DR. BRUCE POSTLETHWAITE

ESSENTIAL PROCESS
CONTROL FOR
CHEMICAL ENGINEERS

2
Essential Process Control for Chemical Engineers
1st edition
© 2017 Dr. Bruce Postlethwaite & bookboon.com
ISBN 978-87-403-1655-1
Peer reviewed by Dr. Iain Burns, Senior Lecturer, Director of Teaching, University of
Strathclyde

3
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Contents

CONTENTS
Foreword 8

1 Introduction 9
Main Learning points 9
1.1 Why do we need control? 9

2 Instrumentation 12
Main learning points 12
2.1 What is an instrument? 12
2.2 Factors to be considered in selecting an instrument 13
2.3 Instruments for temperature measurement 17
2.4 Pressure measurement 20
2.5 Flow measurement 23
2.6 Level measurement 27
2.7 Chemical composition 30

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4
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Contents

3 Communication signals 32
Main learning points 32
3.1 Types of communication signal 32

4 Final control elements 39

Main Learning points 39
4.1 Control valves 39
4.2 Control valve sizing 41

5 Diagrams for process control systems 48

Main learning points 48
5.1 Process flow diagrams (PFDs) 48
5.2 Piping and instrumentation diagrams (P&IDs) 49

6 Inputs and outputs in control systems 55

Main learning points 55
6.1 Process inputs 55
6.2 Process outputs 56
6.3 Processes in control engineering 57
6.4 An example of variables and processes 58

7 Introduction to feedback control 59

Main learning points 59
7.1 Feedback control and block diagrams 59
7.2 Positive and negative feedback 61
7.3 Control loop problems 61
7.4 Direction of control action 64
7.5 Controller hardware 66

8 Introduction to steady-state and dynamic response 70

Main learning points 70
8.1 Steady-state gain 70
8.2 Dynamic response 73

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ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Contents

9 Dynamic modelling 87
Main learning points 87
9.1 Laplace transforms 88
9.2 Derivation of basic transforms 88
9.3 Solution of differential equations using Laplace transforms 91
9.4 Transfer functions 93
9.5 Block Diagrams 94
9.6 Block diagram algebra 95
9.7 Solutions of responses for high-order systems 95
9.8 Forming dynamic models 100

10 Analytical solution of real world models 106

Main learning points 106
10.1 Types of non-linearity 106
10.2 Linearisation of non-linear equations 107
10.3 Simplifying expressions through deviation variables 110
10.4 Procedure for simplifying and solving a non-linear model 112
10.5 Putting it all together – a reactant balance for a CSTR 112

11 PID Controller algorithm 117

Main learning points 117
11.1 Really simple feedback controller – on-off 118
11.2 Proportional-integral-derivative (PID) control 119
11.3 Proportional only control 121
11.4 Integral only control 126
11.5 Derivative action 127
11.6 Proportional-Intergral (PI) control 130
11.7 PID control response 131
11.8 Other forms of PID algorithm 133

12 Control system analysis 137

Main learning points 137
12.1 Analysis of a typical feedback control system 137
12.2 The PID algorithm as a transfer function 139
12.3 Analysis of proportional control of a first-order process 140
12.4 Example of a first order process under proportional control 142
12.5 Example of a second-order process under proportional control 145
12.6 Analysis of integral control of a first-order process 148

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ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Contents

13 Controller tuning 149

Main learning points 149
13.1 What needs to be done to tune a PID Controller? 149
13.2 How do you decide what is a good controller performance? 150
13.3 Some methods of controller tuning 154
13.4 Control loop health monitoring 161
13.5 Control loop diagnostics 162

14 More advanced single-loop control arrangements 163

Main learning points 163
14.1 Cascade control 163
14.2 Selective or autioneering control 167
14.3 Override control 169
14.4 Ratio control 172
14.5 Feedforward control 173

15 Design of control systems 181

Main learning points 181
15.1 Control envelope 181
15.2 Multivariable processes 184
15.3 How to determine the number of controlled variables 185
15.4 Plantwide mass balance control 191

16 Control system architecture 194

Main learning points 194
16.1 The effect of technology on process plant control rooms 194
16.2 Human factors in control room displays 197
16.3 Distributed control systems 200
16.4 Safety Instrumented Systems 201

17 Bibliography 202

Acknowledgements 203

Appendix 204
The use of software for teaching process control at
Strathclyde University 204

7
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Foreword

FOREWORD
This book is based on the course notes from the introductory process control class at
Strathclyde University in Glasgow, Scotland. This course is itself based on the IChemE
model-curriculum for chemical engineers and covers the material that ALL chemical engineers
are supposed know. The IChemE curriculum was drawn up by a team of industrialists and
academics, led by Professor Jon Love, in response to a recognised need for chemical engineers
to be taught a more industrially relevant course.

This book isn’t a traditional academic textbook in that there are no references anywhere
in the text. The main reason for this is that the material has been gathered from many
different sources after a working lifetime of teaching in the area and trying to identify an
original source is impossible. I have included a bibliography for readers who wish to look
further into the subject.

I hope students and teachers find this book useful. A major new part of the course at
Strathclyde University (where I teach) has been the introduction of new process control
learning software called PISim, and this is described in the appendix. PISim will be
commercially released in late Autum 2017.

8
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Introduction

1 INTRODUCTION
MAIN LEARNING POINTS
• Why process control is necessary

Process control is concerned with making sure that processes do what they are supposed
to in a safe and economical way. This isn’t an easy task as most processes are subject to
many inputs called disturbances that constantly cause the controlled variables to move
away from their desired values (or setpoints). To prevent this other process inputs called
manipulations have to be moved to restore the process to the desired state.

Process control is concerned with the overall system. A control engineer has to know about the
instruments used to measure process quantities, the valves and other final control elements
that allow control systems to adjust the process, communications to transmit information
around, the control algorithms that decide how to respond to the information coming
from the process, and finally the control engineer needs to understand how the process
itself behaves: not just its steady-state behaviour but more importantly its dynamic response.

Control engineering is now an area which offers big career opportunities for chemical
engineers. The area used to be dominated by electrical/electronic engineers as the major
challenges were in the hardware. This has changed. Sophisticated modern control systems
allow much more complicated, process related, control schemes and now a major
requirement for a control engineer is that they have a good understanding of the process.

1.1 WHY DO WE NEED CONTROL?

Figure 1 – a pressure trace from a SCADA system

9
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Introduction

• In real chemical plants, steady-state doesn’t exist. Things are always changing.
Temperatures move up and down, levels get lower and higher, etc (see figure 1).
• All processes are subject to disturbances. These are inputs to the process that change
in a way that is beyond the reach of the local control system. A rainstorm on the
outside of a distillation column will cool the column and require action to be
taken to increase the heat input. Raw material variations are another common
disturbance. Actions of other control systems can also cause disturbances to the
process of interest – if a control system upstream or downstream of a process reduces
a flowrate its effects will cascade throughout the rest of the process.
• The control system needs to actively regulate against the effects of these disturbances.
It does this by either measuring the disturbances directly (where this is possible and
economic) or by measuring their effects on the controlled variables of the process. It
then makes adjustments to other inputs to the process called manipulated variables
to try to reduce or eliminate the effects of the disturbances. When controllers are
holding controlled variables at fixed setpoints they are said to be in regulator or
disturbance rejection mode.
• Process don’t suddenly start at their flowsheet conditions, they don’t shut down
on their own and don’t change production rate, etc without active intervention
from control systems. When these major changes are being made to a process, the
controllers will be acting in a setpoint tracking or servo mode. In servo mode, a
controller will be trying to make the controlled variable track a moving setpoint.
• Control systems also have a major part to play in process safety. The basic control
system will usually ensure that the process stays within acceptable limits and will
be equipped with alarms to warn operators of any problems. Interlocks may also
be present in the basic system. These are used to lock particular inputs when other
conditions are in existence. For example, the access doors to a kiln may be locked
by a control system if the internal temperature is dangerously high. In extreme
circumstances, special control systems (called safety instrumented systems or SIS ) that
are separate from the normal process control system may come into play. These
may be local to a particular piece of equipment, for example a high-temperature
trip on a pump motor; or may have a process or plant-wide focus, for example an
emergency shutdown system.

