To Observe, Measure and to Control

Handout 1
What is Instrumentation?
The root word of instrumentation is INSTRUMENT. According to the Webster
Dictionary: An INSTRUMENT is
● Any mechanical device
● A tool implements, or apparatus
● A device for producing music
● A formal legal document
● An apparatus for measuring distance
● Others

Others definition of Instrument

It is a device that is used to extend the capabilities of man to know the nature &
magnitude of a process variable.

Definition of Instrumentation
As per ISA/ANSI:
Instrumentation is a collection of instruments or their application for the purpose of
observation, measurement or control. -- ISA
It is the 5 senses of an Industry to maintain the quality and safety of the plant, life
and environment in the most optimum way.

INSTRUMENTATION DIVISION
● Computers, communications, telecommunications, data handling, telemetry,
● Aerospace, avionics
● Marine science, marine biology
● Metrology
● Automation – mechanical
● Automation – process
● Analytical
● Biomedical
● Cryogenics
● Nuclear
● Power
● Others

Applications of Instrumentation
● Process Industries
● Power Plant
● Manufacturing/Factory Automation
 ● Bio-Medical
● Building Management System
● Application in Oil and Gas Industry
○ Process Optimization
■ Minimizing Cost
■ Maximizing throughout and/or efficiency
○ Product Quality
■ Maintaining the standard
■ Satisfying the customer/client
○ Safety
■ To the plant
■ To life
■ To environment

What is a Process?
● It is the event or changes of events that takes place in manufacturing, or
processing of materials or products.
● A change of state of energy, such as hot to cold, liquid to gas, etc.
● A change in composition, as in mixing different materials.

Any operation or sequence of operations involving a change of energy, state,

composition, dimension, or properties that may be defined with respect to a datum
(reference or setpoint).
-- ISA

Requirement of a Process
1. Process Space a space where accumulation and exchange of energy takes
place.
2. Environment the contributor and benefactor (process and or people) of the
accumulation and exchange. It is composed of materials and/or energy.

The Process Blocks

● Units operation, e.g., boilers, chemical reactors, chillers, clean rooms,
compressors, cooling towers, fans, heaters, reboilers, heat exchangers, pumping
stations, blending tanks, holding tanks.
Inputs: mass and energy, disturbance
Process: chemical and physical changes
Outputs: reaction products, heat
● Automatic Controllers, i.e., digital, analog, continuous controllers, programmable
controllers.
Inputs: setpoints, measurements
 Process: control law
Outputs: control valves, heaters, motors
● Transducers, sensors and signal conditioners, i.e., transmitters and receivers,
filters, small signal amplifiers, power amplifiers
Inputs: millivolts, milliamps
Process: amplification, and power gain
Output: volts, amps, watts
● Simple and complex plants, i.e., sequence of series or parallel activities
Inputs: energy, raw material, policy and disturbance
Process: milling, dryings, extraction, boiling, evaporating

Block Diagram Representation

➔ SIngle Input, SIngle Output (SISO)
➔ Multiple Input, Single Output (MISO)
➔ Single Input, Multiple Output (SIMO)
➔ Multiple Input, Multiple Output (MIMO)

What is Process Control

● The technology of controlling a series of events to transform a material into a
desired end product is called process control.
● Is the manipulation of energy input/output relationship, so as to keep process
variable to within desired limit.
➢ Industrial process control was originally performed manually by operators.
Their sensors were their sense of sight, feel, and sound, making the
process totally operator-dependent.
➢ To maintain a process within broadly set limits, the operator would adjust
a simple control device.

Process control can take two forms:

(1) sequential control, which is an event based process in which one event follows
another until a process sequence is complete; or
(2) continuous control, which requires continuous monitoring and adjustment of the
process variables.

Introduction To Process Control

Continuous process control comes in many forms, such as domestic water
heater and heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC), where the variable
temperature is not required to be measured with great precision.
 In complex industrial process control applications, such as in the petroleum or
chemical industry, where many variables have to be measured simultaneously with
great precision. These variables can vary from temperature, flow, level and pressure,
all of which can be interdependent variables in a single process requiring complex
microprocessor systems for total control.

Why do we need the Control System?

