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Sugar factory benchmark

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 Revista Iberoamericana de Automática e Informática industrial 00 (2016) 1–4
www.elsevier.es/RIAI

Sugar Factory Plantwide Control Case Study.

Rogelio Mazaeda a,b, Smaranda P. Cristeaa, César de Pradaa, Luis F. Acebes a,b, Alexander Rodríguez a
a Departamento de Ing. Sistemas y Automática, Univ. de Valladolid, Real de Burgos s/n, 47007, Valladolid, España.
bCentro de Tecnología Azucarera (Universidad de Valladolid-ACOR)

Resumen

A dynamic model representing the interface between the evaporation station and the first stage of the crystallization section of a
typical beet sugar factory is described. The simulation represents a genuine control problem that requires the coordination of the
continuous evaporation section with the downstream semi-batch crystallizers. The model is intended to be used as a benchmark for
trying out different optimal plantwide control strategies. The benchmark is particularly challenging due to the close connection between
the continuous and the batch operated section, with multiple interchanges of process streams and energy. The plantwide control sugar
factory case study is offered in the form of three variants of increasing complexity and realism in order to be of interest to a wide
audience, ranging from the food and specifically the sugar process specialists at one end of the spectrum, to the general process control
and automation community at the other.

Copyright © XXXX CEA. Publicado por Elsevier España, S.L. Todos los derechos reservados.

Keywords:
Food processing, process control, plantwide control, optimal control, sugar processing

1. Introducción
The management of complex, large-scale systems, possibly
geographically dispersed, in a rapidly changing dynamic
environment, trying to take the best decisions, in a robust way,
that may include the system self-configuration, in the presence of
the unavoidable uncertainties, constitutes a formidable task. At
the present moment, however, the current advances in technology
resulting in the ubiquitous presence of information generating,
processing and networking capabilities embedded at every level
of the factory, allows, at least, to ambition this possibility. The
achievement of these goals requires nothing less than a new
industrial revolution, refered to with the tag of Industry 4.0 or
smart factories. It seems to demand a new, more encompassing
paradigm, in which the plant, the intelligent sensing, actuating
and controlling devices, the role of the communication network
and of the involved software are considered and studied as an
integrated whole. It is this context that terms such as
cyberphysical systems, Internet of Things (IoT) and big data are
gaining considerable attention.
The smart factory concept will not be fully achieved overnight
but incrementally and building on the already existing important
advances in process control and supervision platforms. In the
most advanced process industries (PI), including food processing
industries (FPI), the state of the art situation should be understood
in relation with the control integrated manufacturing model (CIM)
that the ISA-95 standard tries to codify (falta fig. 1). The levels 0,
1, 2 are directly related with the regulation and automation of the
plant. Level 4 (ERP) deals with long term planning of production,
while the intermediate level 3 MES layer, not fully developed in
most current implementations, is in charge of bridging the gap
between the ERP and Automation levels and deals with the
allocation of needed resources for complying with the plan. For
example, in those cases where there is batch type of equipment, is
also in charge of short term scheduling tasks on those units. The
automation layer, on its turn, has is own piramidal structure that is
going to be discussed with some detail later in the article, but that
basically consists of keeping the value of some selected variables
close to their references, guaranteeing good dynamic performance
of the controlled system. The issue of how to select the variables
to control in a plant-wide setup has profound implications and
there is a large literature dealing with it. The analysis of each
particular problem usually indicates the need of regulating some
process variables to fixed references for reasons having to do with
the quality of production, the technological particularities of the
individual units, or due to safety and environmental concerns.
But once this basic control structure has been selected, it makes
sense to choose the degrees of freedom that typically remains in
such a way as to optimize the economic performance of the whole
plant. The described approach obviously depends on the
availability of the adequate of technical infrastructure: sensor and
actuator devices, different kinds of specialized automation
equipment and software deployed at the different levels: from
PLCs dealing directly with the regulation and sequential control
tasks, to SCADA type of supervisory systems. For more advanced
multivariable control and for optimization the existence of
accurate models of the processes is also a fundamental
requirement.
The above described situation is not yet the current practice in
every factory. The typical situation of FPI is even less favorable.
For example, and to mention only two recognized shortcomings:
the lack of enough sensors, especially those measuring quality
 Mazaeda et al. / Revista Iberoamericana de Automática e Informática industrial 00 (2015) 1–4
related information and the absence of accurate enough first
principles models for the underlaying processes.
This way of doing things, recommended by ISA-95 standard,
is sound but the advocates of the Industry 4.0 paradigm claim for
a more flexible and horizontal kind of approach in which the
existence of digital processing capabilities embedded in field
devices translates into a distribution of the decision making and
control of the different sub-plants or units.
The network of excellence entitled “Highly-complex and
Networked Control Systems (HYCON2)” funded by European
Union Seventh Framework Program has united the efforts of
academic and industrial partners to advance the research in the
fields above briefly discussed over different application domains.
An important cornerstone of HYCON2 has been the use of
benchmarks or case studies for testing the proposed solutions and
stimulating the development of best practices. Two benchmarks
were officially adopted, one having to do with vehicles
transportation over highways and their control. The other case
study proposed belongs to the FPI and constitutes a plantwide
model of the relation of the evaporation and crystallization
sections of the beet sugar industry whose description is the
purpose of the present contribution.
It is important to understand that the sugar case study here
proposed is not conceived as a kind of simple, toy example, to
specifically show the virtues of a given approach to solve some
particular problem. This type of benchmark is legitimate and has
the merit of being easily undertood and reproducible for the
research community it is aimed at. In the HYCON2 sugar case
study the approach has been different. Here the model represents
a simplified but rich enough version of a genuine problem to be
found in sugar process factories and it was from the beginning an
important explicit objective of its designers, due to the above
discussed nature of project, not to hide the intrinsic complexity of
the problem. In any case, the authors were very conscious of the
heterogeneity of the expected audience: general knowledge of the
process industries, although not especially of food or sugar
factories, but with a clear automation and control background. So,
to ease the comprehension, the case study has been offered in the
form of three versions of increasing complexity.
The paper is organized as follows: in section 2 a general
description of the typical sugar factory is offered, with special
emphasis on the departments involved in the benchmark, in
section 3 a more detailed description of the models of the main
units and of the topology of three variants of the benchmark are
offered. In section 4 some ideas for the optimal control of the
plant wide problem are cast as the corresponding mathematical
programming problems for each of the three case study variants,
while in section 5, for the sake of example, a centralized version
of optimizing control base on an economic non-linear model
predictive controller is given.
2. Process description
The typical beet sugar factory is usually viewed as the series
connection of two main departments: the beet end and the sugar
end (fig. 2). The beet end department is in charge of extracting
sucrose out of beets by a diffusion in water process and of
purifying and concentrating the resulting juice. The sugar end, on
its part, receives the concentrated syrup and carries out the
controlled crystallization of the sucrose to obtain the commercial
white sugar grain with the required quality.
The juice delivered from the diffusion section is not a pure
solution of sucrose in water. It is a technical solution that also
contains a great number of other inorganic and organic
compounds. The existence of these impurities or non-sugar
components, the exact content of which varies from factory to
factory, is an unavoidable technological inconvenience. The need
to handle their presence and the need to reduce their negative
impact on the efficiency of the factory, decides in good measure,
its design and operation. For example, there is a whole chemical
plant, the purification section, dedicated to increase the purity of
diffusion juice. But the purification section cannot remove all
impurities and their unavoidable presence in crystallization has an
important negative impact that has to be dealt with.
As will be clear at the end of this section, the reduction of the
impurities adverse consequences determines from the design and
management of the individual units (crystallizers and centrifuges)
to the large scale topology of the department that is typically built
around the use three crystallization-separation stages.
Each of these stages, although structurally and functionally
similar, has assigned a different role: the first one is concerned
with the production of the commercial sugar grain, while the
following two are in charge of the economic efficiency of the
factory, by recovering from their incoming syrups as much
sucrose as possible to be recycled to the first stage.
Recovered
sugar
1º Stage
water
Boiler
melter
steam
Feed licor I tank
Syrup or ...
Evaporation
Purification
beets
Diffusion
thick juice
massecuite
water
Steam from
evaporators Rich syrup I White
sugar
Poor
syrup I
Beet end 2º Stage
Rich syrup II Sugar II
Benchmark model
Poor
syrup II
3º Stage
Sugar III
Sugar end molasses
Figure 2: Typical beet sugar factory with benchmark delimited
Let’s take, for the sake of concreteness, the first stage. There is
an array of semi-batch crystallizers where the sugar grain is made
to grow in a controlled fashion, with the objective of obtaining a
uniform population of sugar crystals of the right average size and
of a narrow crystal size distribution (CSD). Each crystallizer
delivers then the so called massecuite, conformed by the grown
sugar crystals embedded in the remains of the syrup which have
been fed along the process, the so called mother liquour. This
slurry is temporarly hold in tanks or strike receivers to be later fed
to an array of parallel batch centrifuges to separate the grain from
the syrup.
In what follows some terminology will be used, whose exact
meaning should be made clear at the outset. Expressions such as
dry matter content or Brix in relation to the technical solutions at
the different stages, including the mother liquor component of the
massecuite, make reference to the mass concentration of all
dissolved substances, sucrose and impurities. When the same
terms are applied to the massecuite, the embedded sugar grains
 Mazaeda et al. / Revista Iberoamericana de Automática e Informática industrial 00 (2015) 1–4

