eHANDBOOK

TEMPERATURE
& PRESSURE
 www.ControlGlobal.com

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Insights to process and loop performance  6

When is an automation system too slow and too fast?  11

Optimization of cooling systems  16

One of the few processes whose efficiency can be doubled through optimization.

Ask the experts: Controlling fuel gas to a fired heater  21

Is it always better to control based on flow or pressure?

Ask the experts: Override and selective control  25

What to do when the controlled variables outnumber the manipulated variables.

Twisted Square thermowell improves safety  29

Patented design prevents failure due to vortex-induced vibration.

MillerCoors optimizes fermentation  32

CO2 recovery and brewing time insights are provided by pressure readings from differential
pressure level gauges.

Open system gives precise temperature control  38

Affinity Energy engineered a universal replacement for cold, warm and freezer chambers at
UNC Chapel Hill.

eHANDBOOK: Temperature & Pressure 2

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eHANDBOOK: Temperature & Pressure 4

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Insights to process and
loop performance
by Greg McMillan
H
ere we look at a myriad of metrics
on process and control loop per-
formance and show how to see
through the complexity and diversity to
recognize the commonality and underly-
ing principles. We will see how dozens of
metrics simplify to two classes each for the
process and the loop. We also provide a
concise view of how to compute and use
these metrics and what affects them.
Let’s start with process metrics because
while as automation engineers we are
tuned into control metrics, our ultimate
goal is improvement in the process and
thus, process metrics. The improvement
in profitability of a process comes down
to improving process efficiency and/or
capacity. Often these are interrelated in
that an increase in process capacity is often
www.ControlGlobal.com
associated with a decrease in process effi-
ciency. Also an increase in the metrics for a
particular part of a process may decrease
the metrics for other parts of the process.
The following example cited in the April
2017 Control Talk Column “An ‘entitlement’
approach to process control improvement”
is indicative of the need to have metrics and
an understanding for the entire process:
“In a recent application of MPC for thermal
oxidizer temperature control that had a
compound response complicating the PID
control scheme, there was a $700K per
year benefit clearly seen in reduced natu-
ral gas usage. However, the improvement
also reduced steam make to a turbo-gen-
erator, reducing electricity generated by
$300K per year. We reached a compromise
of about $400K per year in net benefit
eHANDBOOK: Temperature & Pressure 6

because of lost electrical power generation
from less steam to the turbo-generators.
We spent many hours to align the benefit
with measureable accounting for the natural
gas reduction and the electrical purchases.
Sometimes the loss of benefits is greater
than expected. You need to be upfront and
make sure you don’t just shift costs to a dif-
ferent cost area.”
Process efficiency can be increased by
reducing energy use (e.g., electricity, steam,
coolant and other utilities) and raw mate-
rials (e.g., reactants, reagents, additives
and other feeds). The efficiency is first
expressed as a ratio of the energy use per
unit mass of product produced (e.g., kJ/
kg) or energy produced (kJ/kJ) and then
ideally in terms of ratio of cost to revenue
by including the cost of energy used (e.g., $
per kJ) and the value of revenue for prod-
uct produced (e.g., $ per kg) or energy
produced (e.g., $ per kJ). The kJ of energy
and kg and mass are running totals where
the oldest value of mass flow or energy
multiplied by a time interval between
measurements is replaced in the total by
the current value. A deadtime block can
provide the oldest value. The time interval
between measurements and the deadtime
representative of the time period for the
running total should both be chosen to
provide a good signal to noise ratio. The
deadtime block time period should also
be chosen to help focus on the source of
changes in process efficiency. For batch
www.ControlGlobal.com
operations, the time period is usually the
cycle time of a key phase in the batch and
may simply be the totals at the end of the
phase or batch. For continuous operations,
I favor a time period that is an operator
shift to recognize the key effect of oper-
ators on process performance. This time
period is also suitable for evaluating other
sources of variability, such as the effect of
ambient conditions (day to night operation
and weather) and feeds and recycle and
heat integration (upstream, downstream
and parallel unit operations). The periods
of best operation can be used to as a goal
to be possibly achieved by smarter instru-
ments or better installations less sensitive
to ambient conditions or smarter controls
thru procedural automation or state based
control as discussed in the in the Sept 2016
Control Talk Column “Continuous improve-
ment of continuous processes”.
The metrics that affect process capacity
are more diverse and complicated. Process
capacity can be affected by feed rates,
onstream time, startup time, shutdown time,
maintenance time, transition time, spectrum
of products and their value, recycle, and off
spec product. An increase in off spec prod-
uct that can be recycled can be taken as a
loss in product capacity if the raw material
feed rate is kept the same or taken as a loss
in process efficiency if the raw material feed
rate is increased. If the off spec product can
be sold as a lower revenue product, the $
per kg must be correspondingly adjusted.
eHANDBOOK: Temperature & Pressure 7

For batch operations, an increase in batch
end point in terms of kg of product pro-
duced and a decrease in batch cycle time
including time in-between batches can
translate to an increase in process capac-
ity. If a higher endpoint can be reached
by holding or running the batch longer,
there is a likely increase in process effi-
ciency assuming a negligible increase in raw
material but there may be an increase or
decrease in process capacity. The optimum
time to end a batch is best determined by
looking at the rate of change of product
formation (batch slope) and if necessary the
rate of change of raw material and energy
use to determine the optimum time to end
the batch and move on. A deadtime block
is again used to provide a fast update with
a good signal to noise ratio to compute the
slope of the batch profile and the predic-
tion of batch end point. Of course whether
downstream units for recovery and purifica-
tion are able to handle an increase in batch
capacity and their metrics must be included
in the total picture. For example in etha-
nol production, a reduction in fermenter
cycle time may not translate to an increase
in process capacity because of limitations
in distillation columns downstream or the
dryer for recovery of dried solids byproduct
sold as animal feed. For more on the opti-
mization of batch end points see the Sept
2012 Control feature article “Getting the
Most Out of your Batch”.
www.ControlGlobal.com
The metrics that indicate loop performance
can be classified as load response and set-
point response metrics. The load response
is often most important in that the desired
setpoint response can be achieved for the
best load response by the proper use of
PID options. The load response should in
nearly all cases be based on disturbances
that enter as inputs to the process whereas
many academic and model based stud-
ies are based on disturbances entering
in the process output. For self-regulating
processes where the process deadtime is
comparable to or larger than the process
time constant, the point of entry does not
matter because the intervening process
time constant does not appreciably slow
down input disturbances in the time frame
of the PID response (e.g., 2 to 4 deadtimes).
However, most of the more interesting tem-
perature and composition control loops in
my career did not have a negligible process
time constant and in fact had a near-inte-
grating, true integrating or runaway open
loop response.
The load metrics are peak error and
integrated error. The peak error is the max-
imum excursion after a load upset. The
integrated error is most often an absolute
integrated error (IAE) but can be an inte-
grated square error. If the response is non
oscillatory, the integrated error and IAE
are the same. There are also metrics indic-
ative of oscillations such as settling time
and undershoot. The ultimate and practical
eHANDBOOK: Temperature & Pressure 8