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ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Introduction

• Finally, good control saves money. Plants are normally operated close to constraints
(e.g. the acceptable product quality). Poor control means more variability and
this means that the mean value of a controlled variable needs to be held further
from the constraint than is necessary with good control. Figure 2 shows a simple
example – the tops quality from a distillation column. This may have a limit on
the lowest acceptable composition and it’s the responsibility of the control system
to hold the composition about this limit. If the control is poor and there’s lots of
variability, then it will be necessary to set an average value of composition much
higher than if good control is used. This higher average composition will lead to
increased reflux going down the column and hence more vapour having to be
generated by the reboiler, which increases steam costs.

Figure 2 – The advantage of good control

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ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Instrumentation

2 INSTRUMENTATION
MAIN LEARNING POINTS
• Factors involved in selecting instrumentation
• Techniques for temperature, pressure, flow and level measurements

The instruments on a chemical plant are the devices used to monitor the important variables
that allow the condition of the process to be determined.

2.1 WHAT IS AN INSTRUMENT?

Transducers or sensors are the primary sensing elements. They are devices that convert some
physical quantity that we want to measure (e.g. temperature, pressure, etc). into some sort
of signal that can be processed further. For example, a thermocouple converts a temperature
difference into a voltage; a piezo resistive pressure sensor converts a pressure into a change
in electrical resistance.

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ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Instrumentation

Signal conditioning is the signal processing that is applied to the output of the transducer.
Sometimes this could simply be amplification, but often more complicated things like
linearisation are required (ideally, the output of a device should change linearly with changes
in the quantity being measured). Modern instruments such as Coriolis flowmeters have very
complicated signal processing build into them to detect the phase shifts in the motion of
the sensing elements.

A transmitter is a device that converts the output from signal conditioning into a signal
that is compatible with the communication system being used in the plant. There are many
different standards in use ranging from 4-20mA analogue signals up to digital Fieldbus
systems – these will be discussed later.

An instrument is a device that contains at least one but usually more, and often all of
the above (transducer, signal conditioning and transmitter). An instrument is a complete
measurement package that senses the quantity to be measured and presents that measurement
in a form suitable for use (e.g. a simple instrument might be a Bourdon gauge for pressure
measurement – the transducer, a helical metal tube, distorts with pressure and drives the
gauge needle directly; a more typical instrument for modern chemical plants might be a
packaged RTD (resistance temperature device) – it will include the RTD, signal conditioning,
and a transmitter).

2.2 FACTORS TO BE CONSIDERED IN SELECTING AN INSTRUMENT

2.2.1 RANGE

The range of an instrument is range of the measured quantity over which the instrument
will give a reliable output. The range is always the same or bigger than the span of an
instrument. While an instrument with a large range might seem to be always desirable this
isn’t usually the case in practice. The sensitivity (change in output vs change in measurement)
of transducers drops significantly in large range devices leading to reduced accuracy.

2.2.2 SPAN

The span of an instrument is an adjustable parameter (there will be a button, screw or

software link on the instrument that will allow the adjustment). The span is the distance
the measured quantity has to move to drive the instrument output from its minimum value
to its maximum (remember that instrument outputs match communication standards which
have fixed maximum and minimum values). By adjusting the span, the instrument’s sensitivity
(output change vs. input change) can be altered – large spans will lead to lower sensitivities.

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ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Instrumentation

2.2.3 ACCURACY AND PRECISION

All measurement instruments are subject to random error – if you take repeated measurements
of a fixed quantity you will always get a scatter of values about a mean. An accurate
instrument is one where the mean is centred close to the actual value of the quantity being
measured. An instrument can be accurate, but still have a significant amount of error on an
individual measurement – the accurate mean can only be obtained by taking many repeat
measurements. A precise instrument is one which, when measuring a constant quantity,
returns output values which are very close to one another – the scatter between readings
is small. It is possible for an instrument to be precise (high repeatability in measurement)
but not accurate (with the mean some distance away from the true value of the quantity
being measured). An ideal instrument is one which is both precise and accurate.

Figure 3 – accuracy and precision

2.2.4 REPEATABILITY AND DRIFT

In most instruments repeatability and precision mean the same thing. However, some sensors
suffer from hysteresis. In these sensors the measurement is affected by what the variable being
measured was doing prior to the measurement. It is most prevalent in systems which involve
some sort of mechanical element in their sensing. For example, bourdon pressure sensors
usually exhibit hysteresis – the measurement they produce will be different if the pressure
was rising or falling immediately prior to the measurement.

Drift is a medium to long term effect that causes some instruments to lose mainly accuracy, but
also possibly precision. For example, corrosion of a thermocouple will alter its thermoelectric
properties and hence the voltage produced at a particular temperature.

14
 ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
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2.2.5 DELAY

Some instruments can take time to develop a measurement after the process is ‘sampled’. An
example of these are chemical analysers – some of these are, in effect, automated analytical
laboratories that can take several minutes to develop an output. Any delay in measurements
for control can cause problems to a control system – the controller is looking at the process
as it was some time in the past rather than where it is at present.

In addition to delay, the instrument’s speed of response needs to be taken into account.
A large resistance thermometer sensor will take much longer to respond to temperature
changes than a tiny thermistor (this is simply because of the relative thermal capacities).

2.2.6 LINEARITY

Almost all commercial control systems are based around linear control algorithms and work

360°
best when controlling linear or nearly linear systems (a linear system is one where doubling

.
a change in the input will produce double the effect on the output). Some transducers (e.g.
orifice plates (see figure 4) and thermistors) produce outputs that are not linearly related to

thinking
the quantity being measured. In modern instruments these signals will be linearised internally
in the instrument, but high transducer non-linearity will reduce sensitivity in some areas.

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ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Instrumentation

Figure 4 – pressure drop/flowrate relationship for an orifice plate

2.2.7 CALIBRATION

Calibration involves matching the instrument’s span and zero to the quantity being measured.
This will involve two or more standard measurements being made (for example, a pH meter
would be calibrated using several standard buffer solutions) and the instrument adjusted.
Calibration is a time consuming and sometimes difficult process.

Many packaged instruments, such as RTDs and pressure instruments, are factory calibrated
and can be installed directly into the process. Others, like orifice plates, need to be calibrated
in the field after installation. Some instruments, like pH meters, suffer from regular drift
and need to be recalibrated on a routine basis.

2.2.8 NOISE

Noise is a random variation in the measurement signal. Noise can be generated by the
process itself (e.g. by bubbles in the flow being measured by an orifice plate) or it can be
generated in the measuring instrument or communication lines. If instrument generated
noise is significant, then it’s better to pick the instrument that generates the least (see
accuracy and precision above).

2.2.9 RELIABILITY

Instrumentation in a chemical plant needs to be highly reliable. The measurements are

used for control and ensure the safe operation of the process. Reliability specifications are
usually provided on instrument data sheets and are often quoted as the mean time between
failures (MTBF). This data can be incorporated into a hazard analysis to decide whether
instrument redundancy is required.

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ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Instrumentation

2.2.10 SUITABILITY FOR PLANT

The instrument must be capable of tolerating the physical conditions (e.g. temperature,
pressure, vibration, etc.) that it will be exposed to and also be resistant to any chemical
it is likely to come into contact with. The instrument should also be compatible in an
engineering sense with the rest of the plant – it should use similar thread sizes, flanges,
etc, to other plant fittings and also have similar service (e.g. power supplies or instrument
air) requirements to other plant devices. Finally, many companies tend to limit the number
of suppliers they purchase from. This allows them to negotiate better deals and also allows
more extensive stocks of spare parts to be kept.

2.2.11 COST

A cheap purchase price is not usually the best indicator of a good instrument choice. The
overall lifetime cost needs to be considered – more expensive instruments might last longer
and require less frequent calibration.

2.2.12 BELLS AND WHISTLES

Since cheap microprocessors have come on the scene many instruments have a host of
added features, such as averaging and storage of previous values. These are only useful if you
actually plan to use them, but otherwise should be ignored when selecting an instrument.

2.3 INSTRUMENTS FOR TEMPERATURE MEASUREMENT

Temperature measurement is one of the four most common measurements in a chemical
plant (the others are pressure, flow, and level).

