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ISSN: 2248-9622, Vol. 6, Issue 6, (Part - 3) June 2016, pp.53-59

RESEARCH ARTICLE OPEN ACCESS

Application of PLC’s for Automation of Processes in Industries

Rahul Pawar*, Dr. N. R. Bhasme**
* M.E. Student, Department of Electrical Engineering, Government Engineering College, Aurangabad-05
** Associate Prof., Department of Electrical Engineering, Government Engineering College, Aurangabad-05

ABSTRACT
Several industries utilize sequential industrial process which is respective in nature. For such processes
industries have to depend upon use of relays, stepping drum, timers and controls, considerable difficulties
experienced in reprogramming necessitated due to change in the nature of production. Often the whole system
has to be scrapped and a redesigning is required. To overcome these problems PLC control system was
introduced. The PLC can be described as a control ladder comprising a sequence program. PLC sequence
program consists of normally open and normally closed contacts connected in parallel or in series. It also has
relay coils, which turns ON and OFF as the state of these contacts change. In this paper, about all aspects of
these powerful and versatile tools and its applications to process automation has been discussed.
Keywords: Automation, Programmable Logic Controller (PLC), Programming Languages, Process
Automation.

I. INTRODUCTION
With the upcoming technologies and availability drum sequencers, cam timers, and closed-loop
of motion control of electric drives, the application controllers. The process for updating such facilities
of Programmable Logic Controllers with power for the yearly model change-over was very
electronics in electrical machines has been expensive and time consuming as electricians have
introduced in the development of automation to individually rewire each and every relay. Digital
systems. The use of PLC in automation processes computers, being general-purpose programmable
increases reliability, flexibility and reduction in devices, were applied for the control of industrial
production cost. Use of PLC interfaced with power processes. Early computers required specialist
converters, personal computers and other electric programmers and essential operating environmental
equipment makes industrial electric drive systems control for temperature, cleanliness, and power
more accurate and efficient [1]. PLCs have been quality. The general-purpose computer used for
gaining popularity on the factory floor and will process control required protecting the computer
probably remain preponderant in coming years. from the plant floor conditions. An industrial control
Most of this is because of the advantages they offer, computer possess several attributes: it would tolerate
like the shop-floor environment, it would not require
years of training to use, and it would permit its
 Cost effective for controlling complex systems. operation to be monitored, it would support discrete
 Flexible and can be reapplied to control other (bit-form) input and output in an easily extensible
systems quickly and easily. manner. The response time of any computer system
 Computational abilities allow more must be fast enough to be useful for control; the
sophisticated control. required speed varying according to the nature of the
 Trouble shooting makes programming easier process [2].
and reduce downtime. In 1968, the design criteria for the first
 Reliable components make these likely to programmable controller were specified by the
operate for years before failure. Hydromantic Division of the General Motors
Corporation. Eliminating the high costs associated
The PLC was contrive in response to the needs with inflexible, relay-controlled systems was their
of the American automotive manufacturing industry. primary goal. The specifications required a solid-
Automotive industries were the first to adopt state system with computer flexibility able to (a)
programmable logic controllers, where software Survive in an industrial environment, (b) Be easily
alteration replaced the rewiring of hard-wired programmed and maintained by plant engineers and
control panels when production models changed. In technicians, (c) Be reusable
manufacturing automobiles, earlier, the control, Such control system would reduce machine
sequencing and the safety interlock logic was downtime and provide expandability for the future.
accomplished using hundreds or thousands of relays, The automotive industry is still one of the largest
users of PLCs [13].
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II. LITERATURE REVIEW characteristics so that the motor is always running

