FULLY LOADED

Manoel Morales Nascimento, Brazil, and Scott Jost, USA,

Rockwell Automation, introduce a model predictive control that
has maximised productivity in an iron ore shiploading port facility.

. DRY BULK . REPRINTED FROM AUTUMN 2017

B razil’s main iron ore export facility is a port in the
north of the country. From there, ships with
capacities of 250 000 – 400 000 tpy are loaded
for worldwide distribution. In 2016, this port had
a loading capacity of 150 million tpy and this is
expected to reach 230 million tpy in 2018.
The port has several stockyards where the iron ore
from mines is staged in long piles by stackers. From
these stockpiles, ore is transferred by bucket wheel
reclaimers onto a network of belt conveyors that
transport ore to up to five ships docked at the port. The
reclaimers have a capacity of 8000 tph and the two
largest shiploaders are designed for loading 16 000 tph.
Due to material handling variations, two reclaimers
typically achieve 82% of design throughput. The
addition of a third reclaimer to a shiploading route
makes it possible to achieve full design capacity, but
also makes it possible to overload the conveyors and
chute transfers on the route. When an overload occurs,
heavy ore must be manually removed from the line
before the tripped equipment can be restarted.
Design requirements
To achieve a continuous loading capacity of 16 000 tph
for both of the large shiploading lines,
Rockwell Automation proposed a model predictive
control (MPC) application that would allow the use of
three reclaimers per line by coordinating the flowrate
REPRINTED FROM AUTUMN 2017 . DRY BULK .
setpoint of the reclaimers and the conveying
equipment on the route selected by the operator to
maximise the throughput of ore to the ships.
This MPC application would continuously update the
feed rate setpoints of the reclaimers selected by the
operator for ‘three origin’ operation. Since there are nine
reclaimers available and about sixty common routes
between sets of three reclaimers and the two large
loading docks, the application must account for material
travel times, transport delays and further ensure that,
when material meets in the conveyors and transfer
chutes to a ship, it never exceeds the total capacity of
the system. Essentially, the MPC application must
dynamically maximise the amount of ore on the
selected route up to the constraint determined by the
weakest link of the chain of equipment that makes up
that route.
A multivariable control at an iron ore shiploading port facility.
A second view of a multivariable control at an iron ore shiploading port facility.
. DRY BULK . REPRINTED FROM AUTUMN 2017
In addition to regulating the feed rates of the
individual reclaimers, the following features were
needed to maximise the robustness of the application:
nn For each ship being loaded, the system operator
must be allowed to select any three available
origin reclaimers from the nine. The operator
must be allowed to choose any conveyor route
whose equipment is not already being used by
another shiploading route. The number of possible
combinations is very large, with about 60 common
routes between reclaimers and ships.
nn The system operator must be allowed to reposition
reclaimers as needed, including to new stockpiles.
When these operational changes take place,
tracking of material from the original reclaimer
position must be maintained and integrated with
material from the new route
configuration automatically.
nn When any of the active reclaimers
or belt conveyors are stopped, the
application must compensate with
segments that remain online such
that the total flow to shiploading is
maximised with active equipment
up to the then-current system
constraint.
nn The system operator should
be provided with soft sensors,
calculated process values of the
flow and the position of ore on all
conveyors in real time to assist in
system monitoring.
nn Information regarding material that
has been left on conveyors that
were stopped while loaded must
be retained so that, when that
equipment is restarted, its loading
state is known and transient loading
issues upon startup are avoided.
nn Control must allow and account
for variable lengths of conveyors
so that, as the selected reclaimers
move along their stockpiles to
transfer ore onto the conveyor
network, the amount of material in
motion and the travel time through
the selected routes from active
reclaimers to each ship is known
in real time. Stockpiles average
1200 m long in which reclaimers
can travel and operate at any part
of the yard. Ore travel times from
reclaimers to shiploaders can range
from 10 to 23 minutes.
nn Feed rate errors from the less
accurate boom flow scales on
the reclaimers must be biased
to provide more accurate flow
 estimates using more accurate information from
the load scale flow meters located just before the
shiploaders.
nn The stability and typical setpoint deviation of each
reclaimer must be monitored in real time and
used to ensure that setpoints calculated for that
reclaimer are achievable. Collection feed rates