2.3.1 THERMOCOUPLES

A thermocouple is a sensor made from two wires with dissimilar thermo-electric properties
(i.e. heat liberates electrons to different extents). The wires are joined at each end and a
small voltage is generated (by the Seebeck Effect) which is proportional to the difference
between the temperature at the two ends of the device

Figure 5 – A thermocouple

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ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Instrumentation

Originally, the cold end of a thermocouple was kept at a constant temperature by sticking
it in an ice and water bath. Nowadays, the cold junction is simulated by an electronic chip
containing a thermistor and some fancy electronics. The electronics also amplify the mV
output of the thermocouple to something which is more usable in the rest of the instrument.

It’s still possible to buy thermocouple wire (with two strands of dissimilar metals) for special
applications, but the majority of industrial thermocouples are sold as packaged units with
a transmitter attached (for example see figure 6).

Different types of thermocouple are available that cover different ranges and have different
applications – see table 1.

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ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Instrumentation

Thermocouple Type Materials Range Comments

Type K Chromel/Alumel 0OC to 1100OC Very commonly used

Suitable for cryogenic

Type T Copper/Constantan -185OC to 300OC
applications

Higher sensitivity than

Type J Iron/Constantan 0OC to 750OC
type K

Very stable but

Platinum alloy/
Types B, R and S 0 C to ~1600 C
O O
expensive – used only
Platinum
for high temperatures

Table 1

Thermocouples used to be the most common temperature measurement device in chemical

plant, but are now being overtaken by RTDs.

Figure 6 – a temperature probe assembly

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ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Instrumentation

2.3.2 RESISTANCE TEMPERATURE DETECTORS (RTDS)

An RTD, or resistance thermometer, is a device that uses a sensor whose resistance changes
with temperature. The most common type of process measurement RTD is a device with a
Platinum or Platinum alloy sensor (for stability) whose resistance increases with temperature
(as it is a conductor). Thermistors are semi-conductor based temperature sensors whose
resistance decreases as the temperature increases. The change is much less linear than that
achieved by the Plantinum RTDs and the overall accuracy of temperature measurement is
also much less. However, thermistors can be made to be very small, and hence very fast,
and are often used in applications where very fast temperature measurement is required
(e.g. they are used to detect vortices in some vortex shedding flowmeters).

The sensor elements in Platinum RTDs only generate a change in electrical resistance, and
this needs to be measured by a bridge circuit. It’s very difficult to buy a platinum sensor
on its own – most RTDs are complete packages consisting of sensor, signal conditioning
and transmitter (figure 6). The sensing element in an Pt RTD is bigger than that in a
thermocouple, and so RTDs are a bit slower. They are also more expensive. However, Pt
RTDs are more accurate and considerably more stable than thermocouples and are now the
usual choice for temperature measurement between -200oC and 500oC.

2.4 PRESSURE MEASUREMENT

Pressure measurement is very important in chemical plant both as a fundamental measurement,
and also as an implied measurement of flowrate and level. Pressure measurement can be
classed into four main categories:

1. Gauge pressure. The pressure above the local atmospheric pressure (which changes
according to altitude and weather conditions). If the instrument isn’t connected to
a pressure source, it will read zero. Pressures below the local atmospheric may be
registered as negative pressures, if the instrument is configured to do this.
2. Absolute pressure. The instrument measures the absolute pressure – it will always
generate some reading (except in a complete vacuum). Pressures below atmospheric
will be registered as positive absolute pressures.
3. Vacuum. Sometimes used in vacuum systems. The pressure below local atmospheric
pressure is measured. (e.g. if local atmospheric pressure is 14.7 psia, an absolute
pressure of 10.7psia will be measured as -4 psig on a gauge pressure device, and
4psi vacuum on a vacuum measuring device.
4. Differential pressure. The pressure instrument has two measurement ports and
measure the pressure difference between them. DP devices can be used as a part
of flow and level measurement systems.

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ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Instrumentation

2.4.1 BOURDON TUBES

These were the basis of the pressure gauges we’re used to seeing on old movies with steam
engines, etc, and used to be common on chemical plant. The sensing element is simply a
coiled metal tube – pressure increases inside the tube cause an ‘unrolling’ force and this is
used to drive the pointer on the gauge. Although cheap and still used on portable devices
(e.g. car tire inflators), they are not popular in chemical plant applications as it’s awkward
to get a signal suitable for transmission to a remote location (the control room).

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21
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Instrumentation

Figure 7 – a locomotive pressure gauge based on a bourdon tube

2.4.2 MODERN PRESSURE SENSORS

Figure 8 – Pressure transmitters

Nowadays pressure sensors are normally bought ‘packaged’ in a small instrument that includes
the sensor, signal conditioning and a transmitter (e.g. 4-20mA). Several different types of
sensor are available, the two most common are:

• Piezoresistive. The sensing element is a ‘diaphragm’ of semi-conductor material. When

the element is subjected to pressure, the diaphragm deforms and the movement is
detected as a resistance change in the material.

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ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Instrumentation

• Capacitance. In these instruments, one side of an electrical capacitor is formed

by a diaphragm that is exposed to the pressure to be measured. As the diaphragm
deforms, the pressure is measured by the change in capacitance

Modern sensors are available for all pressure measurement applications. Those used for
differential pressure measurement are usually called DP Cells.

2.5 FLOW MEASUREMENT

Flow measurement is an area where the effect of changes in technology are most noticeable.
Up until a few years ago almost all flow measurement was carried out using differential
pressure devices (mainly orifice plates) but now a much larger ranges of flowmeters are
commonly used.

2.5.1 DIFFERENTIAL PRESSURE DEVICES (ORIFICE PLATES, NOZZLES AND

VENTURI METERS

Figure 9 – Orifice plate (from 1871!)

Orifice plates are essentially a plate with a hole in the centre which is fitted between the
flanges at a pipe junction. The flow through the pipe can be estimated by measuring the
differential pressure over the orifice. There is a considerable subtlety in the design of the
orifice plate itself (e.g. the ratio of the hole to the pipe, the entrance and exit shape of the
hole), the positioning of pressure trappings (particularly the downstream trapping which
should be as near to the vena contracta – the place where the diameter of the streamlines
is least – as possible) and finally the position of the orifice plate itself (it needs to be a
reasonable distance from things that cause significant disruption to flow patterns – bends,
pumps, valves, etc.). There is a British Standard (BS EN ISO 5167) for the design of orifice
plate (and nozzle and venturi meters) installations.

23
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Instrumentation

Orifice plates used to be the standard method of measuring flowrates (both gases and liquids)
in process plants and probably still represent the biggest number of installed flowmeters.
However, they are no longer the first choice for new installations as alternatives which avoid
the problems with orifice plates are now available at reasonable cost. The main problems
with orifice plates are:

• The orifice plate needs to be sited carefully – flow disturbances need to be avoided.
• Measurements are subject to significant noise when the process stream contains
bubbles or solid particles.
• The orifice will be eroded causing measurement drift over time, particularly if the
stream contains abrasive particles.
• The orifice can become clogged, seriously affecting the measurement.
• The orifice plate causes a significant, unrecoverable, pressure drop – wasted energy.
• Each orifice plate needs to be carefully calibrated in situ for accurate measurement
(although often correlations are used in place of calibration, but this produces only
approximate measurements of flow).
• The turndown ratio (the maximum reliable flow measurement divided by the
minimum), or rangeability, is poor compared to more modern types of flowmeter.

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ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Instrumentation

Nozzle and venturi meters are Differential Pressure (DP) meters like the orifice plate,
although they have lower unrecoverable pressure drops. They are however, very rarely used
in chemical plant applications.

2.5.2 VORTEX METERS

Figure 10 – vortex meter

Vortex meters work by inserting a shaped body into the flowpath of the fluid. When this
is done alternating, swirling, vortices are shed from the back of the body. The frequency
at which these vortices are shed is directly related to the fluid velocity. In the vortex meter
the vortices are detected by temperature or pressure sensors built into the device.

Vortex meters have a good turndown ratio (typically 20:1), low pressure drop and high
reliability. They also have a stable long term accuracy and repeatability.

Disadvantages are that they are not suitable for low flow velocities and care needs to be
taken in their placement to avoid flow stream disturbances (just like orifice plates).

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ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
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2.5.3 CORIOLIS METERS

The Coriolis effect was first discovered by the 19th century mathematician Gustav-Gaspard
Coriolis. He was concerned with the forces on a body moving from the equator towards
the poles of the Earth. At the equator, the rotational speed of the Earth is just over 1,000
miles per hour in a West to East direction and everything at the equator that is ‘stationary’
with respect to the surface has this rotational speed too. At the poles the rotational speed
drops to zero. This means that bodies moving North from the equator will tend to deflect
to the East and those moving South to the West.