PLC and the SCADA systems are widely used efficiently [7].
in most industrial processes e.g. chemical industries,
steel manufacturing, power generations, etc. III. PROGRAMMING
Automated level control systems using PLC, The programming technique for the first PLCs
SCADA and HMI are used ubiquitously in industrial were based on relay logic wiring schematics. This
applications. To prevent industrial accidents by eliminated the need to teach the technicians,
overfilling of any open container, to prevent electricians and engineers how to program a
overfilling of any closed container thereby creating computer but this method has stuck and it is the most
overpressure condition. Therefore, process control common technique for programming PLCs today.
industrial applications requires effective supervise According to IEC 61131-3 five programming
level control in multiple tanks. languages is defined for programmable control
A paper on the design of bottle filling plant systems: LD (Ladder diagram), ST (Structured text),
using PLC wherein a bottle filling and capping SFC (Sequential function chart), FBD (Function
operation takes place in a synchronized manner. The block diagram), and IL (Instruction list, similar to
user can input the desired volume of liquid to fill in assembly language) [13, 14].
the bottles. The entire system is more flexible and
time saving [3]. Another application in which IV. INDUSTRIAL AUTOMATION
microcontroller based automated system was SYSTEMS
developed. The developed system improved the Industrial automation is the use of computer and
performance by reducing the time delay using fast machinery aided systems to operate the various
switching transistors. The system was tested for industrial operations in well controlled manner.
electro pneumatic and electro hydraulic systems Based on the operations involved, the industrial
resulting in faster time response and stable duty automation systems are majorly divided into two
cycle [4]. types; (a) Manufacturing automation and (b) Process
The system designed for the temperature control plant automation systems.
of solar cell lamination machine using double
microcontroller as its core. In this the control system 4.1 Manufacturing Automation System
based on double microcontroller improves the The manufacturing industries make the product
temperature control precision and to achieve a out of raw materials using robotics/machines. Some
closed loop control on the lamination temperature a of these manufacturing industries include paper
PID control algorithms are designed. Thus not only making, glass and ceramic, textile and clothing, food
dynamic response, temperature control accuracy and and beverages, etc. New trends in manufacturing
uniformity improved but also detects and controls systems have been using automation systems at
the vacuum of the working room [5]. every stage such as material handling, machining,
A PLC based monitoring and control scheme for assembling, inspection and packaging. With the
a three-phase induction motor suggested that PLC computer aided control and industrial robotic
can be used in automation industries involving systems, the manufacturing automation becomes
control of induction motor. A control program was very flexible and efficient.
developed, through which PLC continuously
monitored the inputs and activated the outputs 4.2 Process Plant Automation
accordingly. A current sensor was employed for load In process industries, the product results from
current feedback, a speed sensor for speed feedback, many chemical processes based on some raw
and an additional current sensor was attached to materials, some of the industries are cement
stator circuits. The speed control of motor achieved industry, pharmaceutical, paper industry,
through PLC gave the system high accuracy in speed petrochemical, etc. Thus the overall process plant is
regulation at constant speed for variable load automated to produce the high quality, more
operation. The efficiency of the induction motor productive, high reliable control of the physical
system fed by an inverter was increased appreciably process variables.
by using PLC. At high speeds and loads, the
efficiency of PLC-controlled system is increased up
to 10–12% [6]. A water control system using
variable frequency principle and constant pressure
principle using PLC is designed. Using variable
frequency control to adjust the speed of the AC
motor, not only its speed can be varied continuously
but also the relationship between frequency and
voltage is adjusted based on various load

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ISSN: 2248-9622, Vol. 6, Issue 6, (Part - 3) June 2016, pp.53-59

According to the technical requirement, the

temperature of glycerin in the dyeing trough must
change. If the temperature of glycerin is lower than
the predefined value the temperature control system
should close the heat switch till the set value of
temperature is reached. If the temperature is higher
than set value then system should connect the
cooling valve to drop the temperature. Thus dyeing
technology of the textile needs strict requirement of
the temperature control due to the difficulty in
Fig. 1 Process automation system manual control [8].

The fig. 1 shows the process automation system. 4.4 Automated Boiler System for Thermal Power
The various layers represents widespread of Plant
components in a process plant. Boiler is one of the most important parts in any
power plant. Which require continuous monitoring
4.2.1 Plant: and inspection at frequent interval. In Power plants it
This level consists of machines which are has number of boiling section. This boiling section
closest to processes. In this sensors and actuators are produces the high temperature water of the steam.
used to translate the signals from the machines and Boiler steam temperature in thermal power plant is
physical variables for the purpose of analysis and to very complex and hard to control, due to poorly
produce the control signals. understanding of the working principles; Boilers
have many serious injuries and destruction of
4.2.2 Direct process control: property. It is critical for the safe operation of the
In this level, automatic controllers and boiler and the steam turbine. Too low a level may
monitoring systems acquire the process information overheat boiler tubes and damage them. Too high a
from sensors and correspondingly drives the actuator level may interfere with separating moisture from
systems. steam and transfers moisture into the turbine, which
reduces the boiler efficiency.
4.2.3 Plant supervisory control: Various controlling mechanism are used to
This level commands the automatic controllers control the boiler system so that it works properly,
by setting the targets or set points. It looks after the many control strategies have been applied to it.
control equipment for an optimal process control. Block diagram of the automated boiler system for
the thermal power plant is shown in fig. 3 [9]. In
4.3 Automated Dyeing Machine order to automate a power plant and minimize
In textile industry, dyeing machine is automated human intervention, there is a need to develop a
using PLC technology to automatically control the Boiler Automation system. It is achieved by using
temperature and established the automatic Programmable Logic Controller & Supervisory
temperature adjustment in the working process of Control and Data Acquisition system that helps to
dyeing machine. The control objective of dyeing reduce the errors caused by humans and avoids the
machine and the structure of its temperature control catastrophic failure.
system is shown fig. 2 [9]. The temperature of the
system ranges from 20°C to 150°C, as water cannot
attain the temperature of 150°C glycerin is used.
Under normal pressure, glycerin can achieve 150°C.

