CHE 57 – PROCESS

DYNAMICS AND
CONTROL
Chapter 1-Introduction to Process Control, Overview
2nd sem SY 2021-2022
HRCascon, PhD
 CHEMICAL PLANT
• Is an arrangement of processing units (reactors, HE, pumps, distillation columns,
tanks, etc) integrated with one another in a systematic and rational manner to
convert input feedstock (RM, energy) into desired products in the most economical
way
• During operation, the chemical plants should satisfy the ff requirements:
• Safety - operating conditions should be within allowable limits
• Product specifications – amount/production level, purity
• Environmental regulations – e.g. emissions standards
• Operational constraints – pump NPSH, tank levels, reactor temperature, etc at
set levels
• Economics – operating conditions controlled to give optimum levels of costs,
maximize profit
• All requires continuous monitoring, external intervention by a
CONTROL SYSTEM
 NEEDS THAT A CONTROL SYSTEM
SHOULD SATISFY

1 2 3
Suppressing the Ensuring the Optimizing the
influence of stability of a performance of
external chemical chemical
disturbances process process
 • The effect of the
surroundings (external world)
have on a reactor, HE, etc
A. SUPPRESSING are usually out of reach of
the human operator
THE INFLUENCE
• Control mechanism is
OF EXTERNAL introduced that will make
DISTURBANCES proper changes on the
process to cancel the
negative impacts / external
disturbances
EX: CONTROLLING THE OPERATION OF A STIRRED
TANK HEATER
• Operational objectives: to keep
• effluent temp T at a desired value Ts
• Liq volume in the tank at a desired
value Vs
• Initially, we may attain Ts and Vs
but if we leave the system alone
w/o supervision and control, this
will not be maintained indefinitely
since Ti and Fi are subject to
frequent changes
• Disturbances: changes in feed
• flow rate (Fi) and
• temperature (Ti)
EX: CONTROLLING THE OPERATION OF A STIRRED
TANK HEATER
Control action to keep T = Ts (set point)
• A thermocouple measures T of the liquid
in the tank and is compared with the
desried value Ts, yielding a deviation ε =
Ts – T
• Ε is sent to a control mechanism w/c
decides what must be done to return T to
the desired Ts
• If ε > 0 (or T < Ts), the controller opens the
steam valve so that more heat energy is
supplied
• If ε < 0 or T > Ts, the controller closes the
steam valve
• If ε = 0 (T = Ts), the controller does nothing

Called FEEDBACK control system since the

variable of direct importance (T) is
measured after a disturbance has its effect
EX: CONTROLLING THE OPERATION OF A STIRRED
TANK HEATER
ALTERNATIVE:
FEEDFORWARD control
system does not wait until
the effect of disturbance
has been felt by the
system, but acts
appropriately before,
anticipating the effect

• Ti is measured and
depending on the value
read, will open or close
the steam valve
 CONTROL ALTERNATIVES TO KEEP V AT VS (THE EQUIVALENT
VARIABLE IS THE LIQUID LEVEL H, SETPOINT HS)

Can you explain the control mechanisms for (a) and (b)?
B. ENSURING THE Disturbance
STABILITY OF A happens here

PROCESS

• A process is said to be
stable or self-
regulating when no
external intervention is
needed for its
stabilization after it has
been subjected to
external disturbances;
it gains stability on its
own
 EX: CONTROLLING THE OPERATION OF AN UNSTABLE REACTOR

• CSTR with irreversible exothermic reaction A → B

• Heat of reaction is removed by coolant (flowing inside the jacket)
• Heat released by the rxn is sigmoidal (S-shaped curve A) function of T, heat removed by the
coolant is a linear function of T
• Heat released should be equal to heat removed, so there are 3 steady-states (P1, P2 and P3)
• P1and P3 are stable, P2 is unstable
• Why P2 is unstable?
• Assume that we are able to start the
reactor at T2 (with corresponding
CA2)
• the disturbance is in Ti (it is
increasing), this will cause an
increase in rxn mixture T, say T2’
• At T2’, heat released by rexn Q2’ is
greater than heat absorbed by
coolant Q2”
• This leads to higher T in the rxtor
and consequently increase rxn rates,
and so on until it reach P3

Similar behavior (movement to P1) if

disturbance in Ti is opposite
(decreasing)
 EX: CONTROLLING THE OPERATION OF AN UNSTABLE
REACTOR

• Q: Would this mean that we will always avoid unstable steady-state?

• A: No. Sometimes, the unstable steady-state can be more favorable (P2 in
our example will give higher reaction yield, moderate temp level while P3
is at very high temperature that catalyst of product B could prone to
degradation)
• If design choice is P2, then we need a controller that will ensure the
stability of operation
• ANY SUGGESTIONS for this control system?
C. OPTIMIZE THE PERFORMANCE OF A
CHEMICAL PROCESS
 DESIGN ASPECTS OF A PROCESS
CONTROL SYSTEM

