The document discusses process control for chemical plants. It covers the need for process control to suppress disturbances, ensure stability, and optimize performance. It also discusses designing process control systems, including defining objectives, measurements, controllers and more. Finally, it discusses hardware for control systems including sensors, transmitters, controllers and control elements.
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Presentation 2 - January 2019
The document discusses process control for chemical plants. It covers the need for process control to suppress disturbances, ensure stability, and optimize performance. It also discusses designing process control systems, including defining objectives, measurements, controllers and more. Finally, it discusses hardware for control systems including sensors, transmitters, controllers and control elements.
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PROCESS CONTROL 3
EHPBH3B/EHPCO2A Presented by:
John Kabuba Tshilenge
Lecturer 2
January 2019 Learning Unit 1: The Control of a Chemical Process I. Incentive of Chemical Process Control
• A chemical plant is an arrangement of processing
units (reactors, heat exchangers, pumps, distillation columns, absorbers, evaporators), integrated with one another in a systematic and rational manner. • During its operation, a chemical plant must satisfy several requirements imposed by its designers and the general technical, economic and social conditions in the presence of ever-changing external influences (disturbances). • Among such requirements are the following: 1. Safety 2. Production specifications 3. Environmental regulations 4. Operational constraints 5. Economics • All the requirements dictate the need for continuous monitoring of the operation of a chemical plant and external intervention (control) to guarantee the satisfaction of the operational objectives. • This is accomplished through a rational arrangement of equipment and human intervention, which together constitute the control system. • There are three general classes of needs that a control system is called on to satisfy: 1. Suppressing the influence of external disturbances 2. Ensuring the stability of a chemical process 3. Optimizing the performance of a chemical process I.1 Suppress the Influence of External Disturbances • Consider the tank heater system shown in Figure 1.1. • A. liquid enters the tank with a flow rate F1 and a temperature T1, where it is heated with steam. • Let F and T be the flow rate and temperature of the stream leaving the tank. • The operational objectives of this heater are: 1. To keep the effluent temperature T at a desired value Ts. 2. To keep the volume of the liquid in the tank at a desired value Vs. • The operation of the heater is disturbed by external factors such as changes in the feed flow rate and temperature. If nothing changed, then after attaining T = Ts and V = Vs, we could leave the system alone without any supervision and control. Figure 1.1 Stirred tank heater In Figure 1.2 we see such a control Action to keep T = Ts when Ti or Fi Changes. A thermocouple measures Thermocouple The temperature T of the liquid in The Tank. Then T is compared with T the Desired value Ts, yielding a Set-point (Ts) deviation ε = Ts – T. The value of the -+ deviation ε is sent to a control mechanism which Deviation,ε Decides what must be done in order Controller for the temperature T to return back to the desired value Ts.
Figure 1.2 Feedback temperature control for a tank heater
I.2 Ensure the Stability of a Process
• Consider the behavior of the variable x
shown in Figure 1.3. Notice that at time t = to the constant value of x is disturbed by some external factors, but that as time progresses the value of x returns to its initial value and stays there. • If x is a process variable such as Figure 1.5 Response of a stable system temperature, pressure, concentration, or flow rate, we say that the process is stable or self-regulating and needs no external intervention for its stabilization. • It is clear that no control mechanism is needed to force x to return to its initial value. • In contrast to the behavior described, the variable y shown in Figure 1.4 does not return to its initial value after it is Figure 1.6 Alternative disturbed by external influences. responses of unstable systems • Processes whose variables follow the pattern indicated by y in Figure 1.4 (curves A, B, C) are called unstable processes and require external control for the stabilization of their behavior
Example 1.2: Controlling the operation of an unstable reactor
• Consider a continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR) in which an irreversible
exothermic reaction A→B takes place. • The heat of reaction is removed by a coolant medium that flows through a jacket around the reactor in Figure 1.5.
Figure 1.5 CSTR with cooling jacket.
I.3 Optimize the Performance of a Chemical Process • Safety and satisfaction of production specifications are the two principal operational objectives for a chemical plant. • Once these are achieved, the next goal is how to make the operation of the plant more profitable. • Given the fact that the conditions which affect the operation of the plant do not remain the same, it is clear that we would like to be able to change the operation of the plant (flow rates, pressures, concentrations, temperatures) in such a way that an economic objective (profit) is always maximized. • This task is undertaken by the automatic controllers of the plant and its human operators. II. Design Aspect of a Process Control System II. 1 Classification of the Variables in a Chemical Process The variables associated with a chemical process are divided into two groups: 1. Input variables, which denote the effect of the surrounding the chemical process 2. Output variables, which denote the effect of the process on the surroundings • For the tank heater discussed in Figure 1.1, we have: Input variables: Fi, Ti, F Output variables: F, V, T The input variables can be further classified into the following categories: 1. Manipulated (or adjustable) variables 2. Disturbances The output variables are also classified into the following categories: 1. Measured output variables 2. Unmeasured output variables II. 2 Design Elements of a Control System 1. Define control objectives 2. Select measurements 3. Select manipulated variables 4. Select the control configuration • Depending on how many controlled outputs and manipulated inputs we have in a chemical process, we can distinguish the control configurations as either single- input, single output (SISO) or multiple input, multiple output (MIMO) control systems. • The three general types of control configurations (a) Feedback control configuration (b) Inferential control configuration (c) Feedforward control configuration 5. Design the controller II. 3 Control Aspects of a Complete Chemical Plant • The control of integrated processes is the basic objective for a chemical engineer. • Due to its complexity, though, we will start by analyzing the control problems for single units and eventually we will treat the integrated processes. III. Hardware for a Process Control System III. 1 Hardware Elements of a Control System In every control configuration we can distinguish the following hardware elements: 1. The chemical process 2. The measuring instruments or sensors 3. Transducers/ Transmitters 4. Transmission lines 5. The controller 6. The final control element 7. Recording elements Hardware elements (instrumentation) • The sensor, transmitter and control valve are located on the process equipment. • The controller is usually located in a control room that is some distance from the process equipment. • Wires connect the two locations carrying current signals from transmitters to the controller and from the controller to the final control element. Hardware elements : Locations III. 2 Use of Digital Computers in Process Control 1. Direct digital control (DDC) 2. Supervisory computer control 3. Scheduling computer control