To hold the body on a directly Northward (or Southward) path, a force (the Coriolis force)
is required to decelerate the body to the local rotational speed. The Coriolis Effect plays
an important part in weather systems and is popularly claimed (wrongly) to determine the
direction water goes down a plughole in the Northern and Southern hemispheres!

Figure 11 – operation of a coriolis meter

In a Coriolis flowmeter the effect is used by passing the fluid whose flow is to be measured
through a tube that is oscillated in a limited rotary axis. As the fluid moves through the
tube it goes from zero to maximum rotational velocity in one half of the tube and then
from maximum to zero rotational velocity in the other half. This produces two Coriolis
forces which produce a twisting force on the tube. This twisting gives a measure of the
mass flowrate of the liquid in the tube.

Coriolis flowmeters measure mass flowrate rather than velocity or volumetric flowrate. However,
they can also be made to measure fluid density (by finding the resonant frequency of the
tube), allowing volumetric flowrate to be estimated too. They have a very high turndown
ratio (typically 100:1) and have high accuracy and repeatability. Although they normally
have a low pressure drop, they can have problems with very viscous fluids. They also rely on
moving parts (the tube) and electromagnets to drive the motion, so there may be questions
about reliability (although there seems to be no data on this at present).

26
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Instrumentation

2.5.4 OTHER FLOWMETERS

There are many other types of flowmeter in use including: Doppler; transit time (ultrasonic);
and magnetic.

2.6 LEVEL MEASUREMENT

The measurement and control of liquid levels within a chemical plant is one of the most
important functions of the instrumentation. Liquid level controllers maintain the overall process
mass balance and also maintain liquid seals (to prevent vapour going where it shouldn’t).

27
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Instrumentation

2.6.1 DIFFERENTIAL PRESSURE MEASUREMENT

Figure 12 – DP cell for level measurement

A very common way of measuring liquid levels is to use a differential pressure instrument.
One end (the ‘high’ pressure connection) is connected to a tapping near the bottom of the
vessel, and the other to a tapping near the top. It’s important that the top tapping is in the
vapour space above the liquid. The differential pressure is a measure of the hydrostatic head
in the vessel. If the density of the liquid is known, then the level can be easily obtained.

One problem with this setup, if the fluid contains solids or is likely to form solids, is that the
pressure tapping can become clogged with solid material. If the clog is partial the instrument
response will become slower and slower, and if it clogs completely no measurement will
be possible.

2.6.2 CAPACITANCE MEASUREMENT

This type of level measurement uses a long probe which is inserted into the tank as one
side of an electrical capacitor, and another conductor (usually the metal wall of the vessel)
as the other. As the liquid level in the vessel rises, the measured capacitance will change
and this can be calibrated to provide a measurement of the liquid level.

28
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Instrumentation

Instrument

Figure 13 – capacitance level meter

Capacitance measurement is very subject to errors caused by changes in the electrical

properties of the liquid or coating of the vessel or probe. It is no longer very popular in
the process industries. Another new, but similar, technique called Radio-Frequency (RF)
admittance is however growing in popularity.

2.6.3 ULTRASONIC AND RADAR MEASUREMENT

Figure 14 – ultrasonic/radar level measurement

Ultrasonic and microwave measurement devices use a transmitter element which sends
either an ultrasound or radar signal into the vessel from its top. The signal bounces off the
liquid surface and is detected by a receiver. The distance between the unit and the liquid
surface is obtained from the time lag between transmission and receipt of the return signal.

Both types of device are independent of liquid density. Ultrasonic devices can be fooled by
dense foam layers that deaden the sound signal. Both types of device are expensive compared
to other level measurement methods, but radar devices are more expensive than ultrasound.

29
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
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2.7 CHEMICAL COMPOSITION

The measurement of composition is one of the most desired, but also most difficult and
expensive, measurements that have to be made in chemical and process plants. Composition
is not just important in reactors, but also in separations like distillation columns, flash
chambers, membrane units, etc.

2.7.1 PH METERS

The pH of a solution is the negative logarithm to the base ten of the Hydronium ion
concentration:

[
pH = − log10 H 3O + ]
The most common use of pH measurement is probably in waste treatment where it is
important to ensure that waste water is close to neutral (pH 7) prior to discharge. pH is
also important inside many process units to encourage particular reactions or to prevent
(or encourage) precipitation of particular materials.

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30
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Instrumentation

The standard method of measuring pH is using a pH electrode. Those used in industry have
to be much more rugged than those used in standard laboratory applications and often the
electrode will have to be chosen to suit the particular process conditions. Generally, you’d
buy the pH device as a self-contained transmitter – the signal from the device would match
your instrumentation system (e.g. 4-20mA, digital, etc).

2.7.2 CHEMICAL ANALYSERS

Although science fiction TV shows have devices like ‘Tricorders’ that produce complete
chemical analyses at the touch of a button, real analysers aren’t quite there yet.

The first difference is that most analysers need to sample the material to be analysed. This
involves piping, valves, pumps and control gear that carry out the sampling process. Sampling
also introduces dead-time (time delay) into any measurement, and significant dead-time
causes all sorts of problems for feedback controllers.

Once the sample has been taken there are a variety of approaches to obtaining an analysis.
However, the analyser is always designed to analyse for particular materials – they aren’t
general purpose. This means that an analyser has to be designed and calibrated for a particular
application which pushes the price up substantially. Some of the techniques used include
‘wet’ analysis (where the analyser is a little automated lab); chromatography; and modern
methods like: NIR, MIR, UV-visible, Raman scattering, Fluorescence, NMR, Microwave,
Acoustic, and Mass spectrometry techniques.

2.7.3 LABORATORY ANALYSIS AND INFERENTIAL CONTROL

Due to the cost and other problems with on-line chemical analysers, they are not very
commonly used. This is beginning to change as new analyser technology is developed, but
for now the most common way of dealing with control of compositions is to use periodic
laboratory analysis coupled with inferential control. The idea of inferential control is that
we can use other measurements from a process to infer the compositions. The simplest
systems use just a single measurement (e.g. using a measurement of a tray temperature
near the top of a distillation column to infer the tops composition), but others use several
measurements combined using some sort of process model (e.g. using a tray temperature,
a pressure measurement, and a knowledge of the equilibrium data to infer the tops
composition). All inferential systems make assumptions about the process (e.g. about the
ratios of the different components) and need to be corrected using periodic (once or twice
a shift) laboratory analysis.

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ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
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3 COMMUNICATION SIGNALS
MAIN LEARNING POINTS
• Analogue communications
• Digital communications
• How to convert between signals and engineering units

Process control systems are information processing systems. They gather information about the
process state from the instruments, then use this to decide what to do to move the process
to a desired state, and then send information to the various final control elements (usually
control valves) to produce the desired changes in the process. To handle this information
there needs to be a means for moving it from the instruments to the controllers and then
onto the final control elements. This is where process communications come in.

3.1 TYPES OF COMMUNICATION SIGNAL

There are a number of different sorts of signal that can exist in a process control communications
system. Some plants may have just one type, but most have a mixture of different sorts of
signal moving around the system.

3.1.1 ANALOGUE SIGNALS

Analogue signals are continuous and capable of taking any value at all within the range
between their maximum and minimum values. They are called analogue signals because the
level of the communication signal is directly analogous to the value that is being transmitted.

3.1.1.1  Pneumatic signals

Pneumatics are the oldest form of communication signal used for remote monitoring and
automatic control in chemical plant. A pneumatic communication signal is an air pressure
between 3 and 15 psig (the 3 psi offset zero allows tube breaks or malfunctioning instruments
to be detected). The signal is carried in small diameter (about 10mm) metal tubes. As the
tube length increases, a significant dynamic lag develops as it takes time for the signal
generator (instrument or controller) to add enough air to increase the tube pressure to the
desired value. This limits the practical length of communication tube runs, and means that
plants using this form of communication have to have a number of local control rooms
near to the site of the instruments.

Pneumatic communications are now obsolete, but may still be present in some very old
processing plants.

