Republic of Yemen

Sana’a University

Faculty of Engineering

Electrical Department

TANK LEVEL CONTROL

Classic control system (PLC)

DONE BY\

Ayman AL-Romimah 201973402.

Amin AL-Selwi 202070112.

Zakaria AL-Selwi 202073415.

Supervisor by:
Eng . Mahran AL-Absi.
Eng . Mohammed AL-Maswari
Contents
Introduction .............................................................................................................................................. 2
Abstract ..................................................................................................................................................... 2
objective ..................................................................................................................................................... 3
Tools experiment ....................................................................................................................................... 3
REQUIREMENTS : ................................................................................................................................. 4
Description ................................................................................................................................................ 5
Flowchart representing the steps ............................................................................................................. 7
Examples of fault events ........................................................................................................................... 8
Possible causes of failures ......................................................................................................................... 9
Discussion .................................................................................................................................................. 9
Conclusions .............................................................................................................................................. 10
Introduction
In industry, the water level control problem is a typical process control problem, and has been
extensively studied in the literature. This report focuses on the design and implementation of a
PLC-based water level control system. In this project, we have two primary objectives: the
overall mechanical design of the system, and the PLC system design and implementation. In the
mechanical design part, the finite element analysis is performed for the water tank to check the
area that has high leaking risk. Additionally, a flow simulation in the water tank is conducted to
analyze the effect of the transient pressure on the sensors. On the other hand, the water tank is
modeled in Simulink, and simulation results have shown that the PID controller can regulate the
water level to the desired position. Finally, the PLC ladder diagram is programmed, and the
experimental results have verified the effectiveness of the design.

Abstract
Some of the most critical competencies students need to acquire to become control engineers
require performing practices under actual industrial conditions. This means that they must not
only master the theoretical aspects of the discipline but also acquire skills and atti tudes to face
unpredictable real-world situations. Software tools such as Matlab/Simulink are widely used to
train the design and validation of controllers, but they fail to provide real industrial contexts.
Nowadays, there are 3D simulation tools that support recreating industrial environments to a
remarkable extent, making them very attractive for university courses. Nevertheless, their
application in engineering courses is scarce yet. This paper presents a methodological framework
for seizing into competency-based courses one of these simulation tools, called Factory I/O. Our
approach was evaluated in a master’s course on Industrial PID Control at Pontifical Catholic
University of Valpara´ıso (PUCV) in Chile. The evaluation comprised the qualitative analysis of
students’ grades over four consecutive course editions and the qualitative study of students’
opinion on Factory I/O educational value. The objectives of our evaluation were

1. testing if Factory I/O helped students develop skills hard to practice in academic
contexts, such as detecting faults or recognizing the importance of having well-defined
operation protocols.
2. validating our methodology for competency-based courses.
3. surveying our students about Matlab/Simulink and Factory I/O strengths/weaknesses
to teach control engineering. According to the results:
a- Factory I/O complements Simulink by providing an adequate virtual environment to learn
the aforementioned skills.
b- our methodology supports courses’ continuous improvement through the statistical
analysis of students’ achievements at different abstraction levels.
objective
Control the liquid level (or flow) of a tank using a Proportional-Integral-
Derivative (PID) controller.
Design, evaluation, and optimization of equipment operation and maintenance in
industrial processes.
Detection and diagnosis of equipment faults in industrial processes, establishing
possible solutions.

Tools experiment
1. Siemens S7-PLCSIM.
2. PLC-S7-1200.
3. Discharge valve.
4. Fill valve.
5. Flow meter.
6. PID Controller.
7. Level meter.
REQUIREMENTS :

This section describes the course on Industrial PID Control we teach as part of the
master degree in Electrical Engineering at PUCV, which has the following
contents:
1. Design the simple of project by factory I/O.
2. Start to connect the project design to the tia portal to control it by PLC.
3. PLC programming.
4. PID control fundamentals.
5. Practical aspects of PID control.
6. Labs for training PID control modeled system that can communicate with
other components from Matlab/Simulink after the simulation has been started.

The PLC is programmed using the Siemens Totally Integrated Automation

software TIA Portal.
For didactical purposes, the simpler tank control scheme performed by students is
described hereafter. In this case, they firstly work operating only the filling valve,
so the liquid discharge valve must remain open. To do that, students must force the
discharge valve to totally open, which is achieved by defining its operating limit to
the maximum in the control panel.
At this point, they should observe (and keep in mind) the operating limits of the
rest of the components.
Description
Fill valve (analog output):
Input flow valve driven by a pneumatic actuator that
can be positioned with voltage signals between 0 and
10 V.

Discharge valve (analog output):

Output flow valve driven by a pneumatic actuator that can be
positioned with voltage signals between 0 and 10 V.

Level meter (analog input):

Capacitive level sensor used to detect liquid levels. The measurement
is provided by a voltage signal between 0 and 10 V.

PLC (Siemens S7-1200):

Programmable Logic Controller used to control the system.
TIA Portal software is used to program the PLC using its
internal PID controller block.

