to it also)

The other failures (in embedded systems). First you have to envision the equipment that is under control. Is it high speed equipment? If so, the damage would be done at the speed of light itself. Electricty travels at 186,000 miles per second. And yes, I know that you are aware of this Mike (but possibly others are not). Anther way, is to modify, for a good reasons, the controls in the feild.

In your feild, once you have an avonics packaged designed and tested. It become a "set unit" for a particular air craft (I am asuming).

There is one firm rule in the constructing of generation stations. No two of them are physically the same in lay out, or most of the time; the equipment used (saving for the turbine and it's casing).(And they depend on the vendor's specs. and designs).

As for thr simplisity of generation.This went out with digitaliztion of power plants. The plants where modernized to more efficently run the plant (generation). And to CUT the payroll. Just like TPTB did in every other industrial endeavor.

The reason for so many power spikes since the first of the year? Any one catch on that there was no broad failure of the power generation systems, because every trick known to their operators (including lying to the plant's computers) was used to keep the units on line. But this too, must be addressed this year and part of the next. I know of one power generation plant (coal fired) which had a turn around last year. And the company's sole agenda was to address the controll systems. Last I counted they where into their second month and had not finished yet!

I have seen equipment react when a embed failure happens! Everything goes at the literal speed of light! Up in St. John's, Arizona. There is a 350 megawatt coal-fired unit (s). One morning the main transformer went ( I mean the first transformer that receives the turbine out put.) In any case, this transformer weighed in at (50 I believe) tons in weight. Stood about 20 feet tall in height...Went BOOM! And jumped fifty feet in the air. Power had been put to it, after the controls said that it was groundless (it was in fact shorted to ground). And when the 13,500 hit it..MAN! You could not believe the damage that was instantly done. LOL And every elecrican in the joint WAS GONE! I never saw so many people trying to get through, under, or around a fence between them and the parking lot! The only reason why I wasn't one of them, was because I was some what closer to the transformer. And I needed to find a pair of clean drawers.

Now, I guess a for instance might be appropiate here.. Say you have three Ball Mill motors, each 100 amps draw apiece. And you want to use a 400amp switch gear and main. But remember! If all three motors come on at once. You will have for a minute, a 600 amp (start up) demand from the motors! It is very very expenive to go to a 600 amp main,switch gear, not to mention the increase in wire size.

So, how would you rig it so that you could use a 400 amp service,main,switch gear? (just for informational purposes only). I'd use two time counter chips (even ones with year functions) to delay motor two and three. So that they would come on line one at a time. This would work famously, and save a lot of money (in material) for a contractor. How ever. Say at some point in time, the two time counters failed and all three motors came on at the same time.

If the Ball Mills are at a mining smelter, nothing, maybe, or you might burn out the windings on the motors. Except you would not be able to use the Ball Mills untill you had remeadated the delay counters. But now. The subject can get deep with coal. The ground down, fine as dust, coal. Has the personality of gun powder! One spark! And you're crispy critters! No remeadation (whith what is left). You have to replace a large amoount of equipment, for it will have been destroyed.

In pipe lines or oil efineries, you again have the same "speed of light" problems. But it is the valves and solenoids that are the worry...

I think you might get a outline of an idea from what I have written Mike... And in closing, I am sorry for having linked your name with the other person ( it LOL was just one of the first names hat come into my mind!) That had verbally irritated me. If anything. my patience with morons grows less with evry passing year. And now that the trolls have run off RC.I began to wonder if it is worth coming back here at all.( And I am getting sort of tired of saying I'm sorry also). LOL

To those of you reading this post. It takes a civilization (intact) to build just one power generation station. And physically from six to ten thousand construction craftsmen (persons) to make the station a reality. We are iving on borrowed time and on a cliff. We have all become too myopic. We only understand or care for our own feild of expertise. And have little or no understanding at all for what would come next in the construction of a thing!

It is unusally ironic, that in the feild of warfare alone. The soldier, knows his speciality. And the differing, but related speciality of at least two of his counter parts also. Why is it that mankind is much more "commoned senced" in the art of destruction. Than he colletively is, in the building and maintaining of his/her own civilization?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Shakey~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

-- Shakey (in_a_bunker@forty.feet), January 22, 2000.