32
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Communication signals

3.1.1.2  Current loops

The most common type of analogue signal used in chemical plant is the 4-20mA current
loop. The instruments/controllers using this communication system send an electrical current
around a loop between the transmitter and receiver. This is a better communication signal
than a voltage as it is independent of the length of the communication line. If a voltage
signal was to be used there would be some voltage loss in the communication wire, and
this would increase with line length. With a current loop, the transmitter simply increases
the transmission voltage until the current around the loop matches the desired signal. In
theory, 4-20mA signals can be carried on two wires (or even one if a common earth is
used), but communication cables often include additional wires for power supplies and so
three and four wire cable is common. The signal wires will be electrically shielded (with
the shielding earthed) or twisted into a twisted pair to reduce the effects of electrical noise.

33
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Communication signals

3.1.1.3  Example calculation for analogue signals

A temperature instrument is adjusted to give a span of 20–120oC. It can be connected to
either a pneumatic, or to a current loop transmitter and the conversion is linear. What will
be the output of each transmitter type when the measured temperature is 85oC?

 —
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E<:@4> š – ™  — 
š 
BE<:

— 

¡
— ¢
GDD8@F
E<:@4> š  – ™  — 
š ?

— 

3.1.2 DISCRETE SIGNALS

Chemical plants are full of devices that can only exist in only one of a limited number
(often just two) of states (e.g. OFF or ON). Examples are switches for motors, pumps,
agitators, etc, and also ‘instrument’ switches like level and temperature trips.

There is no universal standard for discrete signals, but 0 and 24V are often used to indicate
two states.

3.1.3 DIGITAL SIGNALS

Digital communications convert the value to be transmitted into a number and then send
this number down the communication line. Since only one number can be transmitted
at a time, digital communications are not continuous, but are sampled. The information
from a digital communications line is like a series of snapshots of the state of the quantity
being measured.

Digital signals are transmitted as binary numbers with voltages representing the two binary
values (0 and 1). The most common voltages used are 0V for 0 and 5V for 1, but other
voltages are used for the ‘1’ digit. The number of digits in the binary number that is
transmitted depends on the electronics that have been selected, and affects the resolution
of the value. Older systems used 8-bit analogue to digital convertors and so produced 8-bit
numbers, which limited the resolution of the signal to one part in 256 (28). Modern systems
use 12 or 16-bit convertors, giving resolutions of 1:4096 and 1:65,536 respectively.

34
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Communication signals

3.1.4 EXAMPLE – RESOLUTION OF DIGITAL SIGNALS

The output of a pressure instrument with a span of 0.5 to 5 bar is to be converted to a

digital signal. There are two options for this conversion – and 8 bit convertor or a 12-bit
convertor. What is the resolution available from both devices?

 —

54D

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54D
^
 —

54D

5<F
D8EA>GF<A@ š š


54D
Z[

What would the output (as a decimal) of the two devices be when the measured pressure
was 3 bar?

 —


5<F
AGFBGF š <@F
– —
 š 
 —


141 = 8-bit binary 10001101


 —


5<F
AGFBGF š <@F
– —
 š 
 —


2275 = 12-bit binary 100011100011

If the output from the 8-bit convertor was decimal 100, what is the pressure being measured?

 —

+D8EEGD8 š
 – 

—
š 
54D
 —

3.1.5 PARALLEL AND SERIES TRANSMISSION

There are two ways of transmitting a digital signal: in parallel or in series. Parallel
communications have a signal line for each bit of the binary signal plus a number of extra
lines for communication control purposes (so a 16 bit parallel communications line will
have more than 16 wires). Serial digital communications transmits the binary digits (bits)
in series, one after the other. There are always additional control bits before and after the
digits of the number being transmitted, but all the digits are transmitted serially. This means
that serial communications can be carried out with as little a two wires (or even one, if a
common earth is used). Parallel communications are much faster, but the number of wires
required economically limit the length of cables to very sort runs. Although slower, the
speed of serial communications has increased dramatically in the last decade and is it is
now the default type of digital communications for most applications.

35
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
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Although digital signals have to be sampled and don’t give a continuous picture of what’s
going on, this isn’t a particular problem in chemical plants since the sample intervals are
normally many times less than the speeds of response involved in chemical plant operations.
Digital communications also have considerable advantages over analogue communications.
For analogue communications, there needs to be an individual cable connecting a particular
transmitter to its receiver. If a plant has 100 instruments, then there needs to be 100 cables
run back from the plant to the control room. With digital communications, this doesn’t
have to be the case. The digital communication can also be made to include an address
of the instrument to be communicated with. This allows a single cable to be used to link
multiple transmitters with multiple receivers. Digital communications also allow richer
communication to take place between devices. As well as transmitting the value of the
quantity being measured an instrument can send other information, such as the last time
it was calibrated, or the rate of change of the measurement, etc. The line can also be used
to communicate in the other direction, for example the controller can use the comms line
to tell the instrument to run self-diagnostics.

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36
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Communication signals

3.1.6 PROCESS PLANT DIGITAL COMMUNICATIONS STANDARDS

There are a number of different digital communications standards in use in the chemical
industries at the moment. Unfortunately, many of these standards are not interchangeable,
and this means that it is often necessary to stick to a single supplier if digital communications
are used.

3.1.6.1  HART communications

HART (Highway Addressable Remote Transducer) http://www.hartcomm.org/index.html is
a half-way house between analogue communications and full digital comms. HART can be
retrofitted to existing 4-20mA lines, and superimposes a digital signal on top of the analogue
communications (just like home broadband rides on top of an analogue telephone signal –
using the phone doesn’t stop the broadband working). The digital signal can be used to
provide two way communications between an instrument and central controller. This can be
used for a number of purposes, e.g. device configuration; diagnostics and troubleshooting;
accessing other measurement information. HART can also be used to convert a 4-20mA
line into a multidrop line. In this configuration multiple 4-20mA devices can communicate
over the same cable – they share time on the cable and this sharing is controlled by the
HART protocol.

3.1.6.2 Fieldbus
Fieldbus is the generic name given to a number of standards that have developed since the
1990s. The latest iteration of the standards is Foundation Fieldbus http://www.fieldbus.org/
which now has the largest installed base of all the standards. Fieldbus is a standard for fully
digital plant communications. Fieldbus makes use of serial digital lines(called buses) that
are linked to multiple devices. Each device attached to a bus has an address, and can be
talked to by prefacing any instructions with the device address. When a controller wants a
measurement from an instrument on a fieldbus, the following sequence occurs

1. The controller sends a message to the instrument (prefaced with the instrument’s
bus address) with the instruction to send a measurement.
2. The instrument takes the measurement and then sends a message to the controller
(prefaced with the controller’s address) which contains the measurement that was
asked for.

Devices continuously monitor the bus, but only respond to messages with their address.

37
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
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3.1.6.3 Ethernet
Ethernet is the name given to a family of standards used for office computer networks. Until
relatively recently it hasn’t been considered for process plant control systems, as it was felt
that these required much higher integrity than office based systems. However, the much
larger installed base means that Ethernet technology moves faster than specialised process
systems and is also much cheaper. It is probable that Ethernet based process control systems
will become much more common in the near future.

3.1.6.4  Wireless communications

Wireless communications are starting to be adopted in some process industry applications.
They have the advantage that they do not require wiring between the instrument and
controller, which makes them suitable for distant or exposed locations (e.g. on offshore
installations). They do require to be placed carefully to ensure that there is a good signal, and
can be subject to interference (e.g. someone could park a lorry in front of the transmitter!)

38
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Final control elements

4 FINAL CONTROL ELEMENTS

MAIN LEARNING POINTS
• Air-to-open and Air-to-close valves
• Control valve sizing and valve characteristics

Final control elements are the devices that take the output signal from a controller (which
is a flow of information in some form) and converts it into something that can physically
influence the behaviour of the plant (the manipulation). By far the most common final
control element in the process industries is the control valve, but others such as conveyor
belt speed controllers, or agitator speed controls are sometimes used.

4.1 CONTROL VALVES

The most common type of valve used for control purposes is the globe valve. It’s called a
globe valve because the valve body is usually fairly spherical and looks like a globe. The
valve stem is a metal rod that runs down through the valve, and attached to its end is the
valve plug. The stem is capable of moving up and down and, as it does so, it moves the plug
away and towards the valve seat. The plug and seat of the valve are very carefully machined
components and give the valve its characteristic; the relationship between the stem position
and flow through the valve.