limits to peak error are proportional to the
deadtime and inversely proportional to con-
troller gain, respectively. The ultimate and
practical limits to integrated error are pro-
portional to the deadtime squared and the
ratio of controller reset time to controller
gain, respectively.
For setpoint metrics, there is the time to
get close to setpoint, which I call rise time,
important for process capacity. I am sure
there is a better name because the metric
must be indicative of the performance for
an increase or decrease in setpoint. The
other setpoint metrics are overshoot,
undershoot and settling time that can
affect process capacity and efficiency. The
use of a setpoint lead-lag or PID structure
that minimizes proportional and derivative
action on setpoint changes can reduce
overshoot, despite using good load distur-
bance rejection tuning. A setpoint lag equal
www.ControlGlobal.com
to the reset time (no lead) corresponds to a
PID structure of Proportional and Derivative
on the Process Variable and Integral action
on the Error (PD on PV and I on E).
See the Sept and Oct 2016 Control Talk
Blogs “PID Options and Solutions - Part
1” and “PID Options and Solutions - Parts
2 and 3” for a discussion of loop metrics
in great detail including when they are
important and how to improve them. Also
look at the presentation for the ISA Mentor
Program WebExs “ISA-Mentor-Program-
WebEx-PID-Options-and-Solutions.pdf”.
My last bit of advice is to ask your spouse
for metrics on your marriage. Minimizing the
deadtime while still having a good signal
to noise ratio is particularly important. For
men, the saying “Happy wife, happy life” I
think would work the other way as well. I
just need a rhyme.
eHANDBOOK: Temperature & Pressure 9
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When is an automation
system too slow and too fast?
By Greg McMillan
T
he usual concern is whether an auto-
mation system is too slow. There
are some applications where an
automation system is disruptive by being
too fast. Here we look at what determines
whether a system should be faster or slower
and what are the limiting factors and thus
the solution to meeting a speed of response
objective. In the process, we will find there
are a lot of misconceptions. The good news
is that most of corrections needed are
within the realm of the automation engi-
neer’s responsibility.
The more general case with possible safety
and process performance consequences is
when the final control element (e.g., control
valve or variable frequency drive), trans-
portation delay, sensor lag(s), transmitter
damping, signal filtering, wireless update
www.ControlGlobal.com
rate and PID execution rate is too slow.
The question is what are the criteria and
priorities in terms of increasing the speed
of response.
The key to understanding the impact of
slowness is to realize that the minimum
peak error and integrated absolute error
are proportional to the deadtime and dead-
time squared, respectively. The exception
is deadtime dominant loops that basically
have a peak error equal to the open loop
error (error if the PID is in manual) and thus
an integrated error that is proportional to
deadtime. It is important to realize that
this deadtime is not just the process dead-
time but a total loop deadtime that is the
summation of all the pure delays and the
equivalent deadtime from lags in control
eHANDBOOK: Temperature & Pressure 11

loop whether in the process, valve, mea-
surement or controller.
These minimum errors are only achieved by
aggressive tuning seen in the literature but
not used in practice because of the inevi-
table changes and unknowns concerning
gains, deadtime, and lags. There is always
a tradeoff between minimization of errors
and robustness. Less aggressive and more
robust tuning while necessary results in
a greater impact of deadtime in that the
gain margin (ratio of ultimate gain to PID
gain) and the phase margin (degrees that
a process time constant can decrease)
is achieved by setting the tuning to be a
greater factor of deadtime. For example,
to achieve a gain margin of 6 and a phase
margin of 76 degrees, lambda is set as 3
times the deadtime.
The actual errors get larger as the tuning
becomes less aggressive. The actual peak
error is inversely proportional to the PID
gain. The actual integrated error is pro-
portional to the ratio of the integral time
(reset time) to PID gain. Consider the use of
lambda integrating process tuning rules for
a near integrating process where lambda
is an arrest time. If you triple the deadtime
used in setting the PID gain and reset to
maintain a gain margin of about six and a
phase margin of 76 degrees, you decrease
the PID gain by about a factor of two times
the new deadtime and increase the reset
time by about a factor of two times the new
www.ControlGlobal.com
deadtime increasing the actual integrated
error by a factor of thirty six when the new
deadtime is 3 times the original deadtime.
Consequently, how fast automation system
components need to be depends on how
much they increase the total loop deadtime.
The components to make the loop faster is
first chosen based on ease such as decreas-
ing PID and wireless execution rate, signal
filtering and transmitter damping assuming
these are more than ten percent of total
loop deadtime. Next you need to decrease
the largest source of deadtime that may
take more time and money such as a better
thermowell or electrode design, location
and installation or a more precise and faster
valve. The deadtime from PID and wireless
update rates is about ½ the time between
updates. The deadtimes from transmitter
damping or sensor lags increase logarithmi-
cally from about 0.28 to 0.88 times the lag
as the ratio of the lag to the largest open
loop time constant decreases from 1 to 0.01.
The deadtime from backlash, stiction and
poor sensitivity is the deadband or reso-
lution limit divided by the rate of change
of the controller output. Fortunately,
deadtime is generally easier and quicker to
identify than the open loop time constant
and open loop gain. See the Control Talk
Blog “Deadtime, the Simple Easy Key to
Better Control.”
For flow and pressure processes, the pro-
cess deadtime is often less than one second
eHANDBOOK: Temperature & Pressure 12

making by far the control system compo-
nents the largest source of deadtime. For
compressor, liquid pressure and furnace
pressure control, the control valve is the
largest source of deadtime even when a
booster is added. Transmitter damping is
generally the next largest source followed
by PID execution rate.
There is a common misconception that the
wireless update time should be less than a
fraction (e.g., 1/6) of the response time. For
the more interesting processes such as tem-
perature and pH, the time constant is much
larger than the deadtime. A well-mixed
vessel could have a process time constant
that is more than 40 times the process
deadtime. If you use the criteria of 1/6 the
response time assuming the best case sce-
nario of a 63% response time, the increase
in deadtime can be as large as 3 times the
deadtime from the wireless update rate.
Fortunately, wireless update rates are never
that slow. Another reason not to focus on
response time is because in integrating
processes where there is no steady state, a
response time is irrelevant.
The remaining question is when is the auto-
mation system too fast? The example that
most comes to mind is when the faster
system causes greater resonance or inter-
action. You want the most important loops
to be able to see an oscillation from less
important loops whose period is at least
www.ControlGlobal.com
four times its ultimate period to reduce res-
onance and interaction. Hopefully, this is
done by making the more important loop
faster but if necessary is done by making
the less important loops slower. A less rec-
ognized but very common case of needing
to slow down an automation loop is when
it creates a load disturbance to other loops
(e.g., feed rate change). While step changes
are what are analyzed in the literature so far
as disturbances, in real applications there
are seldom any step changes due the tuning
of the PID and the response of the valve.
This effect can be approximated by apply-
ing a time constant to the load disturbance
and realizing that the resulting errors are
reduced compared to the step disturbance
by a factor that is one minus the base e to
the negative power of lambda divided by
the disturbance time constant.
Overshoot of a temperature or pH setpoint
is extremely detrimental to bioreactor
cell life and productivity. Making the loop
response much slower by much less aggres-
sive tuning settings and a PID structure of
Integral on Error and Proportional -Deriv-
ative on Process Variable (I on E and PD
on PV) is greatly needed and permitted
because the load disturbances from cell
growth rate or production rate are incred-
ibly slow (effective process time constant
in days). In fact, fast disturbances are the
result of one loop affecting another (e.g.,
pH and dissolved oxygen control).
eHANDBOOK: Temperature & Pressure 13