Fig. 2 Structure of temperature control system

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ISSN: 2248-9622, Vol. 6, Issue 6, (Part - 3) June 2016, pp.53-59

Fig. 3 Block diagram of boiler automation system on. If operator can master any one of the
In boiler automation process using PLC and programming languages, he can operate PLC well.
SCADA different sensors are used to measure the The person who want to use PLC has a good choice.
water level, temperature and pressure. PLC is used Based on engineering practice, function and capacity
to control the process whereas SCADA monitors the can be expanded by expanding number of module,
various process parameters. If the pressure and so PLC has a good flexibility.
temperature exceed the set value then the entire
system shuts down and the valves automatically are 5.3 Quality of Strong Easy-Operating
opened to release the steam and pressure. Thus PLC It is very easy to change or modify and edit
can be programmed to function as an energy program for PLC by computer offline or online. It is
management system for boiler control for maximum very easy to find out where the fault occurred by
efficiency and safety. In the burner management showing the information of fault location and
system it can be used to control the process of function of self-diagnosing and all these makes
purging, pilot light off, flame safety checks, main repair and maintenance for PLC easier. Configuring
burner light off and valve switching for changeover PLC is very easy due to modularization,
of fuels [9]. standardization and serialization of PLC.

4.5 Induction Steel Heating Furnaces using PLC 5.4 Scan Time
Induction heating is a thermal heating process, A PLC program is generally executed
when a material is heated within an induction steel continuously as long as the controlled system is
heating furnace (ISHF) its magnetic permeability running. The status of physical input signals is
and resistivity fluctuate, which proves detrimental to copied to an area of memory accessible to the
the control of power within the furnace. So to processor, sometimes called the "I/O Image Table".
improve an power control within an ISHF The program is then executed from its first
programmable logic controller (PLC) is used. PLC instruction down to the last one as shown in figure 4.
not only helps in pressure, position and temperature It takes some time for the processor of the PLC to
control within ISHF but also provides over current evaluate all the instructions and update the I/O
and over voltage protection. PLC also allows heating image table with the status of outputs. This time of
to take place at constant power while maintaining a scan may be a few milliseconds for a small program
steady resonance frequency [10]. or on a fast processor, but older PLCs executing very
large programs could take much longer i.e. up to 100
V. SALIENT FEATURES OF PLC ms to execute the program [2]. If the scan time were
The various functionalities of programmable too long, the response of the PLC to process
logic controller has evolved over the years to include conditions would be sluggish to be useful.
sequential relay control, distributed control systems,
process control, motion control and networking.
PLC control system is that it regards PLC as control
key component, utilize special I/O module to form
hardware of control system with a small amount of
measurement and peripheral circuit, to realize
control to the whole system through programming.

5.1 High Reliability

In order to make PLC work stably and
efficiently in strong interferential conditions, very Fig 4 PLC Scan Cycle
high reliability and strong anti-interference quality
are the most important features of PLC. Software 5.4.1 Input scan
control instead of relay control can decrease faults During the input scan, the current status of
which are brought about by original electric contact every signal from input module is stored in the input
spot outdoor working badly. Industrial grade image (memory) table, making it up-to-date. Thus
components made by advance processing technology all the status of the input devices (which in turn is
can sustain interferences, and self-diagnosis connected to the input module) are updated in the
measures of watchdog circuit for protecting memory input memory table of PLC.
can improve performance of PLC greatly [2].
5.4.2 Program scan
5.2 Good Flexibility Following the input scan, the CPU enters into its
There are various programming languages for user program execution, or program scan. The
PLC including ladder diagram, SFC, STL, ST and so execution involves starting from the first program

