2015 European Control Conference (ECC)
July 15-17, 2015. Linz, Austria
Model Predictive Control for Pressure Regulation
and Surge Prevention in Centrifugal Compressors
Toufik Bentaleba , Alessio Cacittib , Sergio De Franciscisb , Andrea Garullia
Abstract— This paper proposes a multivariable model pre-
dictive control scheme for discharge pressure regulation in
centrifugal compressors. The main novelty of the proposed
approach is that three control inputs are considered: the
rotational speed of the compressor, an anti-surge valve for gas
recycle and the inlet guide vane, whose variations allow one
to significantly enlarge the operating region of the compressor
and hence to enhance the authority of the control system. Surge
prevention is achieved by including in the model an output
variable accounting for the distance of the operating point
from the surge limit. Such distance is defined on a compressor
performance map which is invariant to changes in the inlet
conditions, and thus its computation requires only standard
pressure measurements available from the plant. Numerical
simulations show that the proposed control system is able to
meet the desired specifications, in the presence of different types
of disturbances occurring along the pipeline.
I. I NTRODUCTION
The objective of the control system of a centrifugal com-
pressor is to keep the primary process variable (for example,
suction/discharge pressure or mass flow rate) at a desired set
point level and to track the set point as quickly as possible
whenever a process disturbance occurs. At the same time, the
operating point must be kept within the safe or acceptable
train operating envelope, considering limits such as surge
or stonewall. Moreover, limitations on speed, inlet guide
vane, pressure and power, must be kept into account. The
reference application considered in this paper is that of a
plant for natural gas transportation, in which the centrifugal
compressor is required to maintain a prescribed discharge
pressure, no matter of the variations occurring upstream or
downstream along the pipeline.
The use of Model Predictive Control (MPC) for centrifugal
compressors has been considered and investigated by several
works in the literature. In [1], a linear MPC scheme has
been designed for anti-surge control of a plant with two
compressors. In [2], [3], [4], nonlinear MPC formulations
have been proposed for different plant families. Some works
use both the compressor rotational speed and the position of
an Anti-Surge Valve (ASV), also called recycle valve, for
anti-surge control, see e.g. [5]. However, in all these studies
the Inlet Guide Vane (IGV) is not used as a further degree of
freedom of the control system. In centrifugal compressors,
IGV is typically used to modify the mass flow rate without
acting on the rotational speed or compressor ratio [6].
a Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell’Informazione e Scienze
Matematiche, Universita’ degli Studi di Siena, Italy. E-mail:
bentaleb@dii.unisi.it; garulli@ing.unisi.it.
b Nuovo Pignone Ge Oil & Gas Florence, Italy. E-mail:
sergio.defranciscis@ge.com; alessio.cacitti@ge.com.
978-3-9524269-4-4 © EUCA
UPSTREAM
VALVE
V1
Ts ∆po,s Inlet
Ps
PT TT FT
N FY
ASV
ST Pd
PT
IGV Td
ZT TT DOWNSTREAM
VALVE
V2
Outlet
COOLER
Fig. 1. Schematic description of the gas compression plant
In this paper we propose an MPC scheme which uses three
control variables: the rotational speed, the IGV opening angle
and the position of the ASV. The control system has to pursue
three main objectives: i) the controller has to maintain the
discharge pressure at a desired set point; ii) some process-
limiting variables (such as rotational speed, inlet guide vane
and power) must be maintained within given ranges; iii)
the control system has to prevent surge, without sacrificing
energy efficiency or system capacity. A novel feature of the
proposed MPC approach is that a suitable distance to surge,
which can be computed by using only pressure measurements
available from standard plant transmitters, is included in
the model as an additional output to be used for surge
prevention. The performance of the control scheme is tested
via numerical simulations on an accurate model of a gas
compression plant, including performance maps from a real
industrial compressor.
The paper is organized as follows. The reference plant is
described in Section II. The compressor maps which are used
to compute the distance of the operating point to the surge
limit are illustrated in Section III. The MPC formulation is
introduced in Section IV, while the simulation setup and
the results on two specific case studies are presented in
Section V. Finally some conclusions are given in Section VI.
II. P LANT DESCRIPTION
A dynamic model for the simulation of a gas compres-
sion system has been developed. Figure 1 shows the plant
model and the control system setup. It includes a variable
3351
speed centrifugal compressor, driven by a gas turbine. The
compressor is equipped with an adjustable IGV and an ASV
which allows gas to recycle from compressor discharge to
inlet. The compressor dynamic model includes both the fluid
dynamics equations and nonlinear functions which describe
the characteristics of the specific compressor. In particular,
the dynamics of the mass flow wc is
 c