In dryer control, the difference between
inlet and outlet temperatures that is used
as the inferential measurement of dryer
moisture is filtered by a large time constant
that is greater than the moisture controller’s
reset time. This is necessary to prevent a
spiraling oscillation from positive feedback.
Filters on setpoints are used in loops whose
setpoint is set by an operator or a valve
position controller to change the process
operating point or production rate. This
filter can provide synchronization in ratio
control of reactant flow maintaining the
ability of each flow loop to be tuned to deal
with supply pressure disturbances and posi-
tioner sensitivity limits. However, a filter on
a secondary lower loop setpoint in cascade
control is generally detrimental because it
slows down the ability of the primary loop
to react to disturbances.
Finally, more controversial but potentially
useful is a filter on the pH at the outlet of
static mixer for a strong acid and base to
control in the neutral region. Here the filter
acts to average the inevitable extremely
large oscillations due to nearly non-existent
back mixing and the steep titration curve.
The result is a happier valve and operator.
www.ControlGlobal.com
The averaged pH setpoint should be cor-
rected by a downstream pH loop that is
on a well-mixed vessel that sees a much
smoother pH on a much narrower region
of the titration curve. A better solution is
signal characterization. The static mixer
controlled variable becomes the abscissa
of the titration curve (reagent demand)
rather than the ordinate (pH). This linear-
ization greatly reduces the oscillations from
the steep portion of the titration curve and
enables a larger PID gain to be used. The
titration curve must not be very accurate
but must include the effect of absorption
of carbon dioxide from exposure to air
and the change in dissociation constants
and consequently actual solution pH with
temperature not addressed by a standard
temperature compensator that is simply
addressing the temperature effect in the
Nernst equation. You need to be also aware
that the pH of process samples and con-
sequently the shape of the titration curve
can change due to changes in sample liquid
phase composition from reaction, evapora-
tion, absorption and dissolution. The longer
the time is between the sample being taken
and titrated, the more problematic are
these changes.
eHANDBOOK: Temperature & Pressure 14
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Optimization of
cooling systems
One of the few processes whose efficiency can be doubled
through optimization.
By Béla Lipták
I
n recent months, I discussed some
non-industrial processes, such as con-
trol of the economy or climate change,
automation of smart cars, the risks of cyber
terrorism, the potentials and limitations of
artificial intelligence, etc. Now, I’ll return
to some more traditional topics, focusing
on control and optimization of industrial
processes. The first process I’ll discuss is
optimization of cooling syatems.
There are few processes whose efficiency
can be doubled through optimization, but
cooling sytems are one of them. The coef-
ficients of performance of unoptimized
cooling systems are between 2.5 and
3.5, meaning that one unit of energy can
remove 2.5 to 3.5 units of energy from a
process. Optimization can double this coef-
ficient to 6 or 7.
www.ControlGlobal.com
Most cooling systems consist of four heat
transfer steps. Heat is first passed from the
process to chilled water, then from chilled
water to Freon, then from Freon to cooling
tower water, and finally from cooling tower
water to ambient air.
In each step, heat is transported by fluids that
are kept in motion by electric motors (M1 on
fan, M2 on compressor, M3 and M4 on pumps,
as shown in Figure 1). The cost of operating the
whole system is the sum of the costs of operat-
ing these four motors. If we call the total saving
100%, 60% of that is obtained by optimizing the
compressor, 15% by each of the two pumping
stations, and 10% by the cooling tower fans.
Savings can be estimated as:
• 1.0 °F reduction in cooling tower
approach (A0) reduces the operating
cost by 1.0%.
eHANDBOOK: Temperature & Pressure 16
 www.ControlGlobal.com

M1 Approach (A) = Tctws – Twb

SP = Twb + A0 Range (R) = Tctwr – Tctws
TIC
1
DA Cooling > or TY – high signal selector
Air at Twb SP = Tctws + R0
tower A0 – optimum approach
CTWP – cooling tower water pump
M2 TIC CHWP – chilled water pump
2
CTWP DA DA – direct acting
Tctws Tctwr
ER – external reset
Freon liquid Tc < < FSHL – high/low flow switch
Freon vapor
Condenser SP Integral only HLL – high/low limit
TIC HLL
Let-down valve M3 1 PDIC – pressure difference indicating controller
DA 3 VPC Setpoint 90%
Compressor 1 PSH – high pressure switch
TT RA RA – reverse acting
1 Chilled water supply R0 – optimum range
Te SP – setpoint
Evaporator TY Twb – wet bulb temperature
< < Integral 1
Tctws – cooling tower water supply temperature
PDIC SP HLL VPC only TCV Other Tchwr – cooling tower water return temperature
FSHL P1 1 2 2 SP = 95% 1 user
3 valve Tc – Freon temperature in condenser
RA
PSH Feedback (ER) DA FC openings Te – Freon temperature in evaporator
1 TCV – temperature control valve
TIC
4 DA TIC – temperature indicating controller
Start TT – temperature transmitter
Stop Cooled VPC – valve position controller
Typical
process process
M4 fluid cooler
FSL CHWP Tchwr
2 Chilled water return

TYPICAL COOLING SYSTEM

Figure 1: Cooling systems consume energy at the motors M1, M2, M3 and M4 driving fans, pumps and
compressors. (For other equipment configurations refer to Chapter 8.13 in Volume 2 of the Instrument
Engineers’ Handbook.)

• 1.0 °F reduction in cooling tower water approach results in a decrease in the air
temperature (Tctws) reduces the yearly transportation cost. The optimum approach
cost of chiller operation (M2) by 3.0%. (∆T) is determined by collecting the total
• Each °F reduction in chiller ∆T reduces operating cost of both the tower’s fans and
the yearly cost of chiller operation (M2) pumps, and setting the setpoint of TIC-1 in
by 1.5%. Figure 1 to the approach (A0) that corre-
• Yearly pumping costs are reduced by sponds to that minimum cost value on that
about $0.5/GPM for each PSID. curve. TIC-1 is then configured to control
the fan speed.
Optimizing cooling tower fan operation:
The “approach” of a cooling tower is the Optimizing the cooling tower pump oper-
measure of how closely the cooling tower ation: The “range” of the cooling tower is
water temperature (Tctws) approaches the the difference between the water tempera-
wet bulb temperature (Twb), which is the air tures entering and leaving the tower, and
temperature at 100% humidity. An increase the optimum range (R0) is the temperature
in approach results in an increase in water difference (Tctws - Tctwr) that corresponds to
transportation cost and a decrease in the the optimum approach (A0) that results in

eHANDBOOK: Temperature & Pressure 17


operation. The setpoint of TIC-2 in Figure 1
is Tctwr, and TIC-2 manipulates the speeds of
the cooling tower pumps.
Optimizing the chiller compressor opera-
tion: The yearly operating cost of a chiller is
reduced by about 1.5% for each 1 °F (0.6°C)
reduction in the temperature difference
across this heat pump. To minimize this
difference, both the chilled water supply
temperature (Tchws) and the return tempera-
ture (Tchwr), must also be maximized.
Figure 1 shows how Tchws is maximized by
the TIC-3 controller, which manipulates the
speed of the chiller compressor. The set-
point of TIC-3 is set by the valve position
controller (VPC-1), which keeps increasing
the TIC-3 setpoint until the opening of the
most open control valve, which is serv-
ing the highest process load, and rises to
90%. If the opening of even the most open
valve is less than 90%, the TIC-3 setpoint
is increased, and if the opening exceeds
90%, its setpoint is reduced. This is called
load-following control.
Optimizing the chilled water pumping
operation: The combined cost of operat-
ing the chilled water pumps and the chiller
compressor itself (M4 + M3) is a function of
the temperature drop across the evaporator
(Tchwr - Tchws). Because an increase in this T
decreases compressor operating costs (suc-
tion pressure rises) while it also decreases
pumping costs (the higher the T the less
www.ControlGlobal.com
water needs to be pumped), the aim of this
optimization strategy is to maximize this T.
The T will be maximum when the chilled
water flow rate is the minimum. As the
chilled water temperature (Tchws) is already
controlled, this ΔT will be maximized when
Tchwr is maximum. This goal can be reached
by measuring the opening of the most open
chilled water valve in Figure 1 and, if it is not
yet 90% open, further open it. This increase
in opening can be obtained by lowering the
P across the process users (lowering the
setpoint of PDIC-1). This lowering of the
P across the users reduces the yearly pump
operating cost (M4) by approximately 50
cents per gpm for each psid.
The setpoints of the two valve position con-
trollers (VPC-1 and VPC-2) will determine if
these adjustments are to occur in sequence
or simultaneously. If both setpoints are
adjusted to be the same, simultaneous
action will result. But, if one adjustment is
economically more advantageous or safer
than the other, the setpoint of the corre-
sponding VPC should be set lower than the
other.
This is the case in Figure 1, where, VPC-1 is
set at 90% and VPC-2 at 95%. Therefore,
when the most open valve is less than 90%
open, VPC-2 will lower the setpoint of PDIC-
1, and VPC-1 will increase the setpoint of
TIC-3. When the opening of the most open
valve exceeds 90% (but has not yet reached
eHANDBOOK: Temperature & Pressure 18