My dear Mikey2K

I'll ty to answear in part some of your questions. But first! I would like to make a personal observation or two here.

The first is that there is a fundimental "seemingly" lack of understanding, which seems to run through out the forum's personages. For one, collectively, there is a immence amount of our civilization's intellectual and technological minds posting here. To be truthful! I cannot remeber a time where I have seen such a great collection or body of knowledge present in one place. Either via internet or in physical terms.

But it seems as if (almost) none of us. And at times I will include myself. Seem to realize that we are "experts" in our own feild. And have little or no working knowledge of another's expertise. Or in other words...There are no "generalists" here.

If, as I think it will be. Something does happen to de-rail this high technologically great society. We will be out on a limb, both as a people; and as civilized beings. I can build you a generation complex. But I cannot repair my car (cars require computers now to run). I cannot build, from the ground up, a turbine. Nor can I ever hope to do your job Mike. To re-build a civilization, we will need badly, the generalists! And time will not be on our side. To re-build anything, while under the "gun". Is a difficult proposition at best, impossible if panic is all around you.

As far as Y2K! It is a "trigger" for all the rest that can happen! And Y2K is still with us! I don't want it to be so, but never the less it is a fact. As for a power generation complexs needing to know time... For one thing, all power complexes must be able to syninc (sp) their output ( phased volltage) into a common grid! The output voltage, coming from many different power generation plants MUST be phased with each other. Or..WELL I surely would not want to be on a turbine floor of a generation station station which became "out of phase" The trubines have a habit of Blowing right out of their housings and distributing their casings and entrails all over the surrounding land scape! I witnessed what a turbine could do way back in the mid 70's at the Huntington Canyon power station in Utah... Some time ago TPTB decided that Hydrogen was the best turbine coolant to use! Now to my way of thinking, I'd of used nitrogen or something that didn't react to a spark! But we use Hydrogen.

Mike. For the most part, all the enormous back up systems that you refer to. Are found in nuclear power stations. I have never thought for a second that an American built nuclear power station would go "China Syndrome" on us. But it is possible that an accident might occur, which would take one out of the generation loop for a indeffinate period of time.(And great damage done to it also)

The other failures (in embedded systems). First you have to envision the equipment that is under control. Is it high speed equipment? If so, the damage would be done at the speed of light itself. Electricty travels at 186,000 miles per second. And yes, I know that you are aware of this Mike (but possibly others are not). Anther way, is to modify, for a good reasons, the controls in the feild.

In your feild, once you have an avonics packaged designed and tested. It become a "set unit" for a particular air craft (I am asuming).

There is one firm rule in the constructing of generation stations. No two of them are physically the same in lay out, or most of the time; the equipment used (saving for the turbine and it's casing).(And they depend on the vendor's specs. and designs).

As for thr simplisity of generation.This went out with digitaliztion of power plants. The plants where modernized to more efficently run the plant (generation). And to CUT the payroll. Just like TPTB did in every other industrial endeavor.

The reason for so many power spikes since the first of the year? Any one catch on that there was no broad failure of the power generation systems, because every trick known to their operators (including lying to the plant's computers) was used to keep the units on line. But this too, must be addressed this year and part of the next. I know of one power generation plant (coal fired) which had a turn around last year. And the company's sole agenda was to address the controll systems. Last I counted they where into their second month and had not finished yet!

I have seen equipment react when a embed failure happens! Everything goes at the literal speed of light! Up in St. John's, Arizona. There is a 350 megawatt coal-fired unit (s). One morning the main transformer went ( I mean the first transformer that receives the turbine out put.) In any case, this transformer weighed in at (50 I believe) tons in weight. Stood about 20 feet tall in height...Went BOOM! And jumped fifty feet in the air. Power had been put to it, after the controls said that it was groundless (it was in fact shorted to ground). And when the 13,500 hit it..MAN! You could not believe the damage that was instantly done. LOL And every elecrican in the joint WAS GONE! I never saw so many people trying to get through, under, or around a fence between them and the parking lot! The only reason why I wasn't one of them, was because I was some what closer to the transformer. And I needed to find a pair of clean drawers.

