Optimisation of Cement Production using Advanced Process Control (APC)

12th TMB International Technical Seminar & Exhibition

Dirk Tiedtke, Head of technical department

Challenges in Operation of Cement Production

Operators of Cement Plants have to balance different targets during each control step
Availability of the plant
Stability of production
Production volume
Clinker/Cement of given Quality
Utilisation of alternative fules
Energy efficient production
Demanding Environmental limits
.......

STEAG Powitec GmbH, Head of technical department, Dirk Tiedtke

Common Tasks in Operation

Start-up and shut-down of production facilities

Monitoring of production including handling of alarm situations
Handling of fast (minutes) processes like the kiln athmosphere
Handling of mid term (hours) processes like

Increasing production
Preventing (predicting) bad quality of clinker or cement
Finding a good energy mix and energy distribution considering raw meal and fuel fluctuations
.....

Global optimisation on the long run (days, months) taking the market situation into
consideration
...

STEAG Powitec GmbH, Head of technical department, Dirk Tiedtke

Complexity of Operation

Most processes in clinker production have a long delay time

Important quality parameters are measured discontinuous
Fuels and, to a higher degree, alternative fuels have changing properties (calorific value,
moisture, ...)
Different operators handle the production process differently
Kiln, Cooler and Mills are black boxes with very few measurements
Operators - comprehensible - tend to find a convenient working point that does not impose
too much additional work!

STEAG Powitec GmbH, Head of technical department, Dirk Tiedtke

But that's what Expert Systems are made for,

aren't they?

It depends!
Classical Expert Systems didn't succeed, because they don't address the complexity of
operation in a sufficient way.
Most often they operate on isolated aspects of control.
They are driven by operator input.
They induce high follow up costs for tuning control loops and rules.
Most of them are switched of or used in a limited way.

STEAG Powitec GmbH, Head of technical department, Dirk Tiedtke

Advanced Process Control (APC) with

PIT Navigator

Plant Management
Objectives

Operations

PIT Navigator controls and calculates setpoints for

Constraints

Control System Core

Based on

Set-points

Measurements

Plant DCS

Energy input
Kiln feed
Cooling air
.....

Management objectives
Technical constraints
Lab analysis
Online process data
Kiln camera system
Kiln scanner (if available)

STEAG Powitec GmbH, Head of technical department, Dirk Tiedtke

APC System Overview

P
L
C
C
A
M
E
R
A

Process variables, Status information, Ctrl set-points

Process variables

Feature
extraction

PID

Calc. Burner
Coal SP
Kiln Feed SP

e.g. O2/CO
control

Neural
Networks

L
A
B
U
S
E
R

Data
pre processing

Controlling elements

Main burner
Coal SP

Clinker analyses

User Interface
Process Limits
Actuator Limits
Target Priorities

e.g. SZT and

kiln drive torque
Rule
Based
Control
e.g. fuel loss
compensation

P
L
C

Kiln RPM SP
Fan damper
SP

Diagrams
Status info
Scoring
7

U
S
E
R

Targets: Scoring

STEAG Powitec GmbH, Head of technical department, Dirk Tiedtke

Constraints

STEAG Powitec GmbH, Head of technical department, Dirk Tiedtke

Example: Controlling the SZT

STEAG Powitec GmbH, Head of technical department, Dirk Tiedtke

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