1 pc
ẇc = − 1 wc (1)
Ts pd
where Tc is the temperature at suction, pd is the discharge
pressure, c is the convergence factor, and pc is the internal
compressor pressure. The latter is computed as a nonlinear
function of both gas properties and of the control inputs
(namely, speed and IGV). In this work, such function is
given in terms of a lookup table, derived from real data of
an industrial centrifugal compressor.
Two volumes are present in the plant, one at suction (V 1)
and another one at discharge of the compressor (V 2). They
are equipped with an upstream and downstream valve (U V
and DV , respectively) to simulate different load conditions.
Closing or opening of these valves cause sudden variations in
the flow at the upstream and downstream of the plant. These
events represent disturbances that affect the compression
system due, for example, to changes that occur along the
pipeline. The plant includes several transmitters, measuring
the following variables: rotational speed (ST), inlet guide
vane position (ZT), anti-surge valve position (FY), temper-
ature (TT), pressure (PT), and differential pressure across
the suction orifice (FT). The model also includes a cooler
for gas cooling. By changing the position of the IGV, it
is possible to modify the compressor characteristics, thus
enlarging the region of feasible operating conditions. In other
words, the use of IGV as an additional control variable
provides a significant enhancement of the authority of the
control system, both in terms of performance and for surge
prevention. A more detailed description of the complete plant
model can be found in [7].
The characteristics of a centrifugal compressor are usually
described through suitable maps, usually known as perfor-
mance maps, which also allow one to define the distance
of the operating point from critical conditions, like surge or
choke. The maps adopted in the present work are described
next.
III. C ENTRIFUGAL C OMPRESSOR M AP
In this section, the compressor performance map are
introduced and their use for surge prevention is explained.
Usually, the performance of the compressor is described in
terms of the polytropic head Hp and the volumetric flow in
suction Qv . This is referred to as the (Hp vs Qv ) map. The
polytropic head is the amount of work required to compress
a unit mass of gas by a polytropic process, and it is defined
as
Zav × R × Ts Rσ − 1
Hp = × c (2)
MW σ
3352
SLL
SCL
Choke line
Speed lines
Resistance line M
ax
s V
pe
ed ↑ IG
Hp [kJ/kg]
ds OP
SM
Min
spe
ed
V
↓ IG
Qv [m3 /s]
Fig. 2. Hp vs Qv centrifugal compressor performance map.
where Z is the compressibility factor, R is the specific
gas constant, T denotes temperature, M W is the molecular
weight of the gas, Rc is the pressure ratio (Pd /Ps ), and σ is
the polytropic exponent. Throughout the paper, the subscripts
s, av and d mean “at compressor suction”, “average”, and “at
compressor discharge”, respectively. A simplified expression
for the volumetric flow Qv is
r
∆Po,s × Zs × R × Ts
Qv = A × (3)
Ps × M W
where A is the orifice coefficient and ∆Po,s is the differential
pressure across the orifice plate in suction, measured by the
FT transmitter.
The centrifugal compressor operating behavior can be
represented in the (Hp vs Qv ) compressor map as shown
in Figure 2. The feasible region of the map is limited by the
resistance lines and the speed lines. The former are the Surge
Limit Line (SLL) and the choke line (or stonewall line),
while the latter are defined by the minimum and maximum
permissible rotational speed of the compressor. The figure
also shows the so-called Surge Control Line (SCL), which is
used in standard control schemes to activate protections for
surge prevention. In steady state, the operating point (OP)
of the compressor is always located at the intersection of
a line of constant speed and a line of constant resistance,
where the system resistance lines are based on compressor
characteristics and pipeline conditions [8]. The Surge Margin
(SM) is the distance from the SCL to the SLL (usually, about
10%). The distance to surge ds is defined as the relative
distance from the OP to the SLL (expressed in percent). The
black arrows show how the feasible region moves within the
(Hp vs Qv ) map, when the IGV opening is increased or
decreased.
Unfortunately, it turns out that the (Hp vs Qv ) map is
not easy to used for surge prevention of the centrifugal
compressor, due to the fact that these coordinates strongly
depend on the inlet conditions which are typically not
constant. The inlet conditions are basically the property
of gas (such as molecular weight M W , compressibility
factor Z, etc.) and the specific gas composition in mole