are also included. Correspondingly, the term purity is applied to applied to the shell of a heat exchanger or calandria incorporated
the mass ratio of sucrose to impurities for the solutions, but when to the unit. When the right super-saturation is reached, the seed, a
reference is made to the whole massecuite the sugar grains mass population of sugar crystals with average size of around 10 µm, is
is added in the numerator. introduced. Crystallization then proceeds along the lengthier and
most important growing of the grain step. As this process unfolds,
(-) Purity the purity of the solution, now refered to as mother liquor,
σ*
Concentration

progressively decreases, as sucrose migrates to the faces of the

(+) Purity
Labile crystal population, while most of the impurities remain dissolved.
zone The control of super-saturation is a key objective that requires the
Evaporation Solubility right balance between the rate of water evaporation and the
curves introduction of fresh feed liquor. Super-saturation is not a directly
Cooling measured variable; it depends on the mother liquor sucrose
Infra-
concentration and on its temperature but also on the purity and
Meta-stable saturated
even in the very specific factory dependent composition of non-
zone region
sugars of the technical solution. In practice, at least in the Spanish
factories here taken as reference belonging to the companies Ebro
S.L. and ACOR, this stage of the process is controlled by
Temperature stipulating the required concentration that the mass inside the
chamber, the massecuite, should have at each point along the
Figure 3: Sucrose solubility curve
evolution of the batch. This is implemented by establishing a
The crystallizers work by keeping the super-saturation (s) of massecuite Brix versus level curve, taking in this case the level
sucrose in the technical solution into the meta-stable zone (see attained by the mass as a measure of the state of crystallization.
fig. 3). In this region, essentially only the existing crystals would The curve is tuned for each specific case by the factory process
grow in size, avoiding the dissolution that would occur in the case specialist depending on the expected purity of the feed liquor
of entering the infrasaturated region; or the explosive apparition arriving at the unit and on other factors including for example, the
of new crystals if the labile zone is reached. This is essential for specific correlation of the readings of the each radio frequency
obtaining an adequate CSD, an important element of the (RF) sensor used with the actually existing dry matter content of
perceived quality of the final product. Typically, the mechanism the whole mass. The concentration corresponding to each level
for creating super-saturation is the evaporation of the excess of becomes the set point of a PID regulator that manipulates the
water. This evaporation is carried out in vacuum condition so as input of feeding liquor. As said, the indirect control of the
to keep boiling temperatures low to avoid sugar caramelization. supersaturation also depends on the amount of water evaporated
Pva
p
and so, ultimately, of the set points of the PIDs controlling the
vacuum pressure in the chamber and the pressure of the heating
(a) Wvap (b) steam to the calandria. The crystal growing stage of the recipe is
(b)
Condenser concluded when the space of the chamber allocated to holding the
mass is fully occupied. Immediately after, the crystallizer
controlling program enters a stage dedicated to achieve a further
TT
concentration of the mass, whose duration is determined by the
Wcal time that the electric current consumed by the motor attached to
LT
Pcal
the mechanical stirrer takes to reach a pre-specified value, and so,
directly, by the required mass consistency. The final, discharge
Wseed stage breaks the vacuum in the chamber and opens the appropriate
valve for evacuating the massecuite to the corresponding
Bmc containers and from them to the array of centrifuges.
Wfeed W
The centrifuges purpose is the separation of the mother liquor
mc of
Control
Growing stage
from the sugar grains using the centrifugal force developed in a
rotating drum. The mother liquor is expelled out and the sugar
Level
Syrup grains remain inside the drum at the end of the cycle. To get rid of
RF. Bmc
SP-Bmc in
valve
sensor the rest of mother liquor adhered on the faces of sugar crystals for
PID Cryst. an adequate purity of the commercial product; it is unavoidable
the administration of some amount of water. It is at this juncture
Bmc vs. level
that a good CSD of the sugar crystals plays an additional
curve (c) important technological role. The mother liquor to be expelled
should overcome the resistance of the cake of sugar crystals that
Figure 4: Batch evaporative crystallizer (a) recipe (b) crystallizer description is immediately built on the interior walls of the rotating cask. A
(c) Growing of the grain control scheme
uniform population of grains of the right size makes this cake
The production of each batch is undertaken by following a more permeable, requiring the introduction of less water. This is
recipe consisting of a series of steps similar to the ones detailed in good news since the application of water has negative
fig 4. After loading an initial amount of feeding liquor and consequences because it induces the dissolution of the already
creating the required vacuum conditions in the unit’s chamber, the crystallized sugar and results in the existence of more diluted,
syrup is concentrated by making the solution to boil. The required higher volumes of syrups circulating in the department. The syrup
energy is provided by the latent heat of condensation of steam expelled at the beginning of the centrifuge batch cycle, and before
 Mazaeda et al. / Revista Iberoamericana de Automática e Informática industrial 00 (2015) 1–4
the introduction of water, has a low purity which essentially
corresponds to the purity of the mother liquor, and so it is called
poor syrup. After the introduction of water, a not insignificant
amount of sugar crystals is dissolved, so the syrup expelled from
this moment on, has a higher purity and is classified as rich syrup.
It makes sense to recycle the rich syrup back to conform the feed
liquor to the first stage crystallizers along with the thick juice
delivered by the upstream evaporator station. The poor syrup has
still an important content of dissolved sucrose that can be
recovered. This is done in the two subsequent II and III stages of
the sugar department, using essentially the same process of
crystallization and centrifuging. The sugar produced in this two
sucrose exhausting stages are dissolved in a melter unit and then
incorporated to the first stage feed liquor. The poor syrup of the
third stage, the molasses, with a purity that should be well below
60% for an economically efficient management of the factory, can
still be used, for example, for alcohol production. As the syrup
goes from the I to the III stage, the purity diminishes considerably
and this fact implies a greater effort to obtain the required
supersaturation. This is so because the solubility curve of sucrose
in the technical solution increases with the concentration of non-
sugars. This implies longer duration of the batch cycles, since the
kinetics of crystallization diminishes correspondingly, and also
makes the handling of process streams more difficult due to the
increased viscosity. This last factor has important implications in
the design of the III stage factory, where there is an appeal to
continuous type of units and the use of cooling as means of
creating the super-saturation needed for carrying out the final
exhaustion of the syrups.
The heating steam required in various sites of the factory and
in particular in the sugar end is mostly provided by the
evaporation station [Urbaniec]. The main objective of the
evaporation section, as already said, is to provide the thick or
concentrated juice that is going to constitute the best part of the
feeding liquor to the first stage crystallizers. The station is
organized in a multi-effect scheme that allows a very efficient
reutilization of the energy originally provided by the boilers of the
factory. Each individual effect works in a continuous fashion,
evaporating a fraction of the water of its incoming juice. The
evaporation station of the factory here taken as reference have
five effects in series of the feed-forward type. The diluted thin
juice coming from purification enters the first effect, which also
receives the heating steam directly from the boilers. However,
each successive unit downstream of the first takes the more
concentrated juice from the previous one but more importantly, it
uses as energy source also the vapors evaporated from its
upstream unit. For this scheme to work, the boiling process in
each effect has to be conducted at a lower pressure as compared
with its upstream neighbor. The final effect delivers the thick
juice while its boiling pressure, typically below atmospheric
pressure, is fixed by a condenser. The concentration of the thick
juice is regulated by a cascade of PIDs controllers that
manipulates a control valve which determines the flow of vapor to
the condenser and thus, and in conjunction with the heating
pressure at the input of the station, the boiling pressures of all the
intervening effects.
Not all the vapor produced at each effect is used in providing
energy to the downstream one. A considerable part of the flow is
diverted to provide heating energy to different units of the
factory. But the most important consumers of the re-utilized
energy that the evaporation state delivers are the crystallizers of
the different stages of Sugar End.
3. Sugar factory benchmark
The previous discussion of the sugar final processing have been
necessarily brief but it might have been enough to suggest to the
reader the existence on many interesting plant wide optimal
control problems.
For example, and to make reference to a problem concerning
mainly the crystallization department: the minimization of the
amount of sucrose lost in the molasses is clearly beneficial in
terms of the economic efficiency of the factory. The achievement
of this purpose, in the presence of disturbances on the purity of
the arriving thick syrup, is not a trivial task. An increase in purity
of the incoming juice, for example, is beneficial for the workings
of the first stage. But since the drop in purity from the input to the
poor syrup at the output imparted by each stage is practically
fixed, this would end increasing the purity of the molasses. The
prevention of this situation is the responsibility of the second
stage: it should maintain the purity of the syrup sent to third stage
at the required low value, by conveniently lowering the purity of
the stage II feed liquor by recycling a fraction of its own poor
syrup. So, the second stage acts as a kind of buffer station, and
allows for a useful separation of concerns between the first stage
in charge of the quality of the main white sugar product and the
third, dedicated to the final exhaustion of the syrups in the
difficult conditions of having to handle highly viscous streams.
This type of management task is known by the factory []
technologist and operators, and underlies the election of three
stage structure. The automation of the plant wide management
strategy is plagued with difficulties due to the limitations in
instrumentation which is, regretfully, still a characteristic of the
FPI. The purities of the different streams, for example, are
obtained off line, in the factory’s laboratory, once every working
shift. But even more, the intrinsic complexities of the control of
the individual units is compounded with difficulties imposed by
problems at the plant level, as for example, the management of
recycled streams resulting from processes, like the crystallizations
carried out in the stage III, with residence times of many hours
and even days. It is clear that there is room for improvement in
the design and deployment of optimal plant wide control in this
context.
But perhaps one of the most pressing challenges that is
confronted by the sugar factory control operators is the
scheduling of the workings of the semi-batch units of the sugar
end to process all the feed liquor at every stage. In order to make
the problem more concrete and manageable the benchmark
proposed here, concentrates in the relation of the continuous
evaporation station and the first stage of the crystallization
department. A plant wide problem that combines continuous with
batch units, which correspondingly calls for continuous and
discrete decisions at different levels, a fact that confers to the task
a definite hybrid character.
3.1 Case study models.
As previously discussed, the sugar case study is offered in
three versions which are going to be here presented from the
simpler to the more complex, describing briefly at each level the
main characteristics of the relevant processing units.
The dynamic simulation models were implemented using an
Object Orient Modelling Language (OOML) that allows for what
is also called physical modeling: the model building blocks
 Mazaeda et al. / Revista Iberoamericana de Automática e Informática industrial 00 (2015) 1–4