Figure 15 – A globe valve

39
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Final control elements

Most control valves are pneumatically driven. Air is allowed to flow into a chamber with a
diaphragm which is driven against a spring to move the valve stem. When the air pressure
is released, the spring pushes the stem back towards its original position. The pressure of
the air that drives the valve is set remotely (usually by a controller) and the communication
signal is converted to an air pressure by a device near the valve itself.

Figure 16 – air to open/close valves

Control valves can be configured (sometimes by simply flipping over the actuator assembly)
as air-to-open (fail closed ) or air-to-close (fail open). The choice is entirely dependent on
what’s best for process safety. Control valves need a supply of special clean, dry, air called
instrument air. If this fails, then there is a potential for a common mode failure that will
affect multiple control valves. If this happens, then it is important that the valves will fail
in a direction that will put the process into a safe state. For example, if a valve is used to
regulate the cooling water supply for an exothermic reactor, then it makes sense to use an
air-to-close valve (on air failure the valve will go full open). Conversely, a valve manipulating
the steam to a distillation column reboiler will usually be air-to-open, so that the steam is
shut off on an air failure.

40
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
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4.2 CONTROL VALVE SIZING

Sizing a control valve doesn’t just mean choosing couplings that fit with the rest of the
pipework – much more importantly the internals (valve plug and seat) need to be sized
to give a valve that is appropriate to the application. An undersized control valve won’t be
able to pass the correct flowrate. An oversized control valve may not be able to be turned
down sufficiently to give good control of the process. It is important that valves are correctly
sized for their application.

The basic valve sizing equation (for Fisher Valves) for liquids is:

∆P
Q = Cv ( x )
G

where Q = volumetric flowrate through valve (US gallons/minute)

 Cv(x) = valve coefficient (different for different valves and stem positions ‘x’).
Obtained from valve manufacturers tables
ΔP = Pressure drop over valve (psi)
G = Specific gravity of liquid (water at 60oF=1.0)

The equation is based on water and the actual flowrate may be different if the fluid viscosity
is significantly different from water at the test conditions. Valve manufacturers provide
various ways for compensating for this.

Equations for valve sizing are also available for compressible and two phase flow.

4.2.1 VALVE CHARACTERISTICS

Figure 17 – types of valve trim

41
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Final control elements

The characteristic or trim of a valve is a description of how the flowrate through the valve
changes with stem position. There are three common valve characteristics: linear ; quick-
opening; equal percentage. The valve characteristic is altered by choosing different designs of
valve plug and seat from lists in manufacturers catalogues.

The linear trim is the easiest to appreciate. In this characteristic if the pressure drop over
the valve is constant then the flow through the valve increases linearly with the stem
position. The quick opening characteristic is for use in applications where high flow is
required quickly – small initial movements of the stem as the valve opens produce large
increases in the flowrate. The equal percentage is the least obvious of the characteristics –
a percentage change in the stem position will produce an equal percentage change in the
flowrate through the valve.

The reason that equal percentage characteristics are often used is to do with the installed
characteristic of the valve. Valves only represent part of the process piping and hence part
of the pressure drop – to accurately predict how a valve will respond in service we need to
calculate the installed characteristic.

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42
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Final control elements

Let’s assume that we can represent the flow/pressure drop relationship of the pipework with
a similar relationship to the valve, i.e.

∆Pvalve
Qvalve = CVvalve ( x)
G
∆Ppipework
Q pipework = CVpipework
G

Obviously, the valve is connected to the pipework, so the flows are equal:

Qvalve = Q pipework = Q

Also, the total pressure drop over the pipework and valve is fixed so,

∆Pvalve + ∆Ppipework = ∆Ptotal

Now

2
∆Ppipework  Q 
= 
G  CV 
 pipework 
2
∆P ∆P  Q 
∴ valve = total −  
G G  CV 
 pipework 
2
∆Ptotal  Q 

Q = CVvalve ( x) −
G  CV 
 pipework 
2 2
 Q   
  = ∆Ptotal −  Q 
 CV ( x)  G  CV 
 valve   pipework 
 1 1  ∆P
Q2  +  = total
 CV ( x) 2 CV 2
 G
 valve pipework 
−1
 1 1  2
∆Ptotal
Q= + 
 CV ( x) 2 CV 2
 G
 valve pipework 

This expression tells us how the flow will vary with pressure drop and valve stem position
for the whole system (valve and pipework) and will allow us to generate an installed
characteristic for a valve.

43
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
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It’s easy to these equations into a spreadsheet, and that’s how I’ve created this example.
First of all let’s look at a design where most of the pressure drop in the system is over the
control valve. To do this I’ve set the pipework Cv to 5.

Let’s use a linear characteristic:

Stem Posn % 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

CVvalve 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2.0

CVpipe 5

Table 2 – Linear characteristic

Putting the numbers into the spreadsheet produces the following:








 








 




    


 

Figure 18 – Comparison of characteristics for a linear valve with equal Delta P

As you can see, the installed characteristic is slightly different from the valve on its own,
but it still follows a roughly linear relationship. This is desirable as we would usually like
the flowrate to increase approximately linearly with stem position.

Now, let’s look at what happens when the pressure drop over the valve is normally only
a small fraction of the overall pressure drop. To generate the curves, I’ve set the pipework
CV to be equal to 0.5 (roughly a third of that of the control valve at nominal conditions):

44
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Final control elements







  







 




    


 

Figure 19 – comparison with low valve Delta P

You can see that the valve now behaves very differently when it is installed in the pipework.
The installed characteristic is now very far away from linear and looks like a quick-opening
valve. This is a big problem since it’s usually a good idea to minimise the pressure drop over
the valve as far as possible – pressure drop over the valve is wasted energy.

45
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
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Let’s now look at what happens with an equal percentage valve. I’ve generated some equal
percentage CVs in the table below (NB the CV values here have just been generated for
the example – they are not general and you need to check valve tables for real values). I’ve
generated the coefficients so that the valve produces the same flow as the linear valve at
maximum opening.

Stem Posn % 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

CVvalve 0.04 0.059 0.087 0.129 0.191 0.282 0.418 0.618 0.915 1.352 2

CVpipe 0.5

Table 3 – Equal percentage characteristic

Using the spreadsheet calculator, the following graph is produced:

Figure 20 – Installed characteristic for an equal-percentage valve

You can see that, when the pressure drop over the valve is a fraction of the overall pressure
drop, an equal percentage valve produces an installed characteristic that is much closer to
the ideal line.

46
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
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Pressure drop over a control valve is wasted energy and you’d normally want to keep it
as low as practicable. For most installations, therefore, at nominal flows the pressure drop
over the control valve will be only a small part of the overall pressure drop, and an equal
percentage valve will normally be chosen. The exception is where the pipework pressure
drop is unusually small (e.g. in short lengths of pipe): in these cases linear characteristics
will produce the best results. Quick opening characteristics are normally only used in on-
off control systems.

In real situations, where the control valve is placed at the outlet of a centrifugal pump, the
installed characteristic is also affected by the pump curve (the relationship between discharge
pressure and delivered flow). In real life, specifying a control valve isn’t simple!

4.2.2 SIZING CONTROL VALVES (ONE METHOD)

1. Identify what the valve is to do. What’s the fluid, the nominal flowrate, the flowrate
range, the pipe size and the pressure drop available? The pressure drop over the
valve should normally be around 25–40% of the total, but can go down to 15% in
long lines. Care needs to be taken if there is a possibility of flashing or cavitation.
2. Calculate the valve CV required to pass the desired nominal flow.
3. Look through the valve sizing charts and find the size that gives the desired CV
when the valve is about 60–70% open (it’s necessary to allow some movement
either side of the nominal flow for control)
4. Calculate the installed characteristic for the valve. Ideally the maximum flow through
the system should be around 1.4 times the nominal (this is a rule-of-thumb so
treat it with caution!). The minimum flow that is expected operationally should be
achieved when the valve is more that 10% open – flowrates through a valve at low
openings (less than 10%) tend to be quite variable. (Note: control valves are not
designed to shut off flows – there is always leakage. There needs to be an additional
stop valve in the line if it is desired to close the line completely).

47
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Diagrams for process control systems

5 DIAGRAMS FOR PROCESS

CONTROL SYSTEMS
MAIN LEARNING POINTS
• The difference between PFDs and P&IDs
• How to read a basic P&ID

Diagrams are important for all sorts of engineering and control is no exception. The primary
diagram used by process control engineers is the Piping and Instrumentation Diagram (P&ID).