Now, I guess a for instance might be appropiate here.. Say you have three Ball Mill motors, each 100 amps draw apiece. And you want to use a 400amp switch gear and main. But remember! If all three motors come on at once. You will have for a minute, a 600 amp (start up) demand from the motors! It is very very expenive to go to a 600 amp main,switch gear, not to mention the increase in wire size.

So, how would you rig it so that you could use a 400 amp service,main,switch gear? (just for informational purposes only). I'd use two time counter chips (even ones with year functions) to delay motor two and three. So that they would come on line one at a time. This would work famously, and save a lot of money (in material) for a contractor. How ever. Say at some point in time, the two time counters failed and all three motors came on at the same time.

If the Ball Mills are at a mining smelter, nothing, maybe, or you might burn out the windings on the motors. Except you would not be able to use the Ball Mills untill you had remeadated the delay counters. But now. The subject can get deep with coal. The ground down, fine as dust, coal. Has the personality of gun powder! One spark! And you're crispy critters! No remeadation (whith what is left). You have to replace a large amoount of equipment, for it will have been destroyed.

In pipe lines or oil efineries, you again have the same "speed of light" problems. But it is the valves and solenoids that are the worry...

I think you might get a outline of an idea from what I have written Mike... And in closing, I am sorry for having linked your name with the other person ( it LOL was just one of the first names hat come into my mind!) That had verbally irritated me. If anything. my patience with morons grows less with evry passing year. And now that the trolls have run off RC.I began to wonder if it is worth coming back here at all.( And I am getting sort of tired of saying I'm sorry also). LOL

To those of you reading this post. It takes a civilization (intact) to build just one power generation station. And physically from six to ten thousand construction craftsmen (persons) to make the station a reality. We are iving on borrowed time and on a cliff. We have all become too myopic. We only understand or care for our own feild of expertise. And have little or no understanding at all for what would come next in the construction of a thing!

It is unusally ironic, that in the feild of warfare alone. The soldier, knows his speciality. And the differing, but related speciality of at least two of his counter parts also. Why is it that mankind is much more "commoned senced" in the art of destruction. Than he colletively is, in the building and maintaining of his/her own civilization?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Shakey~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

-- Shakey (in_a_bunker@forty.feet), January 22, 2000.

A couple of points. 186,000 mi/sec is the speed of light in free space and depends on the dielectric. On a circuit board, the speed of propogation may be 70% of that figure (off the top of my head).

But that diverts from point I'm really trying to make, that the damage from a failure of a control system will not occur at a rate near the speed of light. A process being controlled has to be slower than the controller device or control is not possible. I imagine the transformer explosion required a time measured in milliseconds for the heat resulting from the fault to accumulate and the explosion to occur and if the fault could have been cleared in a shorter period then an explosion would have been prevented. Milliseconds are a long time relative to a processor which can execute multiple instructions each microsecond, but milliseconds are virtually instantaneous to a human observer.

In your scenario with the motor startup, it appears that you would design the controller as I would, with a programmed time delay between motor starts rather than programming the motors to start at an absolute time. Simpler that way. But if a failure caused all motors to start at the same time, wouldn't the surge current blow a breaker?

I agree with your point about specialization. No one has the full picture. Being an avionics engineer I was quite confident that aircraft would not "fall out of the sky" due to a Y2k bug, but am less knowledgable about the air traffic control system and other systems and had less confident that there would be problems. Similarly, I was and remain highly skeptical about there being any vulnerability of the power grid to a Y2k bug.

Nevertheless, with an imperfect view of the general situation, I chose some basic preparations such as a kerosene heater and a few days' fuel, some water storage, and food storage. The government and big corporations were preparing for problems, so why shouldn't I.

On the other hand, I did not go overboard in my preparations. I did not buy a bug out retreat in the hills, a pallet full of MREs, an automatic weapon, or seeds to plant crops. I did not clean out my 401K( and in fact kept contributing) nor did I max out my credit cards. I made prudent preparations which could help in a wide range of disasters but also prepared for the possibility that Y2k would be a BITR, which at least in my part of the world has been the case and I hope it continues to be that way. On the other hand, if I had won the $100M lottery last year then I probably would have done something like this.

I accept your apology and extend one of my own for my comment -- it was late and when the tone of the conversation deteriorated I couldn't resist. Anyway, it appear that we have put the exchange of negative comments behind us and hopefully that will continue.

-- Mikey2k (mikey2k@he.wont.eat.it), January 22, 2000.

Mikey and Shakey, I admire the way you guys came around to a very good discussion in this thread, and you have addressed a topic I have always been interested (and involved in to a degree), control system reliability and safety.

I agree with Shakey that a lot of the power industry in the US has modernized certain portions of their control systems, but a lot of the old stuff analog and electromechanical equipment is still in place as well. As the equipment is upgraded to digital systems, the design philosophy is the same - make it reliable, make it "fail safe."

In nuclear power (my industry), redundancy is used in nuclear safety systems and even in some "mission critical" portions of the non- safety systems (after all, we want to generate electricity, can't do that if we shut down on a single failure of a non-safety component, which does happen on occasion).

Mikey, I found your discussions of FMEA etc. very interesting, one of my favorite subjects. In nuclear, we use a lot of 3/4, 2/3 coincidence logic in safety systems and even some of the protective relaying on the electric side (and dual main transformers as well). For nukes, most of the safety systems are analog, although a lot of the Post Accident Monitoring systems are digital (basically computers). Secondary side has DCS systems at many plants. Our fossil plants have upgraded DCS systems.

One difference I see from nuclear plants to information I have seen on controls for chemical plants, aviation, etc(I have limited knowledge of these areas) is that while the nuclear designs tend to use redundant systems of the same type (i.e., 4 loops of the same sensors, controllers, output relays, etc.), other critical industries including aviation often use "diverse" redundancy. I.e, a different type of "backup" control (such as manual). Manual is a backup for many nuclear plant systems, but not for the primary protection loops, these are automatic (analog).

An area that I have read that most industries are week in regarding control systems is in FMEA and Probability Risk Assessment (PRA). Nuclear uses PRA extensively, but it's not easy, or cheap, or fast to accurately model and calculate the Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) of a control system, and many equipment vendors don't even do it.

The area I haven't touched on much here is in "fail-safe" design, something I also think needs much attention as control systems migrate more toward "PC based" type controllers as opposed to the dedicated type controllers (DCS, PLCs, etc), a very risky prospect if not done properly, in my opinion.

Gordon Connolly and I dicussed the move toward fly-by-wire of commercial aircraft (as a number of military planes) - without manual control I believe! Any comments on this Mikey? Any diversity used???

Regards, Regards, Regards

-- FactFinder (FactFinder@bzn.com), January 22, 2000.

I haven't heard the term coincidence logic but am guessing that it's a voting scheme which allows a one of a number of systems operating in parallel to fail and the remaining properly operating systems will vote the bad one out and keep functioning. I've not been involved with one of these myself, but understand that autoland systems may have such an architecture. The systems I work on typically have internal and sometimes external monitors which shut them down if a dangerous failure occurs.

Some of these may have been implemented with diverse technologies (at least to the extent of using different types of processors) but typically that isn't done in my experience.

We use MIL-STD-462 (number off the top of my head) to calculate MFBF which basically sums the failure probabilities (Pf) of the individual components. Pf is a function of a stress factor which includes how much power the part consumes and the type of environment (temperature and vibration) seen by the part. It's not necessarily accurate but is accepted as an analysis method. Coming up with a totally accurate MTBF number would not be of much value.

None of the avionics systems I work on use a PC-based operating system. They're just too unreliable. Embedded software must be developed to DO-178 which is provides different strictness levels which can be applied depending on the criticality of the function being performed. A cabin entertainment system is obviously less critical than an indicator that displays the aircraft's attitude to the pilot.

-- Mikey2k (mikey2k@he.wont.eat.it), January 22, 2000.