usually represent their physical counterparts in the sense that they

Pvap Vapor
can be connected, using the appropriate ports, following the source
Manipulated Var.

topology of the flowsheet that needs to be represented. For Syrup

Wsyp Disturbances
Pursyp Measurements
example, there are components representing not only the major Bxsyp
Wvap
units such as crystallizer and evaporators, but also for the flow
circuitry such as control valves and tubes, and also for other Pvap_in

Condenser
ancillary equipment, namely open and closed tanks, heat Wvap_in
Lls Feed liquor tank
exchangers, PID controllers, etc. which can be conveniently
instantiated for describing the specific dimensions, geometry or
PF1 PF2 PF3
any other parameters of the specific process units. Components Load1 Load2 Load3

representing process equipment can be specialized according to * SPpcal1

*
SPpcal2
(recipe) *
SPpcal3
(recipe)
(recipe)
the type of fluid they are dealing with (water, steam, syrup, Crys. Crys. Crys.

massecuite). The OOML paradigm allows for the definition of I II III

classes of models which are derived from others by using

concepts like inheritance or aggregation. This last characteristic,
for example, allows the hierarchical definition of new classes by
aggregation of is constituent’s parts: the crystallizer, for example,
contains a heat exchanger for the calandria, valves and PIDs for Figure 5: Benchmark variant I flowsheet.
the basic internal regulating loops.
Perhaps the most defining characteristics of the OOML is the
separation between the declarative nature of the topological The available degrees of freedom for conducting the plant
description of the model and the subsequent generation of the wide management job are, fundamentally, the discrete Load i
resulting Differential Algebraic Hybrid Equations (DAEs) and the signals {i: 1, 2, 3}. The success of the short-term scheduling is
determination of the computational order of evaluation. As closely related to the ability to predict the duration of each
already commented, the ports are key elements in this process. crystallizer cycle and, correspondingly the rate of feed syrup
They are instances of special classes of components that define at consumption that it is going to be needed. This prediction would
the junction of several streams or signals, the correct behavior of depend on the concentration and purity of the incoming syrup as
different key variables. Variables like pressure, for example, are the fig. shows.
Level (%) Level (%)
treated in such a way as to insert the necessary equations
guaranteeing their equality at the junction. On the contrary, Feed licor dry Feed licor
purity=95%
Feed licor dry matter
equations relating variables like flow of process streams should matter content=71% Feed licor
content=76% Feed licor dry purity=91%
Level

enforce zero-sum in the connection point. matter

content=73%
The different versions of the benchmark to be described were Feed licor
purity=95%
(b)
assembled using the OOML EL of the EcosimPro tool. The (a)

components used are a simplified variant of those developed for a
library of units of the sugar industry conceived specifically for the
creation of plant wide simulation models to train control room
operators. The developed OO libraries were necessarily dynamic
and in this sense their purpose and realm of application is very
different from other simulation tools which also target the same
industry such as SUGARSTM [][] more adequate for design and
stationary analysis.
3.1.1 Variant I
The first, simpler variant of the case study (fig. 5) concentrates
in testing the correct scheduling of three crystallizers connected in
parallel so that they keep up with the syrup entering the
department, or put equivalently, to consume the right amount of
feed liquor from the corresponding tank so as to keep its level
between safe limits. This task must be performed in the presence
of the disturbances represented by the flow of syrup entering, its
concentration and its purity and acknowledging the restriction
imposed by the limited availability of heating steam.
time (s) time (s)
Figure 6: Cycle duration depends on syrup’s a) concentration b) purity
In fig. 6 it is shown how a higher concentration of feed liquor
implies a shorter cycle if all other conditions are kept fixed. These
other conditions are the purity of the feed liquor, the
concentration versus level curve that controls the flow of syrup
into the chamber and the rate of water evaporation. The reason
behind the observed acceleration is that, for a higher
concentration of the feed, the concentrations stipulated by
concentration versus level curve that regulates the crystal growing
phase are reached at earlier, so the syrup intake is also
augmented. Figure .b shows a similar effect on the duration of the
batch of a higher feed syrup purity. This acceleration is
attributable in this case to an increase in crystallization speed.
So, the cycle duration of each unit, and consequentially the
combined ability of the battery of the three crystallizers for
consuming the arriving syrup at a higher rate depend on its
characteristics. But, obviously, this duration can also be
influenced by modifying the operation of the unit. For example, a
higher water evaporation rate would have similar consequences as
the above discussed for the case of more concentrated feed syrup.
This can be achieved by increasing the temperature difference at
both sides of the heat exchanger, or equivalently by increasing the
pressure at which the condensation of the heating steam is carried
out in the primary of the calandria or the by lowering the vacuum
pressure inside the chamber and thus the boiling temperature or,
obviously, by a combination of both actions.
 Mazaeda et al. / Revista Iberoamericana de Automática e Informática industrial 00 (2015) 1–4

Pcal PID recipe setpoint juice (W jc ), the crystals seed (W seed ), the evaporated water (W evap )
and of massecuite (W mc ) output. Notice that the existence and the
PF=1.2 magnitude of the mentioned flowrates depend, in general, of the
state that the unit’s program is in. The seed flowrate, for example,
PF=1.0
Pcal (kg/s)

is only active during the short period of seeding while the output
PF=0.8 of massecuite is different from zero only in the discharge state.
The stream W cris represents the sucrose that goes from the
(a) dissolved to the crystallized phase. Notice that all impurities
remain dissolved so we are disregarding phenomena like
PF=1.2 Super-saturation inclusions of mother liquor inside the crystal structure, for
PF=1.0 example.

