PROCESS CONTROL INSTRUMENTATION

UNIT-1
(Collection by N. Akshay , Asst. Prof –EIE , VNR VJIET,
Courtesy to All who made resources available on website for this study material)

• Process
In general, process constitutes a sequence of events in which a raw material will be converted into
finished product.
“Any system composed of dynamic variables, usually involved in manufacturing & production
operations”.
• Control
The methods/techniques to force parameters or variables in the environment / process to have
specific values.
• Control System
All the elements necessary to accomplish the control objective i.e. regulation of some parameters to
have specific or desired values
• Process Control
It deals with the elements and methods of control system operations used in industry to control
industrial processes.
 PROCESS CONTROL PRINCIPLE
Objective of process control is to regulate the value of some quantity.
Regulation: It means to maintain a quantity or variable at some desired value regardless of external
influences.

 Some Definitions Related to Process Control

 Controlled Variable: The process variable regulated by process control loop.
 Controlling Variable: The process variable changed by the final control element under the command of
controller to effect regulation of controlled variable.
 Set point: The desired value of a controlled variable in process control loop.
 Error: The algebraic difference between the measured value of variable and setpoint.
 Controller: The element in a process control loop that evaluates error of the controlled variable and
initiates corrective action by a signal to controlling variable.
 Dynamic variable: The process variable that can change from moment to moment because of
unknown sources

 PROCESS CHARACTERISTICS

• Selection of controller modes is a function of process characteristics.

• Important Process Characteristics:
– Process Equation
– Process Load
– Process Lag
– Self Regulation
 1. Process Equation
• The process equation is a function which describes the process and provides the information about
other process parameters which influence the controlled variable.
• For liquid temperature control the process equation is:
TL = f (QA, QB, QS, TA, TS, TO)
2. Process Load
• The process load refers to set of all process parameters excluding the controlled variable.
• Nominal Set
• Nominal Load
• Nominal value
• Process Load Change
• Transient Load Change
3. Process Lag
Process lag refers to the time consumed by the process itself to bring the controlled variable to
setpoint value during load change
4. Self-regulation
 Some processes adopt to stable value without being regulated via process control loop.
Necessity for Process Control Applications
 Safety: In a plant operation, particularly in hazardous condition, safety has the top most priority.
Human lives are most important and a control engineer has to ensure maximum security for the
people working inside the plant while designing its control system.
• Environmental regulations: Effluent management is a critical issue for any plant operation.
Government regulations are set in order to limit the release of toxic gas (in atmosphere) and
wastewater (into river). A control system is required to ensure that such regulations are strictly
followed.
• Product specifications: Maintaining the quality of the final product is important.
• Operational constraints: The operational constraints include various types of limitation that the
associated equipment may have
 • Economics: Target of any meaningful business is to maximize its profit. In order to achieve that, one needs
to minimize the production cost, losses, wastage, energy requirement and human labour. A good control
system should ensure an optimum level of performance that maximizes the profit conforming to all safety &
environmental regulations, product specifications and operational constraints.

OBJECTIVES OF PROCESS CONTROL:

1. Safety
2. Environmental Protection
3. Equipment protection
4. Smooth operation production rate
5. Product quality
6. High profit
7. Monitoring & diagnosis
 SERVO AND REGULATOR OPERATION
“Servo= Set Point Tracking
Regulator= Disturbance Rejection”
Consider the generalized closed loop process given in the Fig

The eq. (IV.13) represents the closed loop response of the process.
Let,
(CLTF= Closed Loop Transfer Function)
.