from reclaimers can be very unstable when ore is
reclaimed from the top of the pile and feed rates
can be affected by pile format, compaction,
humidity and ore granulometry.
nn The application developed must be capable of
communicating with equipment on the existing
port control network, which is made up of a diverse
selection of PLCs, databanks and SCADA systems.
Solution
A Rockwell Automation MPC solution was implemented
to solve this shiploading problem in real time. MPC
solutions allow the management of multivariable control
problems in ways that consistently outperform operators
with single-loop controllers in real-world situations.
The solution was built using Rockwell Automation’s
Pavilion8® MPC and SoftLogix™ 5800 products.
Driving production
Pavilion8 MPC applications automatically drive
production, quality and profitability by setting lower-level
control loop setpoints that would otherwise be entered
by human operators. Operators manage whether MPC
applications are on or offline and their process targets
and constraints, but moment-to-moment disturbance
rejection and benefit seeking is based on a time-aware
optimisation of process models. Setpoints are calculated
based on targets, current conditions and relationships
that describe how key controlled variables (CVs) respond
to changes in the setpoints of manipulated variables
(MVs). Setpoints are updated regularly on a time period
faster than the process being controlled and calculated
to ensure future process conditions comply with system
constraints and preferences, such as those on
throughput, amps, levels and temperatures.
Pavilion8 MPC allows linear or non-linear relationships
between multiple MVs and CVs. Any MV that has a
model to a CV may be used to control that CV, subject
to configured preferences. With each execution, the
application calculates a sequence of moves over a
normal control horizon that will bring online CVs closer to
their targets (or within their limits) using online MVs. When
it is not possible to satisfy all setpoints and limits, the
controller is typically configured to prioritise some results
while allowing less important preferences to degrade
within acceptable limits.
Controllers
For this application, supporting calculations and
application logic are executed in Rockwell Automation
SoftLogix 5800 controllers. This server-based virtual PLC
environment uses IEC 61131-3 standard code, which is
managed from the Studio 5000® environment. The
code can be defined in any of the four forms
depending on the requirements: structured text,
functional block diagrams, ladder logic and/or
sequential function charts.
Equipment analytics, fuzzy logic classification and
live process parameter estimators known as Pavilion8
Virtual Online Analyzers® (VOA®) were executed in
SoftLogix and configured using Rockwell Automation
PlantPAx® Model Builder with Soft Sensor® Designer tools
and RS Logix Fuzzy Designer. Pavilion8 VOA applications
use neural-network models to estimate process
conditions at a higher frequency than live
measurements can be made and allow for biasing with
dynamically corrected data that ensures online
estimates stay consistent with lower frequency physical
measurements.
Application
Two Pavilion8 MPC controllers were implemented, one
for each of the large shiploaders. Each controller is
capable of sending flow setpoints to any set of three
reclaimers selected by the operator.
Upon initialisation, these Pavilion8 MPC controllers are
updated with parameters calculated in the SoftLogix
controller. Parameters are based upon the route
selected by the operator in the port control system and
the conveyors that are part of the loading route, and on
which of the three original reclaimers and shiploader
are chosen. Calculations use global positioning (GPS)
data from the reclaimers to calculate active route
length, time delays, conveyor capacities, operations
limits and maintenance limits for use by the model
predictive controllers.
Once parameterised, the controller can be placed
online to automatically write values to the flowrate
setpoint of the three selected reclaimers, making the
setpoint changes in synchronisation with the delay times
from all origins to maximise feed rate to 16 000 tph.
Future opportunities
Since the development of this application,
Rockwell Automation has announced the availability of
PlantPAx MPC, which embeds model predictive control
technology in ControlLogix PLC and PlantPAx modern
DCS hardware. This development suggests future
opportunities to bring multivariable control directly to
the reclaimers to improve these complex machines
further and provide optimised control at machine level.
Conclusion
Loading operations with ship capacities around 350 000 t
are very common at the Brazalian port facility. With ships
of this size, increasing average feed rate from 13 120 tph
to 16 000 tph reduces loading time by 18%.
Improvements in ship throughput and equipment
downtime represent major opportunities for port
operations. Analogous opportunities exist in many
material handling operations.
REPRINTED FROM AUTUMN 2017 . DRY BULK .