95%), VPC-1 will slowly start lowering the
setpoint of TIC-3, while VPC-2 will continue
to lower the setpoint of PDIC-1.
If VPC-1 did not lower the TIC setpoint suf-
ficiently (or if the lowering was not fast
enough) and the most-open valve reaches
95% opening, VPC-2 will take fast correc-
tive action by quickly raising the setpoint
of PDIC-1. Thus, no user valve will ever be
allowed to open fully and go out of control.
Naturally, this will only be the case if the
pumps and chillers are sized correctly (to
be capable of meeting the load) and the
VPCs are correctly tuned.
Tuning, limits and external resets: The
integral (also called “reset”) control mode
integrates past errors, and therefore, its
output will saturate if it’s blocked from
reaching the manipulated variable. This is the
case during startup, when the controller is
switched to manual, when high and/or low
www.ControlGlobal.com
limits are placed on the controller output,
or in case of “selective control” (when the
controller is not selected for control or when
the output of a cascade master is blocked
because the loop has been switched to slave
control). To prevent this “integral wind-up,”
the feedback to the integral mode is taken
from an unblocked signal, such as the valve
opening or the measurement signal. This is
called “external reset.”
In Figure 1, the load-following controls of
VPC-1 and VPC-2 will be stable only if they’re
integral-only, with their integral time settings
adjusted to about tenfold of the integrals
of their cascade slaves (TIC-3 and PDIC-1),
which are usually several minutes. This is
needed to keep the optimization loops stable
when the selected valve opening signal is
either cycling or noisy. The high/low limits
(HLL-1 and HLL-2) on the setpoints of the
slave controllers serve to keep them within
safe limits.
eHANDBOOK: Temperature & Pressure 19
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Ask the experts: controlling
fuel gas to a fired heater
Is it always better to control based on flow or pressure?
Q
I came across your “Ask the
experts” column at www.control-
global.com, and I’d like to ask a
question I’ve had for quite a while regarding
the control of fuel gas to a fired heater.
This particular unit is a natural-draft heater
used in a diesel hydrotreating plant at a
refinery, but I’m actually looking for a gen-
eral answer. The question in itself is very
simple: should we use a flow controller or
a pressure controller to regulate the fuel
gas used by a fired heater? Is one of these
options always the right choice? If both
are possible choices, what are some guide-
lines or considerations to choose between
the two?
What we’re trying to control is the outlet
temperature of the heater. This is the
www.ControlGlobal.com
master controller to the flow or pressure
slave controller. Being off-gas from other
units, the fuel gas composition varies (has
H2 and H2S), so during a week, the density
of the fuel gas varies widely between 0.44
and 0.7 Kg/nm. We did some modeling of
the effect of gas composition on the master
temperature controller, and it seemed to
be rather small. But beyond that, I can’t
say much.
Juan Florentino, Process control engineer, BP Rotter-
dam Refinery, Juan.Florentinocoello@ec1.bp.com
A
As you’ve asked, before answering
your specific question, I’ll give a gen-
eral description of controlling any
larger fired-gas heater. Figure 1 shows a
common control system that’s referred to
as a parallel, closed-loop control with air
eHANDBOOK: Temperature & Pressure 21
 www.ControlGlobal.com

provided to combust the fuel, plus some

AIC AT excess because of the inefficiencies due to
O2 PT PIC X
SP
X
Feed forward
nonideal mixing and imperfect combustion
TT
conditions. The largest savings (optimi-
}Convection
Feed FT
section
Lead/lag zation) in any burner is obtained by the

Radiant
section
} LL

Σ TIC

TT
SP

Outlet
excess oxygen trim (AIC) loop, which is
minimizing the amount of excess air that

Firing
otherwise would travel through the burner
rate
(just for the ride), picking up good heat and

SP HIC Air/fuel taking it out the stack.

A/F ratio setter
Excess
oxygen SP
trim SP > > HIC Minimum
air setter
X FIC High High
V >
SP
FIC
As the load (feed flow and temperature)
FT Low X PI varies, feedforward compensation (4th ed.,
Air Cal PCV
FT Fuel Vol. 2, Ch. 2.6) with lead-lag dynamic trim-
Minimum Linear gas
FCV mass flow
flow limit Feed forward Lag ming (4th ed., Vol. 2, Ch. 2.9 and 2.29) are
provided to accommodate variations in the
PARALLEL, CLOSED-LOOP CONTROL load.
ON A FIRED HEATER
Figure 1: The firing rate signal sets the air and
fuel flows in parallel. For efficiency, the excess As to your specific question on fuel flow
oxygen trim (AIC) loop minizes excess air that controls, what we must do is to match the
otherwise would travel through the burner just
for the ride, picking up good heat and taking it heat provided by the fuel flow to the heat
out the stack. demand of the feed. In small (primitively
controlled) heaters, this is done by using
pressure control on both the fuel and the
and fuel limiting system. You can find other air. The limitations of this configuration are:
configurations for all sizes of fired heaters
in the 4th edition, Volume 2, Chapter 8.6 of • Using pressure drop through the burner
my Instrument and Automation Engineers’ nozzles for fuel flow detection is like mea-
Handbook. The controls shown in the figure suring volumetric flow with an orifice plate
provide both dynamic compensation and without square root extraction. It’s very
efficiency optimization. inaccurate and is also unstable because
the loop gain (4th ed., Vol. 2, Ch. 2.35)
In this control system, the firing rate signal varies with flow.
sets the air and fuel flows in parallel. The
air/fuel ratio control guarantees that the • The control loop has a very
proper stochiometric amount of air is low rangeability.

eHANDBOOK: Temperature & Pressure 22


• Density compensation slightly improves
the accuracy of heat input measurement,
but does not directly measure the heating
value of the gas. Only calorimeters (CAL)
do it.
For the above reasons, my recommendation
is to use a linear mass flowmeter (5th ed.,
Vol. 1, Ch. 2.16), and compensate its mea-
surement signal by a calorimeter (5th ed.,
Vol. 2, Ch. 1.27) that measures the heating
value of the gas.
In addition, the figure shows the cross-lim-
ited parallel metering system for the air-fuel
ratio (A/F) controls, which always limits
the fuel flow rate to the available air flow,
so that air is leading on load increase and
lagging on load decrease. This feature also
protects the system from accidents caused
by a fan failure or fuel valve sticking. In
addition, a minimum fuel flow bypass is pro-
vided (FCV) to guarantee stable flame, and
a minimum air flow signal is provided (HIC)
to match that minimum fuel flow.
To prevent interaction between the two
valves on the fuel line, make sure the PCV is
far away from the flow control valve.
Béla Lipták, liptakbela@aol.com
A
I’ve always used pressure control
on cascade successfully. Flow
control also could work well if gas
www.ControlGlobal.com
source pressure is very stable and readings
are accurate. Generally, the fuel gas pipes
are small, sometimes less than 2 in. In that
case, flow measurement requires costly
instruments like mass flowmeters. Pressure
measurements are simpler.
H.S. Gambhir, Harvindar.S.Gambhir@ril.com
A
Based on normal operational
issues, the answer is that you
could use pressure control, but
it would not be a best option. If you use
pressure control, you’ll have the follow-
ing issues:
• The pressure control isn’t really relevant to
the flow required to control the heater.
• The pressure control tends to be static
when in normal operation, but more diffi-
cult to handle with upsets.
If you still prefer to do pressure control, you
may need to find the correlation between
flow and pressure in the line vs. the tem-
perature required in the heater.
So, the best solution is generally to con-
trol the flow of fuel to the heater. If it’s
compensated to mass flow, it could be
controlled to provide the heater perfor-
mance required.
Alejandro Varga, vargaalex@yahoo.com
eHANDBOOK: Temperature & Pressure 23

A
The target temperature (in your
case, the heater outlet) is influ-
enced by the amount of the fuel
(mass/unit of time) and its heating value
(Btu/lb., J/kg, Kcal/kg, etc.), assuming the
heater process input (flow and tempera-
ture) is stable.
Assuming all other parameters (e.g., heating
value) are not changing much, controlling
the fuel flow gives you direct control of the
heat input quantity.
In your case, you’re lucky to have direct
measurement of the fuel gas density in
kg/Nm3. The fact that it’s referred to as
“normal m3” excludes the influence of any
variations in the pressure or gas tempera-
ture. This gives you the option (which I
would have taken, if I were you) to build a
“calculated point” to have the value of the
fuel gas volumetric flow multipleid by the
fuel gas density, which yields the fuel gas
mass flow. This value should give a very
good estimation of the total heat input into
the heater. Controlling this quantity should
enable you to achieve better control of your
target temperature. A few more tips:
• Be sure to use the right size of filter on
each of both readings before performing
the calculation.
• If the furnace feed flow conditions (flow
and temperature) are not constant, I
recommend considering feedforward
www.ControlGlobal.com
ratio control from the furnace feed heat
inflow calculation.
• The two control valves (the PCV at the
gas reservoir outlet and the control valve
at the fuel inlet to the heater) should have
as much gas volume between them as is
practically possible to minimize interac-
tions between them. This can be achieved
by placing them as far apart as possible
and/or enlarging the gas line as much
as possible.
In general, I prefer controlling the inflow
of fuel mass to the heater, rather than the
pressure, because this way you control the
amount of heat input. In the past, in fuel oil
applications, I had very good results by con-
trolling the pressure on the burners, but it
was (mainly) because of shortages of other
instruments (like separate flow measurment
or fuel density detectors).
Also, I’ve just come across a very good
article in HPC, June 2014, “Automate
Furnace Controls to Improve Safety
and Energy Efficiency” (www.hydrocar-
bonprocessing.com/magazine/2014/
june-2014/hpi-focus-energy-efficiency/
automate-furnace-controls-to-im-
prove-safety-and-energy-efficiency),
which doesn’t answer your questions
explicitly, but deals with the problems you
are facing.
Avihu Hiram, Avihu@HiramEng.com
eHANDBOOK: Temperature & Pressure 24