L
L

SC
SL
percent. Measurements of these quantities are usually not
available to the control system, as they would require the

h̄r |OP = h̄r |SP

use of expensive equipments. Usually, only temperature and
pressure measurements are available in industrial plants.
In order to overcome this problem, a common approach is
to use alternative compressor maps that are invariant to inlet
conditions. In the literature, many different coordinate com-
binations for the analysis of the compressor performance, or
for surge prevention, have been proposed (see, e.g., [9], [10],
[8]). Only few of these are invariant to changes in the inlet
conditions. The ones used in this work are introduced next.
A. The (h̄r vs q̄s2 ) compressor map
From equation (2) and (3), the ratio of Hp to Q2v can
be computed without measuring the molecular weight. If
compressibility variations are assumed to be negligible, one
has
Rcσ −1 av ×Ts
Hp σ × R×Z
MW hr
∝ ≈ 2 (4)
Q2v ∆P o,s
× R×Zs ×Ts qs
Ps MW
where the reduced polytropic head hr and reduced flow rate
in suction qs are defined as
Rcσ − 1 ∆Po,s
hr = , qs2 = . (5)
σ Ps
The process variables Rc , ∆Po,s and Ps are easily mea-
sured by the available pressure and differential pressure
transmitters. The only variable which remains to be deter-
mined is the polytropic exponent (σ). However, for a fairly
wide variety of applications one can assume that σ ≈ 1 is a
reasonable approximation. Hence, one gets
Pd
hr ∼ R c − 1 Ps − 1
= = ∆Po,s
(6)
qs2 qs2
Ps
where the rightmost term is not affected by the gas com-
position and it depends only on pressure measurements that
can be obtained from the plant. This motivates the use of
a map whose coordinates are h̄r = Rc − 1 and q̄s2 = qs2 P̄s
(where the constant P̄s is the compressor inlet pressure at
design conditions and it is used here only for normalization
purposes). In the following, we will refer to these coordinates
as the (h̄r vs q̄s2 ) map (sometimes addressed in the literature
as nearly invariant coordinates, see [9]).
B. Distance to surge in the (h̄r vs q̄s2 ) coordinates
In order to prevent surge, the control scheme needs a
measure of the distance of the operating point to the surge
limit line. As discussed above, the location of the operating
point in the (h̄r vs q̄s2 ) map is computed from available
measurements. For each operating point, a corresponding
Surge Point (SP) is defined as the point on the SLL which
has the same value of h̄r as the operating point. The relative
distance to surge δs is then defined as
F(h̄r , IGV )
δs = (7)
q̄s2 |SP
SP b
OP
δs
q̄s2 |SP q̄s2 |OP
Fig. 3. Compressor performance map (h̄r vs q̄s2 ) with safety margin b and
distance to surge δs .
where the function F(h̄r , IGV ) models the distance from
the OP to the SP and q̄s2 |SP is the value of q̄s2 at SP. Notice
that the position of the SP on the SLL depends on both h̄r
and IGV, because changes in the IGV position modify also
the position of the SLL on the map. Figure 3 shows the
SLL for a constant value of IGV, the operating point and the
corresponding surge point. By measuring the values of q̄s2 at
the OP and SP, the distance to surge becomes
 2 
q̄s |OP
δs = − 1 × 100. (8)
q̄s2 |SP
If the surge margin in the (Hp vs Qv ) coordinates is assumed
to be 10%, then qs |SCL = 1.1 qs |SP . By substituing into (8),
one gets that the surge margin in the (h̄r vs q̄s2 ) map is given
by b = 21% (see Fig. 3).
IV. M ODEL P REDICTIVE C ONTROL D ESIGN
In this section, the MPC approach proposed for the consid-
ered plant is presented. The input, state and output variables
of the plant are as follows.
• Input variables:
– u1 : commanded inlet guide vane [deg].
– u2 : commanded rotational speed [rpm].
– u3 : commanded anti-surge vane [%].
• State variables:
– x1 : mass flow rate [kg/s].
– x2 : actual rotational speed [rpm].
– x3 : actual inlet guide vane [deg].
– x4 : suction pressure [bara].
– x5 : discharge pressure [bara].
– x6 : actual anti-surge vane [%].
• Output variables:
– y1 : discharge pressure [bara].
– y2 : relative distance to surge δs in (8) [%].
– y3 : compressor power with respect to nominal
power provided by the turbine [%].