• Classification of variables in
a chemical process
• INPUT variables – denote
the effect of surroundings
on the chemical process
• OUTPUT variables –
denote the effect of the
process on the
surroundings
 FURTHER CLASSIFICATIONS:
INPUT variables
• Manipulated (or adjustable) variables if their values can be adjusted freely
by the huma operator or control mechanism
• Disturbances, if their values are not the result of adjustment by an operator
or control system
• OUTPUT variables
• Measured output variables, if their values are known by directly measuring them
• Unmeasured output variables, if they are not or cannot be measured directly
 • Assume that the inlet stream comes from an
EXAMPLES upstream unit over which we have no control
• cAi, Fi and Ti are disturbances
• If the coolant flow rate is controlled by a control
valve:
• Fc is a manipulated variable, while Tci is a
disturbance
• If the flow rate of the effluent stream is controlled by
a valve:
• F is a manipulated variable
• F is an output variable if otherwise
• Measured our put variables: T, F, Tco & V since their
values can be known easily using thermocouples (T,
& Tco), a venturi meter (F) and a differential pressure
cell (V)
• cA can be a measured variable if an analyzer is
attached to the effluent stream. But usually this
analyzer is not available so in this case cA is an
unmeasured output variable
• Disturbances are either measured or unmeasured
disturbances
 DESIGN ELEMENTS OF A CONTROL
SYSTEM
Given a process that we want to control, we need to:
1. Define control objectives
• For the CSTR system:
• (qualitative description) to ensure the stability of the middle, unstable steady state
• (quantitative ) T (as output variable) should not deviate more than 5% from its
nimonal value at the unstable steady state
• For the stirred tank heater:
• (quali) To maintain the temperature of the outlet (T) and the volume of the fluid (V) in
the tank at desired values
• (quanti) T = Ts
V = Vs
 DESIGN ELEMENTS OF A CONTROL SYSTEM
2. Select measurements: what variables should
we measure in order to monitor the operational
performance?
We would like to measure directly the variables
that represent our control objectives (if done,
these we call primary measurements)
Ex: Control obj: V (or h), T at desired levels, i.e.,
keep T = Ts and V = Vs so we install measuring
devices that will measure T and V (or h) directly:
thermocouple (T) and differential pressure cell
(V)
How DPC work? See this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylhwPcyieTc
Control objectives which are not measurable quantities

• Unmeasured outputs – mostly due to lack of mature technology that

can effectively measure the variable, or there is available but
impractical to apply in the process
• We measure other variables that have empirical, experimental or
theoretical relationship with the unmeasured variable: taking
secondary measurements
• Then we develop math relationship:
unmeasured output = f(secondary measurements)
which allows us to estimate the unmeasured output
 (a) (b)

Feedback (a) For (b), feed is The usual issue

and For (a), analyzed, used with
feedforward (b) distillate is to predict
composition
control for analyzed and distillate
distillate composition,
analyzers is
then reflux
composition in then controls that they are
ratio is
a distillation the reflux valve unreliable and
controlled.
column accordingly very costly
• Use of secondary
measurements: T is
measured at various
stages by thermocouple
(more reliable, less
costly), and together with
material, energy balances
& VLE, a math
relationship is developed
to infer the composition
of the distillate, which is
then used to control the
reflux valve
3. SELECT MANIPULATED
VARIABLES
• Usually in a process we have a
number of available input variables
which can be adjusted freely.
• Example: Compare the two figures
where the level (h) or the inlet feed Fi
are selected as the manipulated
variable
• The choice for the manipulated
variables will affect the quality of the
control actions we take.
 4. SELECT THE CONTROL
CONFIGURATION
• Control configuration (or control structure) – is the information structure that
is used to connect the available measurements to the available
manipulated variables
• It has been shown that we will have many different control configurations for
a given chemical process
• What is the best control configuration for a given chemical process control
situation?
 CONTROL CONFIGURATIONS ARE EITHER:

• Single-input, single output (SISO)

• Ex: keeping the liquid level at desired value by manipulating the
effluent flow rate
• Not common in the industry but a good start to study since they
are simpler
• Multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO)
• Ex: keep the level and T at desired values by manipulating the
steam flow rate and effluent flow rate
• More common in the industry
Feedback control

3 GENERAL
TYPES OF
CONTROL
CONFIGU-
RATION
Inferential control

3 GENERAL
TYPES OF
CONTROL
CONFIGU-
RATION
Feedforward control

3 GENERAL
TYPES OF
CONTROL
CONFIGU-
RATION
 5. DESIGN THE CONTROLLER
• In every control configuration, the controller is the active element that
receives information from the measurements and takes appropriate control
actions to adjust the values of the manipulated variables

• How is the information, taken from the measurements, used to adjust the
values of the manipulated variables?

• The answer constitutes the CONTROL LAW, which is implemented

automatically by the controller
 EXAMPLE TO ILLUSTRATE THE
CONTROL LAW
• Let us consider the problem of controlling the
temperature T of a liquid in tank when inlet
temperature Ti changes.
• Assume inlet and outlet flow rates are equal
• Our measured variable will be the liquid T
• Our manipulated variable will be the rate of
heat input Q, provided by steam
• ???How Q should change in order to keep
liquid T constant, when Ti changes?
• In other words, what control law to apply?
Eqn 2.1 is simply stating that heat transferred to liquid = heat supplied by steam
 CONTROL ASPECTS OF A
COMPLETE CHEMICAL PLANT
• Read pages 25-27 of our reference book
• Realizations:
• Designing a control system for a simple
plant (composed of several interacting
units) is indeed a complex task
• The control on integrated processes is the
basic objective for a chemical engineer.
• Due to its complexity and as beginners, we
will start by analyzing the control problems
for single units and then eventually treat
the integrated processes.
 ASSIGNMENT FOR NEXT
SYNCHRONOUS SESSION
• A group should volunteer to present a PPT-assisted report on the HARDWARE
FOR A Process Control System topic (pages 28-33). Provide real pictures of
these hardware/control system, if possible
• Another group will answer and present solution to Problems 1.1 and 1.2