Ask the experts: Override
and selective control
What to do when the controlled variables outnumber the
manipulated variables.
Q
Your explanation of direct- vs.
reverse-acting control provided
much clarity about fail open (FO)
and fail close (FC) valves, and the controller
outputs to achieve the desired result (Con-
trol, March ‘14, p. 57, www.controlglobal.
com/articles/2014/controllers-direct-vs-re-
verse-acting-control). Now, I’m working
through several problems on override con-
trol, specifically high/low selectors, and
would like you to explain these by example
or recommendation for clear, concise read-
ing material.
Christopher Perumal, christopher_perumal@live.co.za
A
The various selection techniques
can not only provide limits or
overrides, but can also increase
reliability and prevent reset windup by
www.ControlGlobal.com
the use of external reset. These are large
topics that Greg Shinskey explained in
Chapter 2.28 of my handbook (Volume 2,
4th edition), and I will only briefly discuss
them here.
Selective control is used whenever the
controlled variables outnumber the
manipulated ones (control valves). One
application of selective control is the use
of selective overrides. In these systems,
the override controllers remain inactive
until their constraint (setpoint) is reached
or exceeded, at which point they take over
the control of the valve.
A common selective override application is
steam flow control with pressure override.
In this case, the control valve is normally
manipulated to keep the steam flow
eHANDBOOK: Temperature & Pressure 25
 www.ControlGlobal.com

Alarm trip point (hard constraint) Steam pressure (PT)

SP2
Override setpoint (soft constraint)
Hard constraint (alarm)
SP3 SP1 PSH PAH SP2
Soft constraint (override FIC)
FIC PIC SP1
RA Normal
RA
ER ER PT operating
Critical range
steam user Time
FT
Steam
Other ER: External reset FC: Fail closed
FC
steam users RA: Reverse acting SP: Setpoint

OVERRIDE CONTROL SYSTEM

Figure 1: This steam flow control system with pressure override normally manipulates the control valve
to keep the steam flow constant (FIC), but switches to pressure control if the steam pressure reaches
the setpoint of the PIC (soft constraint). Continued pressure rise reaches a hard constraint that acti-
vates alarms or triggers shutdown.

constant (FIC in Figure 1), but is switched is closed when the bottoms level reaches
over to pressure control if the steam pres- 100%.
sure—to the critical user—reaches the
setpoint of the PIC (soft constraint). If in Another selective override application is
spite of switching from FIC to PIC control, the use of startup and shutdown overrides.
the pressure continues to rise and reaches If a process is too complex for the opera-
the “hard constraint” on the system, alarms tors to manually control during startup or
are actuated or shutdown is triggered. shutdown, automatic override controls are
Override used. Such automatic controls provide over-
Setpoint
Naturally, EF
TIC selective override
FIC control
FY can
PIC be PT rides to protect against violation of several
Master Slave
provided by using multiple override con- constraints. An example is starting up a dis-
TT EF EF
trollers. One example
FT is in boilers, where tillation column, where ramping signals are
we normally control the flow of
FC
combustion usually used to open valves and override
air on carbon monoxide control, but also controls are provided to:
provide overrides to keep opacity, stack
temperature, hydrocarbons and excess • Pinch steam on low base level or on
oxygen within acceptable limits. high pressure differential, which can
cause flooding,
Selective override applications can also
serve to guarantee valve closure. For exam- • Pinch feed valve on high base level, and
ple, when controlling the feed flow to a
distillation column, a bottoms level override • Pinch reflux on low condenser level, and
is provided to make sure that the feed valve increase it on high condenser level.

eHANDBOOK: Temperature & Pressure 26


Selective control can also provide smooth
transition among multiple fuels. In cases
where one fuel is more expensive than
another, the output signal from a tempera-
ture controller, which represents the total
heat input needed, is used to control the
lower-cost fuel A (the high limit on the
required heat input is inactive, not selected
by the low signal selector that sets the
flow), and therefore the valve on the high-
er-cost fuel B remains closed. Then, when
the high heat demand limit is reached, the
setpoint of the higher-cost fuel B starts to
increase smoothly.
A common consequence of controller selec-
tion is that some controllers will always be
blocked. So, if the output of a controller
can’t reach the manipulated variable (con-
trol valve) and has integral action (I, PI or
PID), that action will continuously inte-
grate (if an error exists), and will eventually
saturate its output (cause it to reach its
maximum limit). The consequence of this
is, when control is switched back to such a
controller, it will bump the process (tempo-
rarily fully open or close the valve).
To prevent that from happening, we use
external feedback (EF) from the active
manipulated variable or from the measure-
ment, so the integral mode of the blocked
controller will see zero error and the con-
troller output will not saturate, but will be
ready to take over control without causing
a bump.
www.ControlGlobal.com
Override
Setpoint
EF
TIC FIC FY PIC PT
Master Slave
TT EF EF
FT
FC
ADDING EXTERNAL RESET
Figure 2: As shown on this temperature-flow
cascade loop with pressure override, when a
master controller output can be blocked, ex-
ternal reset (ER) from the measurement of the
slave can be used to prevent reset windup.
EF is required not only in selective control,
but in all control systems where the con-
troller output can be blocked. This includes
cases where the operator switches the set-
point of the slave to manual. Figure 2 shows
a temperature (master) setting the setpoint
of a slave (flow) controller with pressure
override. The master controller output can
be blocked when the operator switches the
system to slave control. In that case, the
master needs ER from the measurement of
the slave to prevent reset windup.
The slave controller (FIC in Figure 2) output
can also be blocked by the pressure over-
ride, when the low signal selector (FY)
selects the output of the override PIC for
control. To protect from reset windup in
both FIC and PIC controllers, ER has to be
provided from the manipulated signal going
to the valve.
Yet another use of selective control in crit-
ical control systems is to select the most
eHANDBOOK: Temperature & Pressure 27

reliable among multiple sensors or trans-
mitters. For example, in critical reactor feed
applications or in hostile environments (cor-
rosive, dirty, vibrating, high-temperature),
we often assure measurement reliability by
using median selectors or voting systems
to disregard a failed detector among three
sensors. On other processes, such as fixed-
bed chemical reactors, we can measure the
temperature at several locations and select
the hottest measurement for control.
Béla Lipták, liptakbela@aol.com
A
A common high/low override con-
trol situation occurs when trying
to control two variables with only
one control valve. Obviously, you can’t con-
trol both measurements at the same time to
keep both setpoints constant. One has to be
the main control variable and the secondary
will be under constraint control.
An example of low select override occurs
when controlling steam flow(s) to a reboiler
from a common steam header. As the
reboiler requires more steam, the valve
opens up and passes more steam. There may
be several pieces of equipment on the steam
header, and there may be a total steam flow
limitation. Under certain conditions, the
steam header pressure will get too low. The
constraint control would be to use a pres-
sure controller with a setpoint lower than the
normal running pressure of the header.
www.ControlGlobal.com
In this configuration, the inputs to the low
selector would be the header pressure
and the reboiler flow controller outputs,
and the low selector output would be the
lower of the two controllers. In this config-
uration, when the pressure is higher than
the pressure setpoint, the flow controller
controls the valve. If the valve draws too
much steam and/or the steam genera-
tion is reduced for some reason and the
header pressure drops below the pressure
setpoint, the system will start cutting back
the flow to the reboiler (i.e., close the
valve even if the flow requirement is not
met).
You would use this low selector override
control configuration when the reboiler
flow is less critical and it’s more import-
ant to maintain the steam pressure above
some minimum for the more important
process users.
Similar logic is used for high selection.
Simon Lucchini, Simon.Lucchini@Fluor.com
A
I recently implemented a system
with four masters to decide
which has to take control. If
you’re interested, I can share it with you.
Don’t hesitate to contact me if you need
more help or more explanations.
Avihu Hiram, Avihu@HiramEng.com
eHANDBOOK: Temperature & Pressure 28