3353
MPC techniques usually require an analytical model of
the plant to be controlled. Unfortunately, besides analytic
expressions for the compressor flow dynamics, the up-
stream/downstream volumes and the control actuators, the
model contains also lookup tables representing the com-
pressor maps and the gas characteristics. For these reasons,
linearized models around the considered operating points
have been generated by applying the function linearize of
the Matlab/Simulink Control Toolbox to the Simulink model
of the plant described in Section III. The linearised dynamics
around the nominal operating conditions are used only for
solving the MPC optimisation problems, as they are able to
capture the dominant dynamics of the plant.
The general MPC problem for the multi-input multi-output
system is formulated as
in the overall plant model. In particular, the results of
two diferent case studies are presented, corresponding to
different types of load disturbances acting on the upstream
and downstream volumes of the plant.
A. Simulation Setup
At the beginning of the simulations, the centrifugal com-
pressor is assumed to be operating at steady state, with an
upstream volume V1 = 65.7 [m3 ] and a downstream volume
V2 = 80 [m3 ]. The upstream valve opening is initially set
to U V = 45%, while that of the downstream valve to
DV = 90.5%. Temperature at suction and discharge are
Ts = 2.5 [C] and Td = 42.5 [C], respectively. The gas
molecular weight is M W = 18.592 [g/mol]. The values uss ,
xss , y ss of input, state and output variables, at the resulting
( m−1 3 
nominal steady state operating conditions, are reported in
2
X X  uh Table I. The linearized model around this operating point
min w uh (k + i|k)

u(k|k),...,u(p−1+k|k) has been discretized with sampling time equal to 1 [s].
i=0 h=1
3 
X 2 In the MPC optimization problem, the following weights
 ∆uh
+ ∆uh (k + i|k) (9) have been set, after an extensive trial and error procedure:

w
h=1 wu1 = wu2 = 0 (only variation rates of IGV and speed are
3 
!)
X  yh 
2
sp  penalized), wu3 = 1, w∆u1 = 5, w∆u2 = 0.1, w∆u3 = 1,
+ w yh (k + i + 1|k) − yh  wy1 = 30. A prediction horizon of m = 5 time intervals has
h=1
been chosen. The manipulated variables are optimized over
subject to the linearised dynamic model of the plant and the p = 2 control steps. A key issue affecting the authority of
constraints the control system is clearly given by the constraints on the
control inputs and their rates, which are due to the physical
yhmin ≤ yh (k + i + 1|k) ≤ yhmax
limitations of the actuators. In the considered setting, they
umin
h ≤ uh (k + i|k) ≤ umax
h have been considered as follows:
∆umin ≤ ∆uh (k + i|k) ≤ ∆umax

h h  IGV: −70 ≤ u1 ≤ 10 and −4 ≤ ∆u1 ≤ 4,
∆uh (k + j|k) = 0 Speed: 4270 ≤ u2 ≤ 6405 and −15 ≤ ∆u2 ≤ 15,
ASV: 0 ≤ u3 ≤ 100 and −5 ≤ ∆u3 ≤ 50.

for h = 1, 2, 3, i = 0, . . . , m − 1, j = p, . . . , m − 1.
The output set-point for pressure regulation and output
In (9), y(k + i|k) denotes the predicted output value at
constraints are given by
time (k + i), based on the information available at time k;
sp

u(k + i|k) is the input value at time k + i, for the input  Discharge pressure: y1 = y1ss ,
sequence starting at time k; ∆u(k + i|k) = u(k + i + 1|k) − Distance to surge: y2 ≥ b1 ,
u(k + i|k) and y sp is the set-point reference value of the Compressor power: 30 ≤ y3 ≤ 100.

