CONTROL OF HEAT EXCHANGER

PRESENTED BY
NITISH KUMAR K
Control objective
To develop a comprehensive control strategy for any control loop, it’s important
to identify the process variable of interest—called the "controlled variable," the manipulated variable,
and the different disturbance variables that directly affect the controlled variable.
Consider the heat exchanger
The shell side fluid is the process fluid that is required to be heated to a certain temperature setpoint.
The resulting temperature is measured at the outlet of the heat exchanger T1Out (controlled variable).
Heating is achieved by passing steam through the tube side. The more steam passing through the tubes,
the more heat is transferred to the process fluid, and vice versa. Control of the steam flow
F2 (manipulated variable) is achieved by throttling a modulating valve installed on the steam inlet side.
Three major disturbances can affect the process fluid outlet temperature:

•Changes in process fluid flow rate, F1

•Changes in process fluid inlet temperature, T1In
•Changes in steam pressure, causing a change in steam flow rate, F2.

The control objective is to maintain process fluid outlet temperature T1Out at the desired setpoint—
regardless of disturbances—by manipulating the steam flow rate F2. 
Feedback control
       

In the feedback control scheme, the process variable, T1Out, is measured and applied
to a proportional-integral-derivative (PID)-based feedback temperature controller (fbTC),
which compares the process variable with the desired temperature setpoint and in turn calculates and generates
the control action required to open or close the steam control valve (see Figure 4).

The most important advantage of the feedback control scheme is that regardless of the disturbance source,
the controller will take corrective action. Employing feedback control requires very little knowledge of the process.
Therefore, a process model is not necessary to set up and tune the feedback scheme, although it would be an
advantage.

The major disadvantage of feedback control is its incapability to respond to disturbances—even major ones—
until the controlled variable is already affected. Also, if too many disturbances occur with significant magnitude,
they can create unrecoverable process instability.
Cascade control
In the cascade control scheme, instead of feeding the output of the PID temperature controller directly to
the control valve, it is fed as a setpoint to a feedback PID-based, steam-flow controller (fbFC). This second
loop is responsible for ensuring the flow rate of the steam doesn’t change due to uncontrollable factors,
such as steam pressure changes or valve problems. To understand how this works, consider that the heat
exchanger is in steady-state operation, the outlet temperature matches the setpoint, and the controller
output of fbTC is constant. A sudden increase in steam pressure will cause steam flow rate F2 to ramp
up . This will cause a gradual change in the controlled variable. Without the flow control
loop, fbTC will not take corrective action until the outlet temperature is already affected.
By implementing the cascade strategy, the feedback flow control loop fbFC will adjust the valve position
immediately when the steam flow rate has changed to bring the flow back to the value of the previous
steady-state condition (because the flow setpoint given by the temperature controller didn’t change as the
outlet temperature did not yet change), preventing a change in the outlet temperature before it happens.
Note that the flow control loop must be tuned to run much faster than the temperature control loop,
therefore cancelling the effect of flow variance before it affects the process fluid outlet temperature.
Feedforward control
Unlike feedback control, feedforward takes a corrective action when a
disturbance occurs. Feedforward control doesn’t see the process variable.
It sees only the disturbances and responds to them as they occur.
This enables a feedforward controller to quickly and directly compensate
for the effect of a disturbance
To implement feedforward control, an understanding of the
process model and the direct relationship between disturbances and
the process variables is necessary. For heat exchangers, a derivation
from the steady-state model will lead to the following equation,
which determines the amount of steam flow required:
F2sp = F1 × (T1OUTsp – T1IN) × (Cp/ΔH)
Where:
•F2sp = steam flow rate calculated setpoint to be applied to fbFC
•F1 = process fluid flow rate measured disturbance
•T1OUTsp = process fluid temperature setpoint at the heat exchanger outlet
•T1IN = process fluid inlet temperature measured disturbance
•Cp = process fluid specific heat (known)
•ΔH = latent heat of vaporization for steam (known).
Applying this equation to calculate the required steam flow rate is sufficient
to cancel the effects of changes of the process fluid flow rate and temperature
. A disadvantage is that it mandates a high initial capital cost because every disturbance
must be measured, increasing the number of instruments and the associated engineering costs. In addition,
this approach requires deeper knowledge of the process. It’s not always realistic to depend on feedforward control