1. Safety – industrial plants operate safety so as to promote the well-being of
people and equipment within the plant and in the nearby communities.
2. Environmental Regulations – industrial plants must comply with environmental
regulations concerning the discharge of gases, liquids, and solids beyond the
plant boundaries.
3. Product Specification and Production Rate – in order to be profitable, a plant
must make products that meet specifications concerning product quality and
production rate.
4. Economic Plant Operation – the plant operation over long periods of time must
be profitable. Thus, the control objectives must be consistent with the economic
objectives.
5. Stable Plant Operation – the control system should facilitate smooth, stable
plant operation without excessive oscillation in key process variables. Thus, it is
desirable to have smooth, rapid set-point changes and rapid recovery from plant
disturbances such as changes in feed composition.

Justification of Process Control

● Increase product throughput
● Increase yield of higher valued products
● Decrease energy consumption
● Decrease pollution
● Decrease off-spec product
● Increase safety
● Extended life of equipment
● Improve operability
● Decrease production labor

Basic Steps in Process Control

● Measurement of the process variable;
● Evaluation and comparison with desired level; and
● Control of the required level of the parameter involved
The Variable Involved

Controlled Quantities or Controlled Variable (Level)

These are physical quantities or conditions which the practitioner wishes to
control or to maintain at some desired level. The variables whose control is the end
purpose of automatic control.
Examples: Temperature, pressure, level, flow, composition, density, viscosity, speed,
thickness, weight, mass, moisture.

Manipulated Quantities or Manipulated Variables

Quantities or conditions which are varied as a function of the actuating signal so
as to change the value of the controlled variable. Also refers to the controller output
controller output signal.
Examples: Steam, Fuel, Reagent Feed

Setpoint
An input variable which sets the desired value of the controlled variable.
Sometimes called the reference input, reference or desired value.

Disturbances (a.k.a., Process Load Change)

A physical quantity other than the system command signal, generated
independently of the closed loop itself, which affects the control system. It tends to drive
the controlled variable away from setpoint conditions.

Control inputs are also known as “manipulated variables”

The outputs (controlled variables) are the process variables to be controlled
Measured Variable - Setpoint = Deviation
Process Disturbance
● Supply Load
● Demand Load
● Environmental Condition

What is Basic Process Control?

● Process Control Loop: control component monitors desired output results and
changes input variables to obtain the result.
Example: thermostat controller

Basic Control
Controlled Variable: Temperature (desired output)
Input Variable: temperature (measured by thermometer in thermostat)
Setpoint: user-defined desired setting (temperature)
Manipulated Variable: natural gas valve to furnace (subject to control)

Terminology for Home Heating Control

Control Objective
Measured Process Variable (PV)
Set Point (SP)
Controller Output (CO)
Manipulated Variable (MV)
Disturbances (D)

Dynamic Variable
Any physical parameter that can change either spontaneously or because of
external influences.
The word DYNAMIC conveys the idea of a time dependence that can result from
a number of unspecified or unknown influences; the word VARIABLE simply relates the
capacity to vary from these influences. In process control we are interested in those
dynamic variables that requires regulation in some industrial application.

DYNAMIC ANALYSIS

The dynamic response of a process is the way in which one or more of the variable
associated with the processing unit changes during the period of time following a
change in one of the conditions affecting the process.

The variables might be: temperature, pressure, concentration, etc.

Processing units could be: heat exchanger, a distillation column, thermometer or
manometer.

The conditions affecting the process are the various ways the operation of the
unit can be controlled or disturbed, such as rate of supply of heating or cooling fluid,
rate of supply or removal of a stream of processing materials, temperature of the
surroundings, or atmospheric pressure.
In designing processing plants and their machines and instruments it is
important, so that the operators will be able to change or correct their operation, that the
dynamic response of each part of the plant be predicted in advance and estimate made
of the possibility of controlling the operation of the plant.
 Prediction of dynamic responses is made through calculations based on familiar
principles which may be summarized in three groups:

Conservation equations
Conservation of mass
Conservation of energy
Conservation of momentum

Transport-rate equations
Ohm’s law of electrical resistance
Fourier’s equation of heat flow

Conversion equations
Equivalence of pressure and fluid head
Proportionality between voltage and charge
Ideal gas law

Because the objective is to see how conditions change with time, steady-state cannot
be assumed, rates will be variable, and many properties of the system and hence
variables in the equations will be “function of time”.