5.1 PROCESS FLOW DIAGRAMS (PFDS)

Process flow diagrams are one step above process block diagrams. They show major pipelines
and the major process units. They are very useful for explaining the overall layout of a
process and are often included alongside process descriptions.

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48
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Diagrams for process control systems

Figure 21 – A PFD

PFDs may include some information on control, but this is there to help in the process
discussion and is not for engineering purposes.

5.2 PIPING AND INSTRUMENTATION DIAGRAMS (P&IDS)

Figure 22 – a partial P&I diagram of the process in figure 21

49
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Diagrams for process control systems

A P&I diagram contains much more detail than a PFD. The P&ID will contain ALL of the
piping in the process, including things like drain lines and vents. The diagram will show
all of the valves (including stop and check valves) and other pipefittings (like strainers). All
of the instruments and control loops will be shown and also details of alarms and other
emergency control system components.

The P&I diagram is a proper engineering tool. It is used for HAZOP studies before the
plant is built and is an important tool during the design and commissioning stages. P&I
diagrams are also available to plant engineers (they are often kept in the control room)
who have to maintain and develop the plant once it is running (although P&I diagrams
on operating plant can quickly get out of date and have to be checked before use).

5.2.1 SHOWING INSTRUMENTATION ON A P&ID

Figure 23 – a P&ID control system device

The standard method of showing instruments on a P&ID is to show the device inside a
device bubble. Inside the bubble is the devices tag name, which consists of two parts: a tag
identifier that gives information about what kind of instrument is being referred to; and
a tag number, which is used to identify the particular instrument. Attached to the outside
of the instrument bubble, and connecting it to the other elements of the P&ID are the
communication lines.

50
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Diagrams for process control systems

5.2.1.1  Device bubble shapes

Not normally
accessible by
Accessible to
the operator; Local panel
the operator; Mounted in
behind the accessible to
main control the field
panel or the operator
panel
password
protected

Distinct
elements

Shared display/
control in a
computer
control system

Computer logic
function

Programmable
logic controller

Table 4 – Instrument bubbles

The picture used (see table 4) for the device bubble identifies the type of device represented
(e.g. a discrete device or an entry on a shared display), where it is located (e.g. in the control
room or out on the plant), and whether it is normally accessible to the operator (e.g. is it
hidden away or locked by a password).

5.2.1.2  Tag identifiers

The tag identifier describes the type of variable being handled and the sort of devices or
functions being used. Different letters and placements are used to achieve this (see table 5).

51
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Diagrams for process control systems

Letter In 1st position Modifier (if used) Following letters

A Analyser Alarm

C Anything Controller

F Flowrate Ratio or fraction

I Current Indicator

L Level Light, or low

P Pressure

R Radiation Recorder, or printer

T Temperature Transmitter

Table 5 – A short list of tag identifier letters

What type of instrument would have a tagname of TIR001? A temperature indicator (a

gauge or display with the instantaneous temperature value displayed) recorder (something
that stores previous values of temperature).

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52
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Diagrams for process control systems

5.2.1.3  Communication lines

Figure 24 – some examples of P&ID connecting lines

The lines that connect the various elements on a P&ID contain useful information too.
The type of line used provides information on the sort of connection that it represents.
Figure 24 shows some examples that are commonly used.

5.2.2 AN EXAMPLE P&I DIAGRAM

Figure 25 – an example of a P&ID

FC001 is a controller that controls the tube side flow, with the flow being monitored by
a flow transducer (FT001). A recording and indicating device(located on a shared display
in a control room) is also connected to the transducer to give an indication of the current
value and to store old values of the flow. There’s also a low flow alarm attached to the inlet
process line – presumably to warn about potential overheating.

53
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Diagrams for process control systems

There’s a vent on the shell side of the exchanger that’s closed by a hand valve. On the outlet
of the vent is a high pressure alarm – this will trigger if the vent is left open. The shell side
pressure is monitored and displayed at the heat exchanger (PI002). The tube side outlet
temperature is displayed, recorded and controlled (TCIR001) by a controller over a data
link. The valve on this loop is operated pneumatically by the data/pressure convertor PY001.

There’s a high temperature alarm (with a flashing light, and presumably a siren) on the
tube side outlet.

54
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Inputs and outputs in control systems

6 INPUTS AND OUTPUTS IN

CONTROL SYSTEMS
MAIN LEARNING POINTS
• The difference between process engineering and process control inputs and outputs
• Manipulations and disturbances
• Controlled and auxiliary outputs

Control systems process information. They gather data about a process from instruments,
figure out what should be done to move the process to a desired state and then send
information back to the process to implement the changes. Inputs and outputs, in a control
sense, are inputs and outputs of information (data) and are quite different to what chemical
engineers normally understand by these terms.

6.1 PROCESS INPUTS

There are only two sorts of process input (in control engineering): manipulations and
disturbances.

A manipulation is an information input to a process that comes from the control system of
interest. It is usually a signal sent to a valve. The signal will cause the valve to move, which
will change the flow through the valve and hence change the conditions in the process.

A disturbance is an input to a process that changes outside of the reach of the control system
of interest (the control system has no influence over the value of a disturbance input). For
any process, there will be an almost limitless number of potential disturbances; they can
arise from a variety of sources, for example:

• Raw materials variations (e.g. changes in physical or chemical properties will affect
the process)
• Environmental disturbances (e.g. changes in relative humidity and air temperature
will affect cooling water temperature).
• Disturbances caused by process equipment (e.g. catalyst fouling will change reactor
reactivity)
• Disturbances caused by other control systems (e.g. an upstream controller might
reduce a flow entering the process).

55
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Inputs and outputs in control systems

The main goal of process plant control systems is to regulate against the effects of these
disturbance inputs. They do this by making changes to the manipulated inputs to counteract
the effect of the changes in the disturbance inputs (e.g. if the catalyst in a reactor degrades it
might be necessary to decrease the flow through the reactor to increase residence time, or the
temperature might be increased – by changing cooling/heating flows – to increase reactivity).

6.2 PROCESS OUTPUTS

From a control viewpoint a process output is a flow of information coming from the process;
they are always the outputs of measuring instruments – there is no other way of getting
information from the process.

Outputs are also classified into two categories: control variables and auxiliary outputs.

Controlled variables are the outputs of the process that have to be held close to particular
values (called desired values or setpoints) for the process to be doing what it’s supposed be
doing. The controlled variables will be attached to controllers that will be trying to hold
the values of these variables at their setpoints.

Auxiliary variables are additional process outputs that are monitored for a variety of reasons.
These could be:

• To provide more information to operators. Sometimes, particularly in fault conditions,

extra information helps operators decide what needs to be done.
• To provide alternative control variables in special circumstances. Under fault
conditions, or if a process needs to switch into a different operating mode (e.g.
when changing product type) some of the existing controlled variables may be
swapped with auxiliary measurements (the degrees of freedom of a process limit the
number of things that can be controlled simultaneously).
• To provide information for feedforward control. With this type of control,
information on the current value of disturbances is required. Although a disturbance
is a process input, any measurement of it is a process output and would be classed
as an auxiliary output.

56
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Inputs and outputs in control systems

6.3 PROCESSES IN CONTROL ENGINEERING

A process in control engineering isn’t a sulphuric acid plant, or a distillation column. Instead
it is something that converts process input information into process output information.
A process control computer could be disconnected from the process it is controlling and
reconnected to a simulation and it would continue to operate (and this is the way some are
tested). The control system is only concerned with the processing of information.

The basic process in control engineering is the single-input/single-output (SISO) system. This
is a process that converts one input information stream into a single output stream. Most
real outputs are affected by multiple inputs, producing multi-input/single-output (MISO)
systems. Real chemical plants have multiple inputs and multiple outputs, with outputs being
affected by several inputs and inputs influencing several of the outputs, and these are classed
as multi-input/multi-output (MIMO) systems. As we’ll see later, when linear control system
analysis is applied we can break MIMO systems into a combination of SISO sub-systems.

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ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Inputs and outputs in control systems

6.4 AN EXAMPLE OF VARIABLES AND PROCESSES

Consider the simple process shown in figure 26. Even though the process is simple it is
possible to identify 7 output variables, 2 inputs and 11 SISO processes linking them.