PF=0.8 dm (1)
= w jc + wseed − wevap − wmc
dt
s

dmsuc (2)
= w jc _ suc − wcris − wmc _ sac
(b) dt
dmimp
Time (s) = w jc _ imp − wmc _ imp (3)
dt
Figure 7: Cycle duration can be influenced by a) P F factor b) with an impact dmcris
on super-saturation. = wseed + wcris − wmc _ cris (4)
dt
In the benchmark, it is recommended to keep the recipe based mw = m − msuc − mimp − mcris (5)
controller in place in the understanding that it gives a reasonable
dmvap
performance. To make the problem more flexible, an extra degree = wevap − wvap _ cond (6)
dt
of freedom for increasing or shortening the duration of the cycle
of each crystallizer, is provided. This is achieved by multiplying
the profile of the set point of the PID controlling the heating Vapor and massecuite share the whole volume (m3) of the unit
steam pressure that the unit’s program proposes, by a continuous according to the constitutive relation (7). In that expression V cham
factor P Fi {i=1, 2, 3}, which is centered at the value of one (fig. is the maximum volume destined to contain the massecuite, V dome
7.a). It has to be taken into account, however, that too much is the space reserved exclusively for vapor and V vap the volume
acceleration (P F > 1) can be detrimental to the quality of the which is effectively taken by the vapor phase along the strike.
crystals. A higher evaporation rate determines an increase of the
m (7)
supersaturation in the solution with the associated risk in Vvap = Vcham + Vdome −
widening the CSD (fig. 7.b). This comes about because the ρ mc
kinetics of sugar growth depends on super-saturation but also on At the beginning of the cycle, the sensible heat delivered to the
other factors such as the purity, for example. This might imply mass is used to increase its temperature. Once the boiling
that the the acceleration of the process must deal with a total mass temperature is reached, however, water starts to evaporate. From
of sugar crystals whose aggregate surface in not capable of that moment on, we assume that the relation (8) holds. The
incorporating the dissolved sucrose at the required rate. parameter k evap is pragmatically chosen to be high enough so as to
Another element that has to be taken into account is the guarantee the practical equality of the pressure in vapor space
limited availability of heating steam, a resource which is provided (P vap ) and the water equilibrium pressure in the solution (P eq ) but
by the evaporation station and that has to be shared by the three no to high as to provoke difficulties by increasing, unwarrantly,
consumers. This fact is represented in this reduced model by a the stiffness of the numerical problem [Luyben]. The pressure
static component that represent a real steam source in the sense P vap is obtained by applying the ideal gas equation of state,
that the pressure starts to drop, in this case linearly, when the considered to be valid due to the low pressures at which the
extracted flow grows beyond a certain value. process is conducted. On the other hand, P eq depends on the
The most important unit here is the crystallizer. We have used temperature but also on the presence of dissolved substances in
a simplified version where only the elements concerning the right the mother liquor and it is inferred from known boiling point
evolution of the consumption of steam and syrup and its elevation tables.
dependence on the characteristics of the juice and on the pressure
of heating steam are intended to be captured. (
wevap = k evap Peq − Pvap ) (8)
Some key elements of the the crystallizer’s model are
succinctly described next. Notice that the model has embedded nRTvap
the discrete finite state machine driving the stage by stage Pvap = (9)
Vvap
evolution of the control program of the unit according to the
chosen recipe. The first principles mathematical model of each
crystallizer consists of material balances preformed to the overall Temperature in the vapor space (T vap in ºC) is determined by
mass (m) and to each of its components: sucrose (m suc ), no-sugar (10). The specific enthapy h evap (J/kg) which is a function of both:
(m imp ), water (m w ) and, after the seeding stage have taken place, the temperature of the boiling mass and of the pressure. Notice
of the crystallized sugar (m cris ) as in (1-5). There is also the need that this steam is overheated due to the mentioned boiling point
of keeping track of the vapor mass on top (6). In both cases we operation effect. The W vap_cond term represents the flowrate of
are considering perfectly mixed contents. All the flowrates are steam leaving the unit to the barometric condenser. It has a
expressed in kg/s and represent those corresponding to the feed
 Mazaeda et al. / Revista Iberoamericana de Automática e Informática industrial 00 (2015) 1–4
specific enthalpy h vap . The term C p (J/kg.ºC) is the specific heat
capacity.
dmvap
dTvap wevap hevap − wvap _ cond hvap − hvap
= dt
dt mvap c p
dm
w jc h jc + Q − wevap hevap − wmc hmc − hmc
dhmc dt
=
dt m chamber. For the sensible heating phase, the coefficient is given a
The dynamic evolution of the massecuite specific enthalpy
(h mc ) is given in (11). In this case h jc is the specific enthalpy of
the incoming juice which depends on its temperature and
composition and Q (J/s) is the heat flow provided by the
exchanger. The latter is considered to comply with (12)
depending on the overall heat transfer coefficient U (J/m2sºC), the
total area available for the exchange A (m2) and the temperature
difference at both sides of the exchanger wall. The term T mc is the
temperature of the massecuite obtained from h mc as a function of
the composition of the mother liquor and the amount of embedded
crystals assuming an ideal mix. The temperature T cal is
considered to be the saturation temperature of the heating steam
entering the primary of the exchanger which corresponds to the
pressure P cal . We are assuming that there are not important energy
losses to the enviromment and that the energy exchange between
the vapor and the massecuite phase in dominated by the
convection effect represent by W evap .
Q = U ⋅ A ⋅ ∆T = U ⋅ A ⋅ (Tcal − Tmc )
dmcal
= wcal _ in − wcal _ out
dt
Q The obtention of the profiles in fig. 7 do not require a very
wcal _ out =
lat ( Pcal )
The determination of P cal is done by an equation of state
similar to (9). The volume is calculated taking into consideration
the mass of vapor m cal (kg), considered as saturated for
convenience, whose evolution is given by []. In this last equation,
W cal_in is the flowrate of heating vapor entering the exchanger,
ultimately depending of the heating vapor pressure control loop,
while W cal_out is the flow rate of condensed water going out. The
latter is determined as a function of Q and the latent heat of
condensation of steam at the pressure P cal as in [].

 U sen Peq < Pvap (a)
 (15)
U =
  lat (Pcal ) 
min ku ⋅ J evap ⋅ , U max  Peq ≥ Pvap (b)
  ∆T 
15.92 − 0.165 ⋅ Bmc − 6.01 ⋅ Pvap + 0.0311 ⋅ Pmc
J evap = exp
 + 0.639 ⋅ Pcal − 0.321 ⋅ Ltub − 0.298 ⋅ Lec
The equivalent heat transfer coefficient U is effectively
modified and reduced along the cycle due to many factors. As the
cycle progresses the height of the mass in chamber increases. This
implies that the pressure of the column on top of the slurry in
direct contact with the exchanger and hence its temperature also
rises. Since we are assuming a perfectly mixed vessel, this
reduction of the temperature difference driving the heat transfer is
assumed as a corresponding reduction of U. But there are other
factors conspiring for the reduction of this coefficient, namely the
reduction of the circulation of the mass inside the chamber as the
effective viscosity of the mass increases and the natural
(10) convection provoked by the evaporation bubbling diminishes, a
fact that cannot be completely compensated for by the existence
of the mechanical stirrer. So in expression (15) U is is considered
to depend, first on the existence or not of evaporation in the
(11)
constant value U sen to be adjusted for each case. In the latent heat
phase, the value of U is made to match a regression expression
given by (16) as proposed in [Rouillard] which gives the flux of
steam for unit area of the exchanger J evap (kg/hm2) as function of
the concentration of the massecuite (B mc ), its purity (P mc ), the
pressure in the vapor space in the chamber (P vap ) and on the
primary of the exchanger (P cal ), the height of the exchanger tubes
(L tub ), and the height of the mass over the upper rim of those
tubes (L ec ) which directly proportional to the level attained by the
massecuite in the chamber.
Due to this evolution of U, and also to the changes in the
profile of the setpoint for the pressures in the chamber and on the
primary of the exchanger, the consumption of heating steam
varies along the cycle as shown in fig. 7.a. This profile determines
a similar shape for the consumption of syrup as determined by the
massecuite concentration control scheme already explained
fig.7.b. The evolution of these two flowrates, which describes
completely the interface of the crystalizer with the providers of
heating steam and of the feeding liquor whose correct description
(12) is the main purpose of this variant of the benchmark, is decided
by the discussed evolution of the heat transfer coefficient and
ultimately by the characterisitics of the feeding liquour and the
(13) control policy implemented in the crystallizer.
(14)
exhaustive description of the crystal size distribution. The only
interest here is in modelling, as faithfully as possible, the overall
evolution of the mass of crystals m cris and correspondingly the
mass flowrate w cris representing crystallization.
3 ⋅ (s − 1)α + w
2
wcris = k cris ⋅ mcris seed
(17)
Heating steam
Wcal (kg/s)
PF=1.2
PFactor=1.2
P =1.0
PFactor=1.0
F
PF=0.8
PFactor=0.8
(a)
Feed licor
+ (16) PF=1.2

Wsyp (kg/s)


PF=1.0
(b)
PF=0.8
Time (s)
Figure 7: a) Heating vapor and b) feed liquor comsumption along the cycle.
 Mazaeda et al. / Revista Iberoamericana de Automática e Informática industrial 00 (2015) 1–4

