Working in confined spaces involves risks. One of the potential dangers is the atmospheric composition: tight spaces have limited ventilation and an atmosphere that may contain unsafe oxygen levels. Whether there is a gas leakage or a lack of oxygen, unusual values can cause serious harm – in the short- and/or long-term. Think of unconsciousness or even worse. Also long-term exposure to small amounts of for example carbon monoxide can cause a variety of health issues.

To minimize the risk involved with working in confined spaces, especially during maintenance turnarounds and shutdowns, remote gas detection is of great value. It enables the early detection of gasses like carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulfide and methane, a lack of oxygen and lower explosive limits (LEL) – without having someone actually performing the measurement on the ground.

If the values detected exceed defined limits, an alarm functionality can be activated. Furthermore, all detected values are continuously communicated to the command centre and can be shared online. With VISICS it is even possible to combine this data with access and registration data, which results in valuable information about for example long-term exposure to certain gases.