Control Panel:
Electric switchboard that contains the PLC and operators
such as: one potentiometer (analog input), two displays
(analog outputs), and three push buttons (digital inputs).
 the communication with the external controller by assigning a memory address in
the PLC in order to identify the input and output variables of the simulated process
by tags in Factory I/O.

To start the PID block configuration, students must assign the memory addresses in
the PLC according to the type of data to be used (Word, INT, DINT, etc.), then the
process signals must be normalized and scaled to work with the actual values of the
system. For this case study, the input and output signals mentioned in Table 3 must
be assigned to the PID Compact block. These, in turn, are associated with certain
parts of the instrumentation shown.
Later, these same variables (or tags) are used by students to program the control
logic.
By using the TIA Portal software, the control logic of the system is then
programmed. For this purpose,
students must identify and use
the different functional tools
offered by this software along
with the well-known Ladder
programming logic . One of the
main programming blocks
studied in this course
corresponds to the PID-
Compact, which contains the
structure of a non-interactive
PID controller with an anti-
windup filter.
 the connection between both software (Factory I/O and TIA Portal) is established,
the control signals are displayed using the real-time plots offered by TIA Portal.

Flowchart representing the steps

Illustrates a flowchart that represents the steps followed by students in the final
stage.
 This block allows to select the
regulator structure and the
measurement unit of the controlled
variable, to define the actuator
saturation limits, and finally
establish the PID control
parameters (Kp, Ki and Td ). For
the latter, students must design
these parameters for the Factory
I/O tank model, considering the
PID concepts previously studied
and evaluated .
they describe a set of possible actions that could compose a maintenance protocol
for this process, such as:
1. initial overview of the system.
2. physical and logical connection examination.
3. sensors, actuators, and reference values testing.
4. PID control parameter checkup.
5. PLC program testing.

Examples of fault events

PLC programming failure

A fault is introduced in the main routine of the programmed algorithm in the PLC
what causes the setpoint digital display in the control panel in Factory I/O to show
an incorrect reading of the setpoint value adjusted in the Potentiometer.
Process instrumentation failure
A fault is introduced in the initial configuration of the simulation in Factory I/O,
specifically in the process instrumentation, which causes the controlled variable
does not follow the setpoint correctly.
PID controller failure
A fault is introduced in the parameterization of the PID controller block. This
causes that the imposed performance specifications are not met.
Possible causes of failures

PLC programming failure

- Incorrect value of the limits used in normalizing and scaling the reference.
- The numerical format of the display is not congruent with the one configured in
TIA Portal.
- The digital display is not programmatically connected to the potentiometer.

Process instrumentation failure

- Inlet valve opening is forced, adjusting a constant tension.
- The discharge valve is not fully open.
- The liquid level sensor is forced, providing a constant voltage.

PID controller failure

- Incorrect value of the control parameters (Kp, Ti and Td ).
- Incorrect configuration of the process limits or scaling values.

Discussion
According to the results summarized in Fig. 14 and Table 8, students are acquiring
C2 with the support of Factory I/O at a level similar to what they are acquiring C1
with Simulink. In other words, we are teaching C1 and C2 consistently.
Thanks to the decomposition of competencies into learning outcomes and low-
level indicators, we detected that the design and validation of PID controllers are
not being taught adequately. Thus we should reframe them in the next courses.
Simulink seems to be better for understanding specific contents, such as the
analysis and design of PID control loops. In contrast, Factory I/O is superior to
arouse students’ interest to learn industrial automation. Also, it provides a more
holistic vision of control systems that encompasses many different aspects, such as
fault detection and repair, system’s set up and maintenance, and awareness of the
importance that has to adhere to established protocols. Accordingly, students think
that Simulink and Factory I/O complement each other.
The implications of our research are twofold:
1. Competency-based education has shown to provide important benefits,
including deeper learning, increased student intrinsic motivation, autonomy
and competence, etc. As a result, this paradigm is very extended nowadays.
Our decompositional methodology can be applied to any discipline’s
competency-based courses, thus helping instructors identify their teaching
strengths and weaknesses for continuously improving their courses.
2. Our experimental validation shows that modern 3D simulation tools (Factory
I/O) adequately complement classic tools (Simulink) to teach students how to
face practical problems that arise in industrial automation and go beyond the
design and implementation of PID controllers.

Conclusions
The potential benefits of making available a whole factory to engineering students
from their first class are tremendous. The engineer can easily :
1. understand the motivations of the course contents.
2. appreciate the limitations of simplistic solutions and develop the interest in
more sophisticated approaches.
3. put into practice every content they learn.
4. test their own creative solutions to novel problems.
5. acquire an integrated understanding of the entire system.
6. practice fault detection and troubleshooting routines, etc.

The application of our methodology revealed the following findings:

1- Factory I/O provides a satisfactory virtual environment to teach fault
detection, diagnosis and fixing in automated engineering courses. This was
confirmed both quantitatively with the grades students obtained, and
qualitatively by surveying students.
2- Decomposing competencies’ assessment enables the identification of the
strengths and weaknesses of a course and thus its continuous improvement.