Twisted Square thermowell
improves safety
Patented design prevents failure due to vortex-induced vibration.
T
hermowells subjected to flow expe-
rience dynamic stresses imposed by
oscillating vortex pressures. These
dynamic stresses can result in vortex-in-
duced vibration (VIV), the leading cause of
thermowell stress failures. Emerson is now
offering a patented “twisted square” ther-
mowell that suppresses VIV, eliminating the
concern of dynamic stress failure.
The new design was inspired by the
difficulties of specifying conventional
thermowells to avoid issues with VIV.
Most often, stress failures occur on con-
ventional thermowells that have not
undergone recommended calculations
per ASME PTC 19.3 TW to ensure the
thermowell will withstand fluid forces and
process pressures.
www.ControlGlobal.com
The wake frequency limit is generally
the most challenging calculation to
pass, especially for long thermowells or
high-velocity flows. The limit must be ver-
ified to ensure that the natural frequency
of the thermowell is safely away from the
Strouhal (vortex-shedding) frequency. As
these frequencies converge, the thermow-
ell can “lock in” to resonant conditions,
greatly magnifying dynamic stresses
caused by the VIV.
“A conventional thermowell experiences
lock-in frequencies that multiply stress
1,000 times or more,” says Timchan
Bonkat, product manager, temperature,
Emerson Automation Solutions. “Every
material has its own fatigue limit. After
enough reps, it will fail.”
eHANDBOOK: Temperature & Pressure 29

ONE WELL, MULTIPLE APPLICATIONS
Emerson Automation Solutions’ Rosemount Twisted Square Thermowell allows the same thermow-
ell to be used in multiple applications and changing process conditions without risk of vortex-in-
duced failure.
The traditional solution to avoid these
lock-in regions is to shorten the thermow-
ell and/or increase the outer diameter.
These changes can result in decreased
accuracy or increased response time of
the temperature measurement.
“Customers try to standardize on a ther-
mowell, so to accommodate the worst
application, they choose one that’s short
and fat,” Bonkat says. “They may have
to use a larger nozzle size and retrofit
existing applications. In some of their
applications, the short, fat thermowell
may not reach far enough into the flow for
a representative reading.”
www.ControlGlobal.com
These situations are becoming more fre-
quent because process velocities are
increasing due to more frequent use of
smaller pipe sizes to save cost on projects.
Instead of stiffening the thermowell, the
Twisted Square Thermowell desynchro-
nizes the vortices in its wake so they are
not uniformly defined or alternating at a
consistent phase along the length of the
thermowell. This dampens the dynamic
stresses from the vortices and suppresses
VIV excitation to a safe level.
The design reduces resonance stresses
by more than 90%, so static stresses
eHANDBOOK: Temperature & Pressure 30

dominate. “With a twisted square ther-
mo-well, the static stresses will always
be the limiting factor. Without resonance
lock-in, the dynamic stresses don’t gen-
erate enough energy to be damaging,”
Bonkat says.
“The twisted square simplifies thermowell
calculations, and it works in applications
where conventional thermowells don’t
pass ASME PTC 19.3 TW,” Bonkat says. “It
allows optimum penetration using exist-
ing nozzles, and is available in all normal
configurations and materials. It allows
for growth because plants can change
flow rates and other operating conditions
without resonant frequencies concerns,
www.ControlGlobal.com
and it also reduces stocking requirements
because one design can be used in a wide
variety of applications.
“Above all, it provides an accurate and
reliable temperature measurement while
preventing thermowell failures that can
cause expensive shutdowns, or at worst
result in leaks and explosions.”
For more information, including a link
to an eye-opening video comparing
deflections of a conventional thermow-
ell and a Twisted Square Thermowell
under a wide range of flow velocities,
see www.emerson.com/en-us/catalog/
rosemount-twisted-square-thermowell.
eHANDBOOK: Temperature & Pressure 31

MillerCoors
optimizes fermentation
CO2 recovery and brewing time insights are provided by pressure readings
from differential pressure level gauges.
By Andrew Klosinski
The work of an optimization engineer
involves finding ways to increase the
amount of product the plant produces
using its existing equipment, combined
with reducing costs wherever possible, all
while maintaining critical product qual-
ity attributes. Some modest spending for
equipment upgrades is normally expected
to accomplish these tasks, but usually the
idea is to avoid significant capital costs. So,
let’s think about how this applies to making
beer, and then look at an example of how
a simple instrumentation improvement
brought about major production improve-
ments, while preserving all the product
attributes our customers expect.
Beer is a food product, and no matter how
much the process is instrumented and auto-
mated, it’s still subject to the variability of
www.ControlGlobal.com
agricultural feedstocks (barley, hops, etc.)
and biological processes (fermentation
using a living organism—yeast). The reci-
pes and procedures do not work the same
way every time, and even small changes in
feedstock or process conditions can have a
significant impact on the characteristics of
the final product. There are ways to quan-
tify and measure some critical attributes,
but ultimately the human element plays
a major role in regulating the process to
ensure the consistency consumers expect.
The MillerCoors brewery in Milwaukee,
Wisconsin, produces many types of beer
using different recipes under a variety of
brands, but the basic process is fairly sim-
ilar for all. (Many resources are available
to fill in the brewing process in greater
detail.) For this discussion, we’ll focus on
eHANDBOOK: Temperature & Pressure 32

fermenters, where yeast converts glucose
in the wort into ethanol and carbon diox-
ide (CO2 ):
C6H12O6 > 2 CH3CH2OH + 2 CO2
We tend to think of ethanol as the primary
product, but an equal amount of CO2, by
weight, is produced—it’s an important
byproduct of the brewing process.
THE FERMENTER FLEET
There are 26 main fermenters standing
outside at the Milwaukee facility (Figure 1).
“J” House has 14, each 5,000 bbl., and “M”
House has 12, each 6,000 bbl. (When deal-
ing with beer, a barrel is 31 U.S. gallons.)
These fermenters are all insulated stainless
steel vertical vessels, equipped with cooling
coils fed by a glycol chilling system built
into the walls to remove heat generated by
fermentation, and for final cooling when fer-
mentation is finished.
Measuring liquid level for all these fermen-
ters is done using differential pressure
(DP) transmitters. All the fermenters are
sealed, and during normal operation, there
is no venting to atmosphere. The head-
space at the top of the tank feeds into a
network of CO2 collection headers that
can be isolated and vented to release gas
at specific points. Most of the time, the
fermenters are pressurized, and each has
a rupture disk set to blow out at 2.5 psi to
protect the vessel.
www.ControlGlobal.com
BREWING IN PROCESS
Figure 1: The 26 vertical fermenters of J and M
Houses hold 70% of the production volume for
the plant. Source: Google Earth
When using DP to measure level in a pres-
surized tank, the traditional approach is to
connect the bottom of the tank to the high
side of the transmitter, with a tap in the
headspace at the top feeding an impulse
line that is connected to the low side. This
compensates for the tank headspace pres-
sure and avoids reporting a level higher
than actually exists. There are many vari-
ations of this approach based on how the
impulse lines are handled (wet leg, dry leg,
balanced, etc.), and the Milwaukee facility
has tried most of them with varying degrees
of success.
The most recent variation uses Rosemount
Electronic Remote Sensors (ERS) from
Emerson (Figure 2). This approach uses two
transmitters, one at the bottom (primary)
and one at the top (secondary), which are
connected electronically through a digital
cable. The primary transmitter takes the
reading from the secondary transmitter,
and makes the correction for the headspace
gas pressure. It then sends a single signal
eHANDBOOK: Temperature & Pressure 33