In (17) w cris is made to depend, obviously, on the seed flow
over the short period it is active but fundamentally on the already
growing mass of existing crystals and on the excess of super-
saturation over unity, raised to some power α. The simplified
model (17) is similar to the one proposed in [Lauret]. The
parameters α and k cris where chosen to approximate the results of
a validated model with a more detailed description of the
crystallization kinetics. The super-saturation is defined in (18), as
the ratio between the actual sucrose concentration (C suc ) with
respect to the saturation concentration in the impure, technical
solution that the mother liquor represents (C suc,i ). Notice that the
latter depends on the saturation concentration of pure sucrose
solution (C suc_sat,p ) which is only a function of the temperature and
of a saturation coefficient y sat . The determination of y sat can be
approximated by an expression as the one shown (19), where
q imp/w is the mass ratio of impurities to water and A, B and C are
parameters that should be adjusted for each specific factory.
csuc C suc
s= =
csuc _ sat , i y sat ⋅ C suc _ sat . p (Tmc )
y sat = A ⋅ qimp / W + B + (1 − B ) ⋅ e
C ⋅ q imp / W
With the above, this somewhat cursory description of the most
complex unit of this variant of the benchmark is concluded. Is is
important to highlight that expressions and tables for general
properties of utilities like water and steam and others specifically
belonging to the sugar industry such as density, specific
enthalpies, heat capacities, boiling point elevation, etc. for
product streams like massecuite, juice and sugar crystal as a
function of their compositions among other factors such as
temperature, had been taken from the excellent compilation due to
[Bubnik and co-authors]. There are of course other units, most
notably the feed liqour tank and the very simplified real heating
steam source. The model of the tank is quite simple. It is an open
tank that receives the flow of thick juice and then delivers it at the
request of each individual crystallizer. The model should describe
the time evolution of the overall mass and of the sucrose,
impurities and water components in a way not to dissimilar to the
one <lready described for the dystallizer but with the obvious
simplification of not considering crystallization. Similarly the
energy balance is a simplified version of (11) without the
crystallization effect introduced by the enthalpy of massecuite
(here not existent) and the assumption of zero heat losses. On the
other hand the heating steam supply source pressure (P vap_t ) is
modeled according to (20): if the total demanded flowrate of
steam is less than certain parameter (W knee ) the deliverd pressure
is considered fixed at P vap_t,0 ; but if that flow limit is exceeded,
P vap starts to decrease with a negative slope (slp).
The second variant introduces a more realistic model of the
evaporation station, while keeping almost intact the already
explained representation of the crystallizers section. The
evaporation section is represented, however, for the sake of
simplicity, by only the last three evaporation effects. This reduced
model is able now to represent the fact that the flow and
concentration of the syrup at the output of evaporation and the
availability of steam for the crystallizers are inextricably
interrelated with each other and with the heating steam demand of
each crystallizer. The workings of the plant as a whole depends
on the new disturbances, namely, the flow, concentration and
purity of the thin juice coming into the first effect.
In this variant, the plant wide problem includes more degrees
of freedom. There are two new continuous decision variables: the
set point of the PID deciding the concentration of the syrup at the
input of the feed liquor tank (BxC), and the value of the heating
pressure to the first effect (P vap ). There is now also the possibility
of dynamically deciding, for each crystallizer, the source of the
(18) heating steam: the first or the second evaporation effect. This
implies the existence of three new discrete decision variables
(SW i ).
The model of each evaporation unit has been radically
(19)
simplified from the one described in [Merino]. In order to
perform the continuous evaporation of a part of the incoming
juice, each evaporation unit requires energy which is provided by
the latent heat of condensation of the steam fed at the primary of
an incorporated heat exchanger not too dissimilar to the one used
in the crystallizers. The heating steam condenses in the exterior
shell of the exchanger while the juice to concentrate ascends in
the interior of the tubes. Part of the water evaporates from the
boiling juice, and ascends to the top of the chamber; while the
remaining more concentrated juice goes over the upper rim of
tubes to be collected in the central down take and from there to
the output of the unit. The level here is kept constant to keep the
vapors sealed at the top of the chamber.

 pvap _ t ,0 wvap _ t < wknee (a) (20)

Pvap = 
 slp ⋅ w (
vap − )
wknee + pvap _ t ,0 wvap _ t ≥ wknee (b)

Finally, the overall model is generated by the connection of

the individual units following the flowsheet of the plantwide
process using the capabilities of the OOML tool already
mentioned.

3.1.2 Variant II
 Mazaeda et al. / Revista Iberoamericana de Automática e Informática industrial 00 (2015) 1–4

(a) Qe (24)
Steam I to
crystallizers
Steam II to
crystallizers wcal _ e =
PvapI PvapII
c _ lat ( Pcal _ e )
PC SP
wvapI wvapII

Steam from Notice that the use of II effect steam is preferably from the
Boiler
wvap_in point of view of the reutilization of energy. But, of course, the
Pvap_in
Effect Effect Effect
steam pressure available now is lower and this fact might be not
Bx SP
Juice I II III Condenser
BxC compatible with the required rate of evaporation in the crystallizer
Wjuc
Purjuc LC LC
LC Concentrated in order to keep up with the amount of incoming syrup.
Syrup to crystallizers
Bxjuc
3.1.3 Variant III
(b)
Manipulated var.
The more visible addition that the third variant of the
Disturbances

Measurements
benchmark exhibits in relation to the previous two is the
Concentrated syrup
from evaporation station incorporation of some units downstream the battery of
crystallizers, the more important of which is the component
representing the array of centrifuges. As already discussed, the
Condenser centrifuges separates sugar crystals from mother liquor; and uses
Lls Feed licor tank
some amount of water to guarantee the required purity of the
commercial product. The rich syrup coming out of the centrifuges
PF1 Load1 PF2 Load2 PF3 Load3 is recycled to be mixed with the thick juice thus forming the feed
SPpcal1 SPpcal2 SPpcal3
liquor of the crystallizers. Here, the water flow can be considered
*
(recipe)
(recipe)
Steam I
(recipe)
as an important new disturbance input that complicates the
Steam I Steam I
SW1
Crys.
I SW2
Crys.
II SW3
Crys.
III handling of the plant wide situation. More water implies a greater
flow to recycle, with more purity but also more diluted. This flow
is introduced downstream the evaporation, so the extra water has
Steam II Steam II Steam II
to be handled entirely in the crystallizers, with a greater
evaporation effort. Note that there also exists the possibility of
adding an extra flow of sugar representing the recovered sucrose
Figure 8: Benchmark variant II flowsheet.
from the not modeled second a third stage of sugar end. Notice
The model of each evaporator effect has been kept as simple as that in the real factory, the rich syrup and the recovered sugar
possible. In this case, we assume, for example that the mass of crystals are fed to a previous unit, the melter, designed to carry
juice inside the chamber is constant, and this give the following out the dissolution of the recycled grains. This extra unit is not
simple static relation between the incoming (w juc_in ), the outgoing represented here to make things simpler.
juice (w juc_out ) and the evaporation flowrates (w e_vap ): Between the crystallizer and the centrifuges there is the need
to place two new open tanks. The first one, the strike receiver, has
w juc _ out = w juc _ in − we _ vap (21) the purpose of acting as buffer to accommodate the supply rate of
massecuite by the crystallizers with its consumption by the
centrifuges, so its level is allowed to move freely. The second
We ignore also the dynamic effects on the relative content of unit, the channel, is level controlled by a PID that manipulates the
dissolved sugar in the juice, considering the purity of the juice aperture of a valve at its input, and its main purpose is to keep
input as equal to the purity of the output. In what respect to the smooth supplying conditions to the downstream centrifuges. In
dry matter content, its dynamics is essential because it is directly the real factory, the centrifuges are organized as an array of
related to description of the ability of the unit to provide steam to several batch units, working with a cycle which is many times
its consumers: faster than the cycle of crystallizers. A very detailed description is
given in [Mazaeda]. The consumption of the centrifuge is thus
dCdm w juc _ in .Cdm _ juc _ in − w juc _ out ⋅ Cdm (22) regulated by coordinating the scheduling of these batch units,
=
dt m including the turning on and off of some of them. For the purpose
of the benchmarks this extra complexity has been hidden. The
The energy is also essential: array of batch centrifuges has been substituted by a single static
component, and the input of massecuite is supposed to be
dh w juc _ in .h juc _ in − w juc _ out ⋅ h − we _ evap ⋅ he _ evap + Qe (23) regulated by the aperture of a valve (Ap_Cent), that should be
=
dt m manipulated as part of the plant wide control scheme, to
ultimately keep the level of the strike-receiver between safe
The pressure in the vapor space is directly considered as equal limits.
to the equilibrium pressure in the juice taking into consideration (Here de description of the centrifuge static component)
the boiling point elevation effect as function of dry matter content The crystallizer model used in this III variant is compatible
and temperature. However the model is simplified by considering with the ones used in the two previous cases in what concerns to
the evaporated steam as saturated instead of overheated as is the interface with the feed liquor and heating stream provided at
really the case. the input. However, in this case, it has been considered useful to
The vapor which is drawn in from the heating source is give a more detailed account of the growing of the crystals using
determined as; the traditional Population Balance Equation (PBE) approach,
represented by the partial differential equation () which describes
 Mazaeda et al. / Revista Iberoamericana de Automática e Informática industrial 00 (2015) 1–4

the temporal evolution of such and such, it has been here solved from any compatible OPC client, such as for example MatlabTM.
by the method of moments. The kinetics of crystallization process The full documentation includes the OPC tags of the variables of
has been also described with the more complex relation () in interest. This standalone simulation is also offered with HMI
function as recommended in [] and []. The PBE equation interface [Alves], from which it can be manually operated, in a
considers the possible existence of secondary nucleation, which is way which is similar to the traditional operator’s practice in sugar
here described by (). industries (fig. 10).
(falta ecuaciones de balance de población y momentos, etc)
The authors consider that this increase in the realism and
complexity of the model of the crystallizers could be useful to
encourage some control approaches to go deeper and attempt a
direct involvement in the control of each individual unit
crystallzation cycle.