output. The tuning parameters of the MPC scheme are: the
In the considered case studies, the reference discharge pres-
prediction horizon length m, the control horizon length p,
sure is equal to the discharge pressure at steady state, which
the input weights wuh , the input increment weights w∆uh ,
means that such a value must be maintained by the control
and the output weights wyh . In particular, in the considered
system, no matter of the disturbances occurring along the
application the output weights wy2 and wy3 have been set
pipeline, which are modeled in terms of variations of the
to zero, because the control objective is to regulate only
upstream and downstream valve openings.
the output pressure to a desired reference value y1sp , while
the other two outputs enter only in the constraints of the B. Case Study I
optimization problem (9) to enforce surge prevention and In this test, we close slowly the upstream and downstream
guarantee that the gas turbine power limitations are satisfied. valves as shown in Figure 5. Notice that, by closing the
Notice that the above formulation includes also other hard
process constraints, involving both control input variables
TABLE I
and their rates. The cost function is minimized by using the
N OMINAL OPERATING CONDITIONS CONSIDERED IN THE SIMULATIONS
quadratic programming solver provided by the Matlab Model
Predictive Control Toolbox [11]. Parameter Value Unit Parameter Value Unit
xss
1 463.6 [kg/s] xss
5 = y1
ss 121.2 [bara]
V. P ERFORMANCE E VALUATION O F MPC C ONTROLLER xss ss xss ss
2 = u2 6053.3 [rpm] 6 = u 3 0 [%]
ss
x3 = u1 ss 0 [deg] y2ss 126.9 [%]
In this section, the performance of the multivariable MPC
xss 71.6 [bara] y3ss 95 [%]
control scheme is evaluated through numerical simulations 4

3354
 Inputs Outputs
122
pd
0 121.8 pss
d

−20 121.6

u1

y1
−40 121.4

−60 121.2

121
6100
50 SLL
SCL
40
6050
30
u2

ds
20
6000
10
0
5950
4
100
3
90
2
80
u3

y3
1 70
0 60

−1 50
0 50 100 150 200 0 50 100 150 200
time [s] time [s]

Fig. 4. Case study I. Input and output signals.

100
valves the flow rate is reduced, which drives the compressor UV
operating point towards the surge region. The results of the 90 DV

simulation are presented in Figure 4, which shows the three 80

inputs (IGV position, rotational speed, and ASV position)
70
U V /DV [%]

and the three outputs of the system, namely the discharge

pressure, the distance to surge and the compressor power. 60

The distance to surge is reported in terms of ds , as defined 50

in the (Hp vs Qv ) map (and not in terms of the actual 40
y2 = δs used by the MPC) because this is the standard
30
practice in industrial applications. The control system is able
to regulate the output pressure with negligible tracking error, 20
0 50 100 150 200 250
while keeping all the input and output variables within the time [s]
prescribed limitations and the operating point faraway from
Fig. 5. Case study I: upstream and downstream valve opening.
the surge control line. It can be observed that when the valves
start closing, IGV is first used to regulate the pressure, while
the speed starts changing only after IGV is saturated at -70
evolution of the input and output variables. Clearly, in this
deg. Moreover, a moderate opening of the anti-surge valve
case the predictive controller detects that the distance to
occurs to improve pressure regulation, when rotational speed
surge is rapidly decreasing and reacts with a fast opening
is decreasing at the maximum admissible rate.
of the anti-surge valve. This causes the quick rebound of the
operating point throughout the time interval from 20 [s] to
C. Case Study II 27 [s]. After that, being IGV saturated at -70 [deg] and shaft
The second simulation test is conducted starting from the speed decaying at the maximum admissible rate, the closure
same operating point; the only difference is in the profile of the ASV is used to guarantee tracking of the reference
of the closing upstream/downstream valve, which undergo a discharge pressure.
step change instead of a slow closing, as shown in Figure 7.
This sudden closing of the valves causes a large upset, which VI. C ONCLUSION
quickly moves the operating point close to the surge limit A new multivariable model predictive control scheme
line. Without control, the operating point would cross the has been proposed for a centrifugal compressor in a gas
surge limit line in less than 5 [s]. Figure 6 shows the resulting transportation plant. Numerical simulations has shown that

3355
 Inputs Outputs
132
pd
0 130 pss
d

−20 128

u1

y1
126
−40
124
−60
122

100
6000 SLL
80 SCL

5500 60
u2

ds
40
5000
20
4500
0

100 100
80
80
60
u3

y3
40 60

20
40
0
0 50 100 150 200 0 50 100 150 200
time [s] time [s]

Fig. 6. Case study II. Input and output signals.

100
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40
30
20
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time [s]
Fig. 7. Case study II: upstream and downstream valve opening.
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