to the distributed control
system (DCS) that’s propor-
tional to DP and thus level.
It’s also able to send the
headspace pressure reading
independently via HART as
an additional variable, and
we’ll discuss how this data
is used in a moment.
The ERS system config-
uration eliminates all the
problematic maintenance
issues related to impulse/
capillary lines, so this is a
substantial improvement
by itself, but it also delivers
some critical advantages
not possible with conven-
tional setups that were
tried previously.
VALUABLE
CARBON DIOXIDE
As mentioned earlier, fer-
mentation produces as
much CO2 as ethanol by
weight, and CO2 is a very
valuable commodity in
a brewery. It has to go
through an extensive puri-
fication process to remove
virtually all traces of oxygen
before it can be used in pro-
duction, but it’s important
to collect as much CO2 as
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NO IMPULSE LINES
Figure 2: The Rosemount ERS system eliminates the impulse line
connection between top and bottom of the fermenter and re-
places it with an electronic connection. This provides additional
valuable measurement data while eliminating maintenance issues
often associated with impulse lines. Source: Emerson
possible from the fermen- improving CO2 capture can
ters because it’s used in the be complicated.
packaging process, as well
as for carbonation. When a new batch of wort
is pumped into a fermen-
The facility does not pro- ter, CO2 production does
duce as much CO2 as it not begin immediately.
needs, even under the best Some time is required for
circumstances, so addi- the yeast to start working,
tional volumes of purified and enough CO2 has to be
food-grade CO2 must be produced to drive all the air
purchased. For brew- out of the headspace before
ers, this purchased gas collection begins. While this
represents a large fixed is happening, the gas and air
cost, so increasing inter- mixture is vented to atmo-
nal production directly sphere. Once fermentation
improves profitability, but takes hold, CO2 collection
eHANDBOOK: Temperature & Pressure 34

CO2 ATTEMPTS TO ESCAPE
Figure 3: Pressure spikes caused by an unexpected jump in yeast activity are problematic if not
caught soon enough.
begins, but it doesn’t always happen at the
same time with every batch. The standard
procedure in the brewery was to wait a spe-
cific number of hours before collecting CO2
because there was no useful indication of
when the yeast had hit its stride.
Since the ERS system allows access to the
individual measurements from both sensors,
we were able to read the pressure in the
headspace. Having that reading helped us
realize that CO2 production was beginning
earlier than we thought, so we changed
the procedure to begin collection when
pressure reached a tipping point, which
was often many hours ahead of the nor-
mally scheduled time. With a traditional DP
system using impulse/capillary lines, this
secondary measurement would only have
been possible by adding another pres-
sure transmitter.
www.ControlGlobal.com
CO2 production is also not uniform. It fol-
lows a curve from low to high and then
back down, but the shape of the curve
depends on the recipe, and can change
from batch to batch because the action of
yeast is not always predictable. Moreover,
the CO2 collection and processing system
has its limits and can be overwhelmed, rais-
ing backpressure in the headers.
The yeast acts more rapidly in some
batches than in others, and in these
cases, cooling must be applied to retard
the action. Again, prior to installation of
the ERS system, it was difficult to tell
when the yeast might force the fermen-
ter past its design working limit and blow
out a rupture disk. When such an incident
occurs, substantial amounts of CO2 are
released to atmosphere from the individ-
ual fermenter and header system until
eHANDBOOK: Temperature & Pressure 35

INSTRUMENTATION BEATS THE CLOCK
Figure 4: When the decline in specific gravity levels out and CO2 production stops, fermentation is
done, regardless of what the schedule says.
the situation is discovered and the disk
is replaced.
With the ERS system installed, it’s easy to
determine when gas pressure is building
up in the fermenter headspace (Figure 3).
If CO2 production is increasing more than
expected, cooling can be increased until it
subsides, and vents can be opened if neces-
sary to prevent blowing a rupture disk.
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The overall costs related to overpressure
and rupture disk problems is substantial,
estimated at $65,000 annually in mainte-
nance and lost CO2, so solving the problem
was critical to improving profitability with
minimal additional cost. The answer was pro-
vided by a simple level transmitter upgrade.
The savings related to pressure issues and
CO2 production were substantial, but a more
significant opportunity soon emerged.
eHANDBOOK: Temperature & Pressure 36

DETERMINING THE END
OF FERMENTATION
When wort is first pumped into a fermenter,
its specific gravity (SG) is high, raised by
its glucose content. As the yeast does its
work, the glucose breaks down, replaced by
ethanol and expelled as CO2. Throughout
the fermentation cycle, the SG of the beer
drops. A DP level reading that does not
compensate for this SG change will suggest
the level has declined during fermentation
when it has not changed at all.
Similarly, CO2 production slows and stops
as fermentation reaches its end. The ERS
system can recognize both events (Figure
4), and send corresponding data to the
control room. By watching the output from
the ERS system, operators can tell when
fermentation is complete, and product
can be moved from the fermenter into the
aging tanks.
Prior to installing the ERS system, fermenta-
tion was declared finished by the calendar.
Each recipe called for a specific number of
hours in the fermenter—no more, no less.
Watching the actual fermentation perfor-
mance of batches using the ERS system
data suggested that CO2 production ceased
and the SG stopped declining long before
the schedule said it was done, often as
many as 40 to 50 hours early. Could it
be the beer was simply wasting time in
the fermenter?
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Lab tests of samples taken from multiple
batches showed the beer was indeed ready
to move to the aging tanks without waiting
the extra time. With less time in the fermen-
ter, more batches could be produced using
the same equipment. This did not require
any modification to the recipe or other arti-
ficial method to shorten the cycle, which
could potentially affect the character of the
final products.
Even taking a conservative view and pro-
jecting a time-per-batch saving of 10% adds
additional production capacity of 400,000
bbl. per year to the existing J- and M-House
fermenters. This represents free additional
capacity with no new tanks or other pro-
cessing equipment, but simply an improved
level measuring system and the know-how
to recognize the important information
it’s providing.
For an optimization engineer, discoveries
like these are what it’s all about. The ability
to make a small but very strategic improve-
ment to the instrumentation, and following it
up with appropriate work process changes,
resulted in significant improvements. Pro-
duction gains made and opportunities for
cost reduction can then be adapted for other
facilities with the company seeing the benefits
across each plant.
Andrew Klosinski, optimization engineer, works in the
Brewing Department at MillerCoors.
eHANDBOOK: Temperature & Pressure 37

Open system gives precise
temperature control
Affinity Energy engineered a universal replacement for cold,
warm and freezer chambers at UNC Chapel Hill.
By Allan Evora
T
he University of North Carolina (UNC)
at Chapel Hill was spending too much
time and money supporting an exist-
ing control system. That’s unacceptable for
UNC Chapel Hill, which has nearly $1 billion
in annual research expenditures, and ranks
eighth in research activity among public and
private universities in the United States.
Much of this research is done in about 1,000
cold, warm and freezer chambers located
around campus. Some chambers store mil-
lions of dollars worth of products, while
others perform critical research in life sci-
ence. In many cases, chamber temperatures
must be controlled accurately to within 0.5
°C due to the controlled experiments inside.
Many research chambers at UNC were
installed more than 20 years ago, and it
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was becoming difficult to find parts for
the controllers used to control tempera-
ture and other variables (Figure 1). During
maintenance of one particular chamber,
UNC staff couldn’t find a supplier to repair a
malfunctioning temperature controller. This
maintainability concern was recognized as
a possible campus-wide issue since many of
the chambers were put into service at about
the same time.
In addition, needs were expanding, with
researchers requesting tighter, more accu-
rate temperature and humidity control,
and the ability to view temperatures in
real time. None of these requests were
possible with the old control and mon-
itoring systems. Investigation showed
it would be too expensive to upgrade
the existing proprietary systems, so the
eHANDBOOK: Temperature & Pressure 38
 www.ControlGlobal.com

university sought a more affordable and

flexible solution.

After speaking with many system inte-

grators wanting to employ proprietary
programming technology, UNC Chapel Hill
decided to work with Affinity Energy (www.
affinityenergy.com) after hearing about the
company’s open-system PLC integration for
critical systems.