3.2 Benchmark model and simulation availability

(a) Steam I Steam II

to crystallizers to crystallizers
PvapI PvapII
PC SP
wvapI wvapII

Steam from
boiler wvap_in

Pvap_in
Effect Effect Effect
I II III BxSP
Juice Condenser
BxC
Wjuc Figure 10: HMI interface for stand-alone simulation.
LC
Purjuc LC LC
Concetrated syrup
to crystallizers
Bxjuc

(b) 4. The management of the sugar case study

Recovered sugar from stages II and III
Wsug
Concentrated syrup
Rich syrup
The whole purpose of creating a realistic, complex case study
from evaporation station Wrs
as the previously described, is to allow for very different
strategies in addressing the plant wide control problem,
Condenser
accommodating the different expectations and backgrounds of the
Lls (%) Feed licor tank prospective users. The important first choice available is, of
course, the election of the appropriate variant: the first one might
appeal to a more general audience since it reflects a fairly
PF1 Load1 PF2 Load2 PF3 Load3 common coordination problem, found in process industries,
*
SPpcal1
(recipe)
SPpcal2
(recipe)
SPpcal3
(recipe)
between continuous and batch units in the presence of limited
Steam I Crys.
Steam I Crys.
SteamI
Crys.
resources. The second and third variants, however, calls for a
SW1 I SW2 II SW3 III
greater degree of commitment and a steeper learning curve, and
for this reason could result of interest to FPI control specialist or
Steam II Steam II Steam II even to the sugar industry expert. But once the appropriate variant
of the benchmark is selected, the user is free to approach the plant
Strike receiver
wide solution from very different angles and assuming also
Lmx
different degrees of fidelity to the real situation.
In most occasions it makes sense to state the plant wide
Massecuite LC2

channel control problem as a dynamic optimization one. For the sugar

wmc
Ap_Cent
case study, the mathematical problem to solve would have the
Manipulated var. Centrifuge
Rich syrup
general form described in []-[].
Disturbances Water

Measurements w2mc
Poor syrup min J
Sugar u

Figure 9: Benchmark variant III flowsheet.

h( x , x, z , u , p, t ) = 0
g ( x , x, z , u , p, t ) ≤ 0
The sugar case study is at the disposal of the interested reader.
The full set of equations, along with the values of the different
parameters can be obtained from the HYCON2 website, although Where the cost index J is typically related to the economic
the most up to date version is available from the authors upon performance of the plant. The problem is to find the elements of
request. The ready to be run model is offered in its original source the vector u corresponding to the available degrees of freedom, so
code description in the EL/EcosimPro modelling language. The that the cost is minimized while complying with the restrictions.
simulation standalone executable is also offered as OPC server, In [] the DAE describing the plant acts as dynamic path
generated directly from EcosmiPro environment [] that can be restriction. The description of the plant depends, in general, of the
independently installed in a WindowsTM platform, and accessed dynamic state (x) as its derivative, the algebraic variables (z), the
 Mazaeda et al. / Revista Iberoamericana de Automática e Informática industrial 00 (2015) 1–4

decision variables (u), in what follows further classified as u C and The optimal plantwide control of the last department of a
u D to make separate reference to the continuous and dicretes factory, as is the strictly the case that has been described here,
cases, whatever parameters might exist (p), and perhaps also consists basically in trying to keep up with the intermediate
explicitily of the time (t). product flowrate arriving from the upstream units in the most
efficient way. So, in this partial factory (PF) case, the
mathematical programming problem should not take into account
the flowrate of juice to be processed as a decision variable since it
Table 1. Summary of proposed plant-wide optimal control problems.
is considered to be fixed elsewhere and so is treated as a
Both Partial Factory (PF) and Full Factory disturbance. The optimal solution of this type of problem
Cost index (FF) cases: typically consists in minimizing the cost of production. In our
particular case, this cost is considered to be dominated by the
∫w dt
J = vap _ in consumption of heating steam by the crystallizers. A lower
∫ w j dt
average flowrate of steam from the evaporators is beneficial not
Variables Restrictions only due to the obvious fact that it directly implies a lower
Continuous FPi V: I,II,III 0.8 ≤ FPi ≤ 1.2 economic cost. A lower consumption also means that more steam
decision is available for other consumers in the factory, or that that it can
B x SP, Pvap _ in V: II,III 69 ≤ Bx SP ≤ 76
variables be obtained from a downstream, lower pressure evaporation effect
(u C ) Apcent V: III 0 ≤ Apcent ≤ 100 with the associated extra savings due to a greater reutilization of
energy in the evaporation station. There are also benefits related
Added for FF case: Added for FF case: to the quality of the resulting products: if the amount of juice to
w j V: I ,II, III 0 ≤ wj process allows it, it is always better to proceed with the
Discrete Load i V: I, II, III Loadi ∈ {0,1} crystallization at a slower pace, working at correspondingly lower
super-saturations avoiding the risk of unwanted nucleation.
Swi ∈ {0,1}
decision
Swi V: II,III Notice that the variable W vap_in stands for the mass flowrate of
variables
(u D ) steam that comes out of the very simplified model of evaporation
and into the three crystallizers for the variant I. In the case of
Equality path variants II and III we can keep same interpretation or, even better,
constraints h( x , x, z , u , p, t ) = 0 to take it to make reference to the flowrate of live stream entering
the evaporation station.
Granting that the PF problem as stated previously corresponds
Inequality Lsl _ min ≤ Lsl (t ) ≤ Lsl _ max  best to the real scenario, it could be also of interest to consider the
path  V:I,II,III case study as a self contained, full factory (FF) plantwide problem
constraints smin,i (t ) ≤ si (t ) ≤ smax,i (t )  to attempt also the maximization of the juice processing capacity
while minimizing the costs incurred. The stardard approach for
Lmx _ min ≤ Lmx (t ) ≤ Lmx _ max V: III this type of multi-objective problems is to assign market prices to
products and to utility resources such as steam. In practice, the
economic rationality of the factory, expressed in the typical
Major Disturbances Range of variation relationships between the prices of products and the costs of the
disturbances utilities, results in an optimal operation that consists in increasing
w j V:I, II, III (PF case) 1 ≤ wsyp ≤ 10 the production until the restrictions imposed by those processing
Pur j  69 ≤ w juc ≤ 76 units that constitutes the bottleneck of the plant put a limit to the
 V: I, II, III overall production. Here however, we have used the same
Bx j  91 ≤ Pur j ≤ 95 expression for the cost function of both problems as is summed
69 ≤ Bxsyp ≤ 76 up in table []. That common expression for the cost can be
w2mc  interpreted as the specific consumption of steam (w steam_in ) needed
 V: III 0.01 ≤ w2mc ≤ 0.02 per unit of the incoming juice to process (w j ). The difference lies
wsug  0 ≤ wsug ≤ 10 in the fact that in the PF case the optimizing plantwide control can
only modify the consumption of steam by manipulating the
Measured Pvap , wvap V: I continuous decision variables P Fi for each crystallizer, seeking the
variables minimum value, corresponding to the maximum cycle lenght that
w j , Pur j , Bx j ,  is still compatible with the assimilation of all the incoming juice,
 provided that an appropiate short-time scheduling of the semi-
Lls , Lcris _ i , Bxmc _ i , Rdy _ i ,  V: I, II, III
batch units given by the Load i discrete commands is achived. On