The behavior of a process with respect to time defines its’”dynamic characteristics,” if

time is not involved only the “static characteristics” are involved. Both static (steady) and
dynamic (change with time) response must be considered in the operation and
understanding of a process control system.

STATIC (or STEADY-STATE) and DYNAMIC GAIN

Static gain and dynamic gain must be considered when dealing with any process. Gain
is the number that equals the change in units output divided by the change in input or:
The variables that can be changed are called “inputs”, and those variables that can be
measured or observed are called “output. In general, the gain gives the sensitivity of
any process output to changes in input. Therefore:

It really does not matter from the point of view whether the “change in input” is change
in the flow into or out of a process. The important thing is the effect these changes have
on the part of the process under study. It is also important to remember that the gain of
a process has specific units that must be rather carefully considered.

In steady state, the output will just observe the end product and the input cause and
these two have a connection or relationship to each other.
The Total Loop Gain

The computation shows that the loop gain is a dimensionless number. In the loop
dynamic gain is equal to 1, and a phase shift of 180° exists in the process, the loop will
oscillate with constant amplitude and frequency if a change is introduced into one of its
components. If the loop has a dynamic gain greater than 1, the amplitude will increase.
If the gain is less than 1, the oscillations will diminish and finally cease. All control
systems are designed to have a total system gain of less than 1 in order to produce
stability or a damped response.

Each element in the control loop contributes gain to the total loop. Increasing the size of
a control valve or narrowing the span of a transmitter has exactly the same effects as
increasing the gain of a controller. Proper selection of valve size and transmitter span is
as important as selecting that gain range in the controller.
The gain of many control loops will change if the operating level shifts. The gain must
then be readjusted to provide satisfactory control.

INTEGRATING PROCESS (Integral Calculus) Summation/Accumulation

The integrating process is a first-order process (d’y/dx’) but it does not have self-
regulation (it can maintain itself). Integration is a mathematical process of summing or
accumulating the difference between inputs and outputs. With the integrating process,
there is generally a physical limit to the accumulation of mass or energy. It must be
controlled within allowable operating limits of the process.
Rate of Change
Example: Integrating Liquid Level Tank
Liquid flow into a surge tank and flows out under flow control. Initially, the flows in
and out are equal and the level is constant.

The RUNAWAY PROCESS

Some processes or pieces of equipment are by their very nature unstable. For
the runaway process, the integration rate may simply get out of hand very quickly so
that a momentary lapse in close control can lead to an explosion or mechanical
destruction. Good examples of runaway processes occur in certain types of chemical
reactor and also in centrifugal compressor. Such processes can be controlled using
feedback controllers, but if the control system malfunctions the process runs away.

Centrifugal compressors also contain the potential for runaway. If the flow rate
through the compressor drops below a certain for the particular operating speed of the
compressor, a cycling will result from pumping of gas and flow of gas backward through
the compressor. This condition is called “surging”, sets up terrible mechanical vibrations
that can rapidly destroy the equipment. Control systems, ranging from rather simple to
extremely complex, can be used to prevent such compressor surging. Fortunately,
runaway processes, while not unheard of in plants, are rather well recognized at the
design stage.

TIME ELEMENT
The elements that make up a typical feedback loop are shown in figure below.
Each part of the loop requires time to sense a change in input, and to transform this
new condition to an output change. The time response of the entire loop is made up of
the sum of the responses of primary element, the transmitter, all receivers in series with
the controller, the controller, the final operator, and the process itself.
In order to correctly match the time response of the control system to that of the
process, it is necessary to understand certain types of time elements.

Many items of control equipment and plant respond exponentially to a step response
change.

A more common type of lag takes the form of a resistance-capacitance time constant,
which is made up of two components: resistance and capacitance. This lag can in the
form of first order or higher order.

The first-order lag is the common type of dynamic component encountered in process
control. To study it, it is helpful to look at response curve when the component under
study is subjected to a step change in input such as: