Rotork Valve Actuators in Airbus Super-Jumbo Production Plant
19/05/2005
Rotork IQ and IQT intelligent electric actuators with Pakscan 2-wire digital control have been installed on a specialised area of the plant that manufactures the world's largest, most advanced and efficient commercial airliner.
The Rotork actuators are installed at Toulouse, where a huge new production plant has been built for the Airbus A380.
The actuators control the sequence by which jet fuel, stored in six tanks, is pumped into the A380's 310,000 litre fuel tanks to clean them and then pumped back through filters for storage and re-use. A total of 64 ATEX certified IQ and IQT actuators operate Malbranque gate valves, Cameron ball valves and Metso butterfly valves on the plant, controlled by a 120 channel Pakscan llE masterstation with hot standby.
The hot standby Pakscan would provide a totally automatic, uninterrupted change-over of control to a secondary masterstation in the event of a component fault, securing the safe, sequential operation of the plant process under any anticipated circumstances. Any fault is immediately identified by an alarm signal to facilitate repair.
Rotork's French sales company was awarded the Airbus order by a consortium consisting of SPIE Batignolles, Exxon and EECTA. The Airbus A380, the world's only twin-deck, four aisle airliner, brings new standards of comfort, better economics and improved environmental responsibilities to the large aircraft sector. Seating up to 656 passengers, the first A380s will enter service in 2006.