Pvap _ i ; Pcal _ i , Tmc _ i , si  the other hand for the FF case to the already mentioned decision
variables, the flowrate w j itself is added, so the same cost function
can now be minimized as before by decreasing the consumption
Pvap _ in , PvapI , PvapII , wvapI , wvapII V: II, III or by increasing the juice processed as it appears in the
denominator. Notice that in table [] w j stands for the w syp the
Lmx , wmc , wrs , Bxsl , Pursl V:III flowrate of thick syrup entering the buffer feed liquour tank for
variant I of the case study study, while for variants II and III the
flowrate of the more diluted thin juice (w juc ) entering the
evaporation station is considered instead. In all cases the subindex
 Mazaeda et al. / Revista Iberoamericana de Automática e Informática industrial 00 (2015) 1–4
i make reference to each of the three individual crytallizers. The
term h() in eq.() and in table [], which acts as an equality path
constraint for the mathematical problem, represents the dynamic
model of the whole plant, that is the set of DAEs describing each
specific variant. On the other hand, for the rest of elements such
as the decision variables, the disturbances acting on the plant and
the measured variables, the changes from a one variant to next are
introduced incrementally. So, for example, in variants II, III the
continuous decision variables related to the evaporation station as
P vap_in , the live steam coming to the first stage and the setpoint of
the Brix controller BxSp are added to the already exisiting for
variant I. On its turn variant III adds to the previous ones, the
continuous decision Ap cent that controls the massecuite flowrate to
the centrifuges thus acting as a knob for keeping the level of the
strike receiver (L mx ) between limits. Same thing happens with
path inequality constraints. There are those valid for the three
variants: the one corresponding to keeping the level of the
standard liquour buffer tank at permissible values and those to
make sure that an undue acceleration of the crystallization cycle
does not make the super-saturation to go beyond the safe meta-
stable zone. For the case of variant III, the already mentioned
inequality, concerning the operation of strike receiver tank, is
added.
The acting disturbance and their expected range of variation
are also shown in table []. Here for the PF case, the flow rate of
juice or syrup entering the plant must be taken into consideration
as previously discussed. In every case the purity and Brix of the
entering stream must always be considered. For the variant III
there is an important disturbance to take into account which is
expressed by the ratio (w2mc) of water to massecuite entering the
centrifuges. Additionally, and to describe the problem as
faithfully as possible to the real plant, the possibility of adding to
the feeding liquour tank the stream of sugar (w sug ) recovered by
the second and third stages of sugar house department has been
contemplated as additional disturbance, taking into account the
fact that those exhausting stages had not been modelled.
The range stipulated for all the disturbances are compatible
with the ones typically found in a real factory. Obviously the
absolute values of the flowrates involved, have been
proportionally reduced to match the scale down version of the
factory that the model represent. On the other hand the Brix of the
thin juice entering the evaporation in variants II and III, is higher
in the model than in the real case, since we are omitting the first
two evaporation effects of the typical evaporation department.
Notice in particular that the range of purity and input and output
of evaporation station are the same since this department as not
influence over this variable.
The optimal problem as stated in table [] should be considered
as a reasonable starting point for approaching the plantwide
problems. However, the user could decide to modify it as
considered appropriate. For example, it could make perfect sense
not to make full use of all the degrees of freedom available for a
particular problem e.g. to solve variant II, III of the benchmark
without changing the source of heating by not considering the
SW i , discrete commands. On the other hand, the measured
variables reported in table [] are the ones that are typically
available in the real factory except for the fact that purity data are
not available on-line but, for example, every eight hours shift
from the factory labs. Notice also that the super-saturation
variable, which in the real case is not measured and should be
inferred from variables such as purity and temperature, among
others, is here considered as directly available to not complicate
things more than what is strictily necessary. In any case,
depending on the commitment of the user, the above sugestions
can be altered both in the sense of having more realism, by taking
into account the intermittent and delayed availability of purity or
the fact that supersaturation has to be estimated; or, on the
contrary, to consider as directly measured any other variable in
the model, which is not contemplated in table [] but that,
depending on the application, would allow the practitioner to
focus on the control solution he/she tries to test, avoiding wasting
time and efforts in some aspect, that could be relevant in a real
implementation but that is considered of secondary importance if
the intention is to highlight the virtues of some particular
approach to solve the plantwide problem. The measured variables
considered by default are the pressure (P vap ) and mass flowrate
(W vap ) of steam that only have sense in variant I and, for all the
three case studies: the mass flowrate (w j ), the purity (Pur j ) and
Brix (Bx j ) of thin juice or thick syrup depending on the variant
and the level of feed liquour (L ls ), and for each individual
crystallizer: the level (L cris_i ), the dry content of the massecuite
(Bx_i), the pressure in the calandria (P cal_i ), the pressure in the
vapor space on top of the massecuite (P vap_i ) and the average
temperature of the massecuite (T mc_i ), the super-sturation (s i ) and
a discrete signal indicating if the particulat crystallizer is ready to
initiate the processing of the following batch (R dy_i ). In variant II
and III other measurements must be added, such as: the pressures
and mass flowrates of the I and II evaporation (P vapI , P vapII , w vapI ,
w vapII ) effects along with the live pressure at the input of the
evaporation station (P vap_in ). For the III variant the level of the
strike receiver (L mx ), the flow rate of the reclycled rich syrup
from the centrifuges (w rs ), and the dry content (Bx sl ) and purity
(Pur sl ) of the feed liquour tank are also provided.
5. A brief account of possible plantwide control strategies
The implementation of the optimal problem stated in table []
can be attempted from different angles. The standard way of
tackling this kind of problems, is perhaps the hierarchical, two
steps approach known as real time optimization (RTO). This type
of strategy makes use of two models for the same plant: one of a
static nature, typically non-linear, representing an economic-wise,
accurate description of the plant and it is used in the upper layer
for calculating the optimal values of the available degrees of
freedom. This optimal references are then presented to a the lower
layer equipped conventional model predictive control (MPC)
using a second, simpler, maybe linear dynamic model of the same
process, which is used at a much shorter timescale, with the help
of which it seeks to follows the handed down references,
minimizing both the deviation of the output from the calculated
optimal trajectory and the control effort, complying, at the same
time, with the required restrictions, in the receding horizon
manner which is characterisitics of the MPC algotithm. The RTO
strategy is sound but presents also important challenges for a
susccesful implementation. In the first place, the previous cursory
description omits the need of keeping the upper layer model up to
date, by a process that requires the gathering of the necessary
measurements from the processs once an approximate steady state
situation has been reached, and the subsequent carrying out of a
data reconciliation and parameter estimation steps to guarantee
the current validity of the model. Of course, from this procedure,
it is clear that for truly optimal operation of this scheme the upper
model has to be structurally correct. There is also the risk of
having to handle in the lower layer unfeasible references
 Mazaeda et al. / Revista Iberoamericana de Automática e Informática industrial 00 (2015) 1–4
provoked by the existing of a possible mismatch between the two
models of the same process.
The existence of structural model-plant mistmatch is an
important issue since the RTO type of solution cannot assure in
this case the convergence to the true plant optimum. Recently,
there are been some very promising results in applying an
modifier adaptation (MA) strategy [] in which, instead of
changing parameters with data gathered from the process as in the
traditional approach, it is the optimization problem the one that
gets iteratively updated with information related to the gradients
of the function cost and of the restrictions obtained from the plant
and from a possibly structurally erroneous model. It is shown
under some relatively mild conditions that the MA strategy leads
to the true plant extremum.
Other shortcoming of the original RTO scheme is related to
the use of static plant model for the economic decisions. This fact
rules out its inmediate applicability to intrinsically non-static
plants such as batch units, but even in those plants which are
designed and conducted in a continuous way, its usefulness is
limited to only those occasions in which it can be considered as
being in a reasonably quiescent state, disregarding the opportunity
of economically optimizing the relatively frequent changes from
one steady state to the next. Improvement on this limitation has
come in the form of dynamic-RTO (D-RTO) where the upper
layer uses a dynamic model. But the most radical althought
somewhat natural step forward in this regard has been to
consolidate both layers of the RTO scheme into a single one. The
resulting controller uses the receding horizon scheme of MPC,
uses a full fledged dynamical non-linear model of the plant,
equipped with all the required terminal and path equality and
inequality constraints, and a free form stage cost to optimize that
is directly related to the economic performance of the plant. But
the conceptual simplification that this so called economic non-
linear MPC (E-NMPC) brings about is not free of some new
hurdles of its own. Now, for example, the optimization problem
to solve at each sample time is much harder: being typically non-
linear and non-convex. Additionally, the mature stability results
existing for the conventional, reference-following MPC are not
longer applicable. Recently, however, important breakthroughs in
of E-NMPC theory, concerning stability and the economic
optimality of the results for the finite horizon case have started to
appear [][].
There are other interesting approaches in this optimal
operation setup. It is particularly interesting the idea of converting
the optimization problem into a regulation one. This strategy
requires the off-line identification of the necessary conditions of
optimality (NCO) for the problem at hand, via theoretical analysis
or intensive model experimentation. Then, and provided that the
structure of the solution remains unchanged, at least a reasonably
good sub-optimal operation could be achieved by enforcing the
identified NCOs using conventional PID controllers. A similar
idea is the one proposed as self-optimizing control (SOC), which
basically identifies the best variables or combination of variables
to regulate to fixed setpoints, is such a way as to keep the unit
close to optimal operation in a way which is relatively insensitive
to the expected disturbances.
The previous compilation of tools, necessarily incomplete,
should not give the impression that the plantwide control of
process industries is a sorted out problem. Quite the contrary, the
effective control of a single moderately complex process unit is a
task that demands a lot of planning and attention to details. This
complexity is of course compounded if the whole plant control is
attempted. There is always the possibility of implementing and
plantwide RTO or EMPC scheme, emcompassing the whole
factory and embedding into the problem all the economic
objetives, quality and environmental related requirements, to then
let the mathematical programming tools give us the, perhaps only
locally valid, optimal values of the plant’s degrees of freedom.
This approach is of course plausible but is plagued with important
pragmatic challenges going from the creation and maintanace of
precise enough models to the timely and accurate solution of non-
linear non-convex optimization problems.
In this context, the traditional plantwide control approach,
developed and enriched over the years with the combined efforts
of the industry and academia is far for being superseded. In [] an
interesting account of the subject is given and some useful
guidelines which recommend an approach that combines top-
down with a bottom-up methodology is discussed. The top-down
analysis would include the recognition of the plantwide economic
objetives, of the available degrees of freedom and, among them,
the identification of the manipulated variables that determines the
plant’s throughput. The bottom up part, on its part, would start at
the level of the individual process units and is concerned with the
dynamic aspects including things such as the control on
inventories, pairing of controlled with manipulated variables, and
stabilization, among others. This mixed approach doesn’t rule out
the application of more advanced techniques such as RTO to
orchestrate the overall economic management combined with the
appeal to techniques such as MPC or SOC to offer at the level of
the individual units, and thus at a faster timescale, a response that
is also sound in an economic sense.
It is worthwhile to include, in the design of the plantwide
control, a bottom up perspective similar to the above described,
centered on the efficient management of the individual process
units, as an important step in the building of the overall solution.
This type of strategy has been the traditional way of designing
and operating the plant with a decentralized approach. However,
the level of energy integration of the contemporary factory,
determined by the need of maintaining a competitive edge in
global markets with very narrow benefits margins, makes the
completely decentralized management impossible or unattractive.
But other alternatives, such as distributed or cooperative
plantwide management strategies, offer the convenience of
approximating the optimal control of the overall plant with the
conceptual simplicity, the factory operator friendliness and
computational scalability of the more traditional process unit
centered approach. The ideas of distributed control are not new [],
but have been the objective of recently renewed interest []. In a []
a possible distributed architecuture for the sugar case study has
been discussed.
Another level of complexity that needs to be dealt with is the
need of performing the scheduling of batch or semi-batch units.
This type of units is particularly common in food processing
because by resorting to the execution of a fixed or cycle to cycle
improved recipe, they increase the opportunity of obtaining the
much needed quality properties of products in a situation of
poorly known models and the lack of quality related on-line
measurements. In a general context, and taking as a guide the
ISA-95 proposed hierarchy, the market driven long to medium
term programming of the production performed at the ERP level
must be translated to a short term scheduling of the individual
units, a task that should be performed at the MES layer taking
into account the production throughput requirement handed down
from ERP but also the information pertaining to the availability of
 Mazaeda et al. / Revista Iberoamericana de Automática e Informática industrial 00 (2015) 1–4