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ISSN: 2248-9622, Vol. 6, Issue 6, (Part - 3) June 2016, pp.53-59

instruction, then moving on to the second instruction simplified solution to complex control functions
and carrying out its execution sequence. This compare with existing discrete electronic systems.
continues up to the last instruction of the program. Analog control is now heavily based on linear
Throughout the user-program execution, the CPU integrated circuits, and remains the fastest form of
continually keeps its output image (memory) table control available. However, the 'fine tuning' of
up-to-date. feedback systems during design and commissioning
remains a difficult task. This, coupled with the fixed
5.4.3 Output scan nature of electronic circuit construction, results in a
During program scan, the output modules are control medium that cannot easily have its function
not updated continually. Instead, the entire output changed - the complete electronic system may have
image table is transferred to the output modules to be replaced if this proves necessary.
during the output scan which comes after the
program execution. Thus the output devices are 6.4 Computer Control System
activated accordingly during the output scan. Today, powerful low-cost micro- and mini-
computers are available, and are often used in both
VI. PLC COMPARED WITH OTHER sequence and continuous control systems.
CONTROL SYSTEM Microprocessor-based control panels are small
6.1 Relay Control System enough to locate at (or near) the point of final
Any desired logic functions can be generated by control, simplifying connection requirements. In
connecting the input and output contacts in series large processes it is now common for several
and/or in parallel. Combinations of several logic microcontrollers to be used instead of a single large
elements may be used to create fairly complex mainframe control computer, with resulting benefits
control plans. For a simple task, the number of in performance, cost and reliability. Each micro can
control relays required could be so numerous leading provide optimal local control, as well as being able
in a large control panel. A typical relay system may to send or receive control data via other
consist of several hundred or thousand switching microcontrollers or a host supervisory computer
contacts, which presents the design engineer with a (mini or micro) [2, 12]. This is termed distributed
considerable task. Once the system is wired, it is control and allows for greater sophistication of
extremely difficult to change the control function of control than was with a centralized strategy using a
a panel and is likely to involve a complete re-wiring single large computer, since the control function is
of the system [2, 12]. Together with the other divided between several dedicated processors.
disadvantages of cost, speed and reliability, the
above demerits for relay control system have led to VII. AREAS OF APPLICATION OF PLC
the replacement of relay control systems by modern Every system or machine has a controller.
alternatives based on microprocessors and Depending on the type of technology used,
electronics systems. Relay continues to be used controllers can be divided into pneumatic, hydraulic,
extensively as output devices (actuators) on other electrical and electronic controllers. Frequently, a
types of control system, being ideal for the combination of different technologies is used.
conversion of small control signals to higher- Furthermore, differentiation is made between hard-
current/higher-voltage driving signals. wired programmable (e.g. wiring of electro-
mechanical or electronic components) and
6.2 Digital Logic Control Systems programmable logic controllers. The first is used
Digital ICs, which deal exclusively with binary primarily in cases, where any reprogramming by the
signals, process this information through various user is out of the question and the job size warrants
logic 'gates'. Logic gates operate at much higher the development of a special controller. Typical
speeds and consume considerably less power than an applications for such controllers can be found in
equivalent relay circuit. Although digital ICs have automatic washing machines, video cameras, and
the advantage of small size, it cannot switch higher cars. However, if the job size does not warrant the
power signal. Relay is used to convert small control development of a special controller or if the user is
signals to higher power driving signals [2]. to have the facility of making simple or independent
program changes, or of setting timers and counters,
6.3 Electronic continuous control systems then the use of a universal controller, where the
The operational amplifier (op-amp) available for program is written to an electronic memory, is the
analog computing operations, which involve the preferred option. The PLC represents such a
performance of mathematical operations such as universal controller. It can be used for different
integration, differentiation, etc. were quickly applications and, via the program installed in its
adopted into the field of continuous control (Closed- memory, provides the user with a simple means of
loop feedback systems) and provided a much changing, extending and optimizing control

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processes. The original task of a PLC involved the comparison with earlier structures have increased the
interconnection of input signals according to a flexibility of PLC configurations, PLC computing,
specified program and, if "true", to switch the scan time, data processing, network communication,
corresponding output. Boolean algebra forms the graphics display, and other functions. The PLC
mathematical basis for this operation, which programming tools are constantly developing, so it
recognizes precisely two defined statuses of one can be used more widely in the applications of
variable: "0" and "1" [2]. numerical control technology, control of machining
Proper application of a PLC begins with an center which will be more flexible and reliable.
economical justification analysis. The batch process
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