UNIVERSAL OPEN SYSTEM

Several types of hardware were used to
control the chambers. Each performed
essentially the same functions, but there
were changes in newer iterations of cooling
technologies. Affinity Energy designed a
customizable, universal panel prototype to
regulate temperature in all of UNC’s cham-
bers, regardless of the existing controller or
cooling technology.

There are three types of heating or

cooling systems in the chambers, dis-
tinguished primarily by solenoid valves
controlling liquid or hot gas, or by propor-
tional valves controlling liquid, hot gas or
SIMPLY UNSUPPORTABLE
Figure 1: The original chamber control system
was more than 20-years old and difficult to sup-
port, and an upgrade by the original manufac-
turer would be have been too expensive.

reheat. Solenoid valves operate differently

from proportional valves, so different con-
trol methods are used, as well as different
program logic. This is typically addressed
by using a controller specific to the type
of valves, so a controller for solenoid
valves couldn’t be used on a chamber with
proportional valves.
A primary goal of the project was to find
a programmable logic controller (PLC)
that could be used in any of the chambers,
regardless of the devices being controlled.
This first controller was considered a proto-
type since it would have to be used in many
different chambers.

eHANDBOOK: Temperature & Pressure 39

 www.ControlGlobal.com

After extensive hardware and control-

ler research, UNC Chapel Hill and Affinity
Energy specified AutomationDirect PLCs.
Because AutomationDirect’s PLC pro-
gramming software is open, the university
wouldn’t be held hostage to proprietary
software or a single system integrator’s ser-
vices if they wanted to adjust or completely
overhaul the system in the future.

CONTROL PLUS VISIBILITY

Previously, researchers had only rudimen-
tary indication of a room’s temperature,
and in case of failure, there was no indi-
cation until opening a cold room door
and feeling a blast of warm air. The old
controller also had significant fluctua-
tion between setpoint thresholds. Affinity
Energy designed a temperature control
system using AutomationDirect’s Do-more
PLC (Figure 2).

The new controller provides smoother and
more accurate control than the legacy
control systems. The controller enclosure
is built with the PLC and other control
devices (drivers, relays, etc.) as a unit.
Field devices are wired to terminal blocks
included for connections, and the panel
is mounted on a wall outside the environ-
mental chamber.
The Do-more PLC is fast, has plenty of
memory, and includes multiple commu-
nication options such as serial, USB and
embedded Ethernet. It can be configured
READY FOR THE FUTURE
Figure 2: Affinity Energy replaced the obsolete
controller with an AutomationDirect PLC and
HMI due to the open, precise control capabilities
and ease of use of these components.
for several separate Ethernet communica-
tions ports, each running multiple protocols.
Do-more PLCs are programmed with
Do-more Designer software, which is avail-
able free online.
Affinity Energy also installed an Auto-
mationDirect C-more human machine
interface (HMI). This color touchscreen

eHANDBOOK: Temperature & Pressure 40


CONTROL AT A GLANCE
Figure 3: The AutomationDirect C-more HMI’s
main status screen provides temperature
and humidity indication, along with field de-
vice status.
monitor displays data points such as tem-
perature, humidity, defrost cycle activity,
and liquid line and hot gas valve status.
The HMI is installed in the door of the cus-
tom-built enclosure, and is located outside
and beside the chamber entrance door.
The main HMI screen displays the tem-
perature in the room and alarm indicator
(Figure 3). It also includes status indica-
tors for the various field devices such as
liquid and hot gas valves and evaporator
fans, and shows whether a defrost cycle
is active or not. An operator adjusts the
room temperature using the HMI by enter-
ing a password-protected screen.
“Not only is the HMI designed for us by
Affinity Energy a lot easier to navigate,
having the capability to plug into the
controller to conduct maintenance and
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troubleshooting is a real home run for
our techs,” says Mark Obenshain, assis-
tant director, HVAC operations at UNC
Chapel Hill.
To alert researchers and maintenance per-
sonnel of out-of-tolerance temperature
values, Affinity Energy included alarm-
ing functionality. In addition to an alarm
message displayed on the HMI, an audible
alarm mounted on the control enclosure
sounds as soon as a temperature rises or
falls outside a specific set of parameters.
Not only does the HMI make it much easier
to operate the environmental chamber, it
also provides data logging to a built-in SD
memory card. It can also send an e-mail,
access an FTP server, act as a web server,
and provide remote Internet access. All
of these functions are easy to add at a
researcher’s request.
Due to the nature of research conducted
in the chambers, a chart recorder was
still required. Affinity Energy replaced
the outdated chart recorder with a new
circular chart recorder by Future Design
Controls, saving money without compro-
mising accuracy.
T WITHIN HALF A DEGREE
The refrigeration process includes the typi-
cal compressor, evaporator and condenser
devices. A refrigeration cycle begins at
the compressor, which pressurizes the gas
eHANDBOOK: Temperature & Pressure 41
 www.ControlGlobal.com

The university wouldn't be held hostage

to proprietary software or a single system

integrator's services if they wanted to adjust

or completely overhaul the system.

returning from the evaporator coil in the
chamber. This high-pressure refrigerant gas
condenses into its liquid state, but can only
do so if it can release heat.
As the gas travels through a condenser
coil located outside of the chamber, it
gives off heat, becoming a high-pres-
sure liquid. This liquid refrigerant
travels through an orifice and becomes
a low-pressure liquid, which wants to
evaporate to a gas, but must absorb heat
to fuel the transformation. The gas trav-
els through the evaporator coil located
inside the chamber, where it can absorb
heat, cooling the room and becoming a
low-pressure gas, which is returned to the
compressor to begin the cycle again.
In this application, temperature is controlled
and maintained by managing the liquid line
and hot gas valves. The liquid line valve is
open all the time except during a defrost
cycle. As a result, the temperature in the
room would continue to become colder
and colder, reaching temperatures below
freezing, were it not for the hot gas valve
injecting a portion of the gas leaving the
evaporator coil inside the chamber back
into the inlet of the evaporator coil.
Adding some of the hot gas into the liquid
entering the evaporator coil slows the
cooling process, bringing the tempera-
ture toward a desired point. Since the
liquid line valve is always open, the hot
gas valve is modulated at the duty cycle
required to reach and maintain a specific
temperature.
Humidity is controlled by heat injection to
manage how much moisture in the chamber
condenses on the evaporator coil.
A custom PID control method was needed
to manage both the positive and the
negative side of the operation curve.
“Keeping temperatures within a half a
degree Celsius, with researchers going in
and out all day long, is not an easy thing,
but Affinity Energy’s integrated solution
has been running flawlessly,” notes Steve
Hargett, supervisor, facilities maintenance
at UNC Chapel Hill.

eHANDBOOK: Temperature & Pressure 42


Although it is an advanced control func-
tion, it was relatively simple for Affinity
Energy to develop the custom-control
algorithm in the AutomationDirect PLC.
The algorithm is essentially a PI loop, but
coded explicitly, rather than using the off-
the-shelf PID programming module in the
controller.
Even with constant researcher traffic
throughout the day, the prototype con-
trol solution holds the temperature steady
within the required 0.5 °C. With their new
control system, and with PLC programming
supplied by Affinity Energy, UNC Chapel
Hill has the freedom to introduce future
enhancements using its own personnel.
The plan is to replace controllers on
other chambers across the UNC campus,
using this open design based on Auto-
mationDirect PLCs and HMIs. Program
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changes will be incorporated into this
universal control solution for the dif-
ferent types of chambers to maintain
consistency. As the university integrates
this new control solution into the rest
of its environmental chambers, all they
need to do is copy it, and provide a few
minor calibration tweaks based on each
room’s characteristics.
UNC Chapel Hill’s future plans include full
access to room temperature and alarm
history using remote access. This will pro-
vide quick access to critical historical data
required by various regulatory agencies.
Allan D. Evora, president, Affinity Energy, holds B.S.
in Aerospace Engineering from Syracuse, graduated
from the North Carolina State Energy Management
program, and is as a Certified Measurement & Verifi-
cation Professional (CMVP). He established Affinity
Energy in 2002.
eHANDBOOK: Temperature & Pressure 43