individual units, the cycle duration in relation with the recipe to Prediction horizon
(NP complete cycle for each crystallizer)
be applied, the holding capacity of intermediate buffer tanks and
the coordination with the continuous units. The short time Control horizon
scheduling, which had been chosen preferably in an optimal way, (Nc complete cycles
, Ej: Nc=2)
over a horizon whose duration depends on the charateristics of the
plant, is then delivered to the lower control related layers. The
typical uncertain context in which this kind of problems is carried
out, suggest that the idea of retrofitting information from the
lower layers concerning the actual performance of the planned Crys. I ...
Tload1_1 Tload1_2
scheme to the upper levels with the objective of re-launching the
scheduling optimization would be an interesting idea. In [] a very Load1_1 Load1_2
complete discussion of these issues is given, making strongly the
case for a tighter integration between the scheduling and control
layers, in the way that the here describied sugar case study
Crys. II
...
requires. Tload2_1 Tload2_2

Load2_1 Load2_2

EMPC Disturbances:
Wsyp
...
Process
state Bxsyp
Pursyp Crys. III
Objective Tload3_1 Tload3_2
Model
Function

Load3_1 Load3_2
PFi, Tload_i J
Optimal Figure 12: Receding horizon strategy for crystallizers’ scheduling
PF_i, Tload_i
Optimizer
The simulation study considers the partial factory case with
Restrictions
Plant the profiles of the disturbances for the putiry, Brix and flowrate of
(V: I)
the incoming juice shown in figure (). The variables to optimize
are the PF i multiplying factors deciding the steam consumption of
Figure 11: E-MPC control scheme. the respective crystallizer, which are all restricted to the interval
6. Optimal control implementation example [0.7,1.2], and the discrete decisions (Load i ) on when to start each
individual cycle. Due to the hybrid nature of the model, the
The objective here is to give an example so as to show the mathematical optimization to be carried out at each sample time
general zest of the optimal control problem and of the trade-offs would require the use of a time expensive mixed integer non
involved. To keep things simple, a centralized solution has been linear programming algorithm, a fact that would aggravate the
adopted as represented by fig. considering the variant I of the case scalability problems of the adopted centralized approach. There is
study. Other simplifying assumptions include the absence of a parametrization for these kind of switching models where the
mistmatch between the model and plant and the full access to the binary variables are represented instead by the continuous time
state of the latter. The centralized optimal control is made of a elapsed from the end of previous cycle to the start of the next
single layer and is of the receding horizon type with an economic (T loadi ) []. Adopting this strategy, the mathematical programming
related performance index (E-NMPC) of the type considered in problem become continuous and can be solved to local optimality
table (). by a standard SQP type algorithm. This pàrametrization, however,
requires that both the prediction and the control horizon to be
defined in terms of a fixed number of cycles as depicted in fig().
In any case, a centralized approach to the plantwide problems
implies a considerable numerical effort for the E-NMPC strategy,
so the prediction and control horizon has been chosen both to be
equal to one complete cycle of each crystallizer. The sample time
of 1800 seconds has been considered adequate.
 Mazaeda et al. / Revista Iberoamericana de Automática e Informática industrial 00 (2015) 1–4
(a)
(b)
(c)
Figure 13: Disturbances on input syrup: (a) mass flowrate, (b) Brix, (c) purity.
(a)
(b)
(c)
Figure 14: (a) Crystallizers’ scheduling as evidenced by mass level inside
chamber, (b) Super-saturation evolution, (c) Standard liquour buffer tank
level.
In fig. () the effect of the resulting E-NMPC controller’s
policy on the evolution of the level attained by the mass in each
crystallizer is shown. This figure reveals both the effect of short
time scheduling of the units and the duration of the respective
cycle.
The super-saturation, considered as measured variable, is
presented in fig. .b confirming that this variable, key in what has
to do with the good conduction of the crystallization process, is
always kept, during the relevant stages of the cycle, between the
safe limits defining the meta-stable region. The controller is also
able of processing all the incoming juice, a fact that reveals itself
as an effective control of the level of the feeding tank (fig.c).
(a)
(b)
Figure 15: Heating steam source. (a) Pressure (bar), (b) mass flowrate (kg/s).
The crystallizers share the same source of heating steam, so
the availability of this resource is a key element in the success of
the plantwide optimal control scheme. In fig.b the total flowrate
demanded by the three crystallizers is shown, while the effect that
this demand imposes on the common real steam source, as
reflected by the pressure which it is able to deliver, is shown in
fig().a. Notice that the steeply decreasing flowrate of steam along
the cycle suggests the stipulation of a crystallizers’ scheduling
that seeks to avoid the overlapping of the peak demands by
providing enough separation between the load commands of the
different units. This requirement can be enforced in different
ways by an appropriate adjustment of the baseline mathematical
problem outlined in table (). The solution here adopted consists in
introducing an additional restriction demanding for the common
heating pressure (P vap ) to be above some specified value.
(a)
(b)
Figure 16: Decision variables. (a) Crystallizers’ scheduling. (b) Acelerating
factors.
The manipulated variables: T loadi , specified from the beginning
of the experiment, and P F are shown in fig (). The fig. b shows
that the controller strives to keep the P F close to the lower limit to
reduce steam comsuption as much as possible as demanded by the
cost index. The solution given by the receding horizon controller
does not guarantee to attain the true economical optimum of the
problem.The E-NMPC strategy implies a degree of sub-optimality
that can be expected to be reduced by increasing the prediction
and control horizons. The higher than average values for the P F
 Mazaeda et al. / Revista Iberoamericana de Automática e Informática industrial 00 (2015) 1–4

factors at the end of the exercise can be partially explained with
the above considerations.
7. Conclusions
A sugar factory case study describing a genuine problem has
been described. The simulation has been offered by means of
three variants of different degrees of complexity and realism with
the purpose of reaching as wide an audience as possible. A
baseline plantwide optimal control has been put forward as a
reasonable mathematical statement expressing the purpose of
using the available degrees of freedom for coordinating the
continuous with the batch type of units, to process the incoming
product stream with the minimum consumption of the common
and limited resources. A relatively simple centralized strategy has
been implemented mainly to show in action the main trade-offs
involved and the plausibility of the problem, but with the
aspiration of stimulating in the audience the interest of using more
promising plantwide strategies.
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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to aknowledge in the financial support

of network of excellence “Highly-complex and Networked
Control Systems (HYCON2)” funded by European Union
Seventh Framework Program and of the project DPI2015-70975-
P (MINECO/FEDER).

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