The Control of I a Chemical Process: Its Characteristics and Associated Problems The needs are intimately related t0 the problems, and the problems, as usual, wear a sometimes effective camouflage. AS. Foss* ‘The purpose of the following three introductory chapters is: 1. To define what we mean by chemical process contro! 2. To describe the needs and the incentives for controlling a chemi- cal process 3. To analyze the characteristics of a control system and to formu- late the problems that must be solved during its design 4. To provide the rationale for studying the material that follows in ‘subsequent chapters To achieve the foregoing objectives, we will use a series of exam- ples taken from the chemical industry. These examples are usually simplified and serve only to demonstrate the various qualitative points made. ‘Critique of Chemical Process Control Theory.” AICKE J. 19(2), 209 (1973)Incentives for Chemical 1 Process Control AA chemical plant is an arrangement of processing units (reactors, heat exchangers, pumps, distillation columns, shsorbers, evaporators, ther in a systematic an tanks, etc.), integrated with one anot! oa 8X t's ve is to convert certain raw mat manner. The plant's overall objective is v i : (input feedstock) into desired products using available sources of in the most economical way. . a cpuring its operation, a chemical plant must satisfy several require ‘ments imposed by its designers and the general techaical, economic, f ever-changing ext - ind social conditions in the presence of ences (disturbances). Among such requirements are the following: 1. Safety: The safe operation of a chemical process is a primary "require -being of the people in the plant requirement for the well-being o' tein the plant and for its continued contribution to the economic develo s the operating pressures, temperatures, concentration of chemi- within allowable limits, Is, and so on, should always be example, ifa reactor has been designed to operate at a breseure up to 100 psig, we should have a control system that will maintain the pressure below this value. As another example, we should try to avoid the development of explosive mixtures during the ope tion of a plant. uld_produce the desired . Production specifications: A plant shot > aoa ‘and quality of the final products. For example, we may Chap. 1 Incentives for Chemical Process Conttol 3 Fequire the production of 2 million pounds of ethylene per day, of 99.5% purity. Therefore, a control system is needed to ensure that the production level (2 million pounds per day) and the purity specifications (99.5% ethylene) are satisfied. 3. Environmental regulations: Various federal and state laws may specify that the temperatures, concentrations of chemicals, and flow rates of the effluents from a plant be within certain limits. Such regulations exist, for example, on the amounts of SO; that a Plant can eject to the atmosphere, and on the quality of water returned to a river or a lake. 4. Operational constraints: The various types of equipments used in a chemical plant have constraints inherent to their operation, Such constraints should be satisfied throughout the operation of a plant. For example, pumps must maintain a certain net positive suction head; tanks should not overflow or go dry; distillation columns should not be flooded; the temperature in a catalytic reactor should Rot exceed an upper limit since the catalyst will be destroyed, Control systems are needed to satisfy all these operational con- straints. 5. Economics: The operation of a plant must conform with the ‘market conditions, that is, the availability of raw materials and the demand of the final products. Furthermore, it should be as eco- nomical as possible in its utilization of raw materials, energy, capi- tal, and human labor. Thus it is required that the operating condi- tions are controlled at given optimum levels of minimum ‘operating cost, maximum profit, and so on, All the requirements listed above dictate the need for continuous monitoring of the operation of a chemical plant and external interven- tion (control) to guarantee the satisfaction of the operational objectives. This is accomplished through a rational arrangement of equipment (measuring devices, valves, controllers, computers) and human interven- tion (plant designers, plant operators), which together constitute the control system. There are three general classes of needs that a control system is called on to satisfy: ‘Suppressing the influence of external disturbances Ensuring the stability of a chemical process Optimizing the performance of a chemical process Let us examine these needs using various examples.lems Part 4 Controlof a Chemical Process: Characteristics and Associated Probl Pan 4.1. Suppress the Influence of External Disturbances the influence of external disturbances on a process is the Seis tn ih ‘ances, which denote the effect that the surroundings Coe rae i dt cmap usually out of the reach of the human. ‘operator. Consequent i 0, which implies that T’< T,, the controller opens the steam valve so that more heat can be supplied. On the contrary, the controller closes the steam valve when €<0 or T> T,, It is clear that when T= T, (i., €= 0), the controller does nothing. This control system, which measures the variable of direct. importance (T in this case) after a disturbance had its effect on it, is called the feedback control system. The desired value T, is called the set Point and is supplied externally by the person in charge of production. A similar configuration can be used if we want to keep the volume V, or equivalently the liquid level h, at its set point k, when F; changes. In this case we measure the level of the liquid in the tank and we open or close the valve that affects the effluent flow rate F, ot inlet flow rate F, (See Figure 1.3). It is clear that the control systems shown in Figure 1.3 are also feedback control systems. All feedback systems shown in Figures 1.2 and 1.3 act post facto (after the fact), that is, after the effect of the disturbances has been felt by the process. Returning to the tank heater example, we realize that we can use a different control arrangement to maintain T = T, when T; changes. Mea- sure the temperature of the inlet stream T; and open or close the steam. valve to provide more or less steam. Such a control configuration is called feedforward control and is shown in Figure 1.4. We notice that the feedforward control does not wait until the effect of the disturbances has been felt by the system, but acts appropriately before the external disturb- ance affects the system, anticipating what its effect will be. The charac- teristics of the feedback and feedforward control systems will be studied in detail in subsequent chapters,