Figure 26 – A simple process example

Output variables FLA001, FIR001, FT001, PI002, PHA001, TCIR001, THAL001

Input variables FC001 (output), PY001

SISO processes FC001 (output) to FT001, FIR001, FLA001, PI002 (since it could
affect shell pressure), PHA001, TCIR001 (input), andTHAL001

PY001 to PI002, PHA001, TCIR001(in), andTHAL001

58
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Introduction to feedback control

7 INTRODUCTION TO
FEEDBACK CONTROL
MAIN LEARNING POINTS
• Elements of a feedback loop
• Positive and negative feedback
• Forming block diagrams from P&IDs and vice versa
• Direction of control action
• Controller hardware
• Introduction to control loop fault diagnosis

Feedback control is going on everywhere you look. Your own body has a multitude of
feedback mechanisms that regulate your digestion, blood pressure and heart rate and stop
you from falling over when you walk.

The essence of feedback control is that it is the output of the process, the controlled
variable, which is monitored. If a disturbance enters the process that causes the controlled
variable to move away from the desired value, the controller sees this and starts to move
a manipulated variable to try to counteract the effect of the disturbance. The controller
continues to monitor the output and can see the effect that the changes in the manipulated
variable are having – the controller can increase the amount of manipulation if the output
isn’t changing quickly enough, or it can reduce the amount if the output change is too
fast, or too large.

7.1 FEEDBACK CONTROL AND BLOCK DIAGRAMS

Figure 27 – A feedback control system

59
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Introduction to feedback control

Block diagrams are commonly used to illustrate feedback control systems. They can also,
for linear systems, be used to help analyse control system behaviour through the rules of
block diagram algebra. In the diagram in figure 27 we have a ‘process’ block on the right
of the diagram. This represents the process we are trying to control and has a manipulated
input and disturbance inputs too (if the process is linear, this block could be further broken
down into a number of SISO blocks). The output of the process block is the controlled
variable, this is measured by the measurement system and the measurement (the controlled
value (CV) or measured value (MV)) is fed back to the comparator (part of the controller
and marked with the Greek letter Σ). The comparator calculates the arithmetic difference
between the measured value and the desired value, or setpoint (SP), for the controlled variable.
This difference is called the error (ε). The error signal is then fed to the controller which
contains a control algorithm, and the output(OP) from the controller is sent to the final
control element and hence to the process. A continuous loop exists in the system between
the controller, process and measurement loop – this is called the feedback loop.

Block diagrams are easy to develop directly from P&I diagrams (figure 28).

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60
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Introduction to feedback control

Figure 28 – block diagram from P&ID

7.2 POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE FEEDBACK

A negative feedback system will always try to reduce the size of the error signal. A positive
feedback system will act to increase the size of the error. Control systems always use
negative feedback.

7.3 CONTROL LOOP PROBLEMS

As you can see from the block diagrams in figure 27 and 28, a feedback control system
is a system with several interacting components. This is often forgotten about in industry
and problems concerning poor control are often blamed on the controller. In many cases,
however, it is another part of the loop that isn’t performing correctly. Controllers nowadays
are electronic devices and are very reliable. If the loop had been working previously, but has
now gone faulty, it is much more likely that it’s a component other than the controller that
is causing the problem. In diagnosing control problems, it is important to check other loop
elements before touching the controller. Some of the potential loop problem are described
in the tables below.

61
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Introduction to feedback control

7.3.1 PROBLEMS WITH THE MEASUREMENT

Potential problem Diagnostics

Is there a signal?
Complete instrument or Is the signal within the expected range?
communications failure Some digital instruments may provide their
own diagnostics

Is the value coming back sensible?

Does the value tie in with other plant
Incorrect calibration (zero, span
measurements?
or linearisation)
(It is necessary to check the instrument over a range
of operating values if this is a suspected problem).

Are there intermittent problems?

Incorrect instrument selection Does the instrument behave poorly under some
process conditions?

Poor instrument positioning (near sources of

Excessive noise in signal electrical interference)?
Poor filtering?

Table 6 – measurement problems

7.3.2 PROBLEMS WITH THE CONTROL VALVE

Potential problem Diagnostics

Does the valve responds to control signals (it is

Complete valve or communications
possible to check the stem position on the valve, or
failure
it can be seen from flow rate changes)?

Characteristic problems Is the installed valve characteristic approximately linear?

Is the valve spending a lot of time saturated at one

Range problems
end of its movement (i.e. fully open or fully closed)?

Open the valve and check the flowrate at fixed stem

Excessive hysteresis positions and then close the valve and check again –
flowrates at the fixed positions should be similar.

Table 7 – control valve problems

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ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Introduction to feedback control

7.3.3 PROBLEMS WITH THE COMMUNICATIONS

Potential problem Diagnostics

Is there a signal?
Complete communications failure
Is it within the expected range?

Is it an instrument problem? Interference?

Noise
Incorrect cable? Poor cable runs?

Are the correct software drivers loaded? Has

Digital systems not operating correctly the system been properly configured? (Digital
systems are complicated!)

Table 8 – communication problems

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63
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Introduction to feedback control

7.4 DIRECTION OF CONTROL ACTION

All feedback controllers have a switch or button that allows the direction of control action
to be switched. Usually, the switch is marked with the two possible positions reverse (REV)
and direct (DIR). A direct acting controller is one whose output will tend to increase as
the measurement signal increases. A reverse acting controller is one whose output will tend
to decrease as the measurement signal increases. Why do we need the option to switch the
direction of action? Consider the level control systems shown in figure 29.

Figure 29 – level control manipulating inlet

If the valve in the level control loop is air to open, imagine what we’d want to happen if
the level in the tank (the measurement) started to rise. The controller needs to act to reduce
this increase in level, and so move the measured level back towards its setpoint. The only
way it can do this is to reduce the flowrate coming into the tank by altering the position
of the valve it is connected to. Since the valve is air to open, to get a reduction in flow it
is necessary to reduce the output of the controller. So, in this configuration an increase in
the level should lead to a reduction in the controller output – we’d want to set the direction
switch to reverse acting.

Now consider the system in figure 30.

64
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Introduction to feedback control

Figure 30 – level control manipulating outlet

This is exactly the same tank, but we are now using the bottom valve as a manipulation.
In most processes we have multiple manipulations that can affect a particular controlled
variable, and the task of choosing appropriate pairings isn’t trivial – this will be discussed
later in the course. For now, let’s think about what happens when the level increases (some
other control system has opened the top valve). Now we want the exit flow to increase to
reduce the measured level back towards the desired value. To do this, since we are assuming
air to open valves, we need to increase the controller output. So, in this case, the direction
switch should be set to direct acting.

It’s important to remember that the direction of the operation of the control valve needs
to be taken into account too. If the valves above had been air-to-close (fail open) valves,
then the direction of control actions would be the opposite of those chosen.

Choosing the wrong direction of control action will convert a control system into a positive
feedback system. Usually this will be pretty obvious – changing the setpoint will cause
the process to move in the opposite direction (and usually, depending on the setup of the
controller, it will keep moving). In slower systems, however, this may not be immediately
obvious – it’s always worthwhile trying to get the direction right and not rely on trial
and error.

65
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Introduction to feedback control

7.5 CONTROLLER HARDWARE

Figure 31 – a pneumatic controller

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66
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Introduction to feedback control

Feedback controllers exist in many different forms. The controller in figure 31 is a pneumatic
controller – it is entirely mechanical and the algorithm is implemented by a complex
arrangement of nozzles and bellows. Pneumatic controllers used to be widespread throughout
the chemical industry. With the development of cheap, and more flexible, microelectronics
they are now very rare. They are sometimes used in potentially flammable atmospheres (since
they don’t use electricity they are inherently safe) but modern, flammable atmosphere safe,
controllers are replacing them in this application too. Although the controllers themselves
are being replaced, the human machine interface (HMI) developed for these controllers
is still seen in their modern equivalents. The scale on the front (marked 0–100) shows
the measured value (on the left) and setpoint (on the right). How this was represented
depended on the controller, there could either be moveable pointers that moved up and
down the scale, or the pointers could be fixed and the scale could move. This controller
has a switch on the bottom left marked Man/Auto. In the Man (manual) position, the
controller algorithm is switched off and the feedback loop is broken. The controller is in
an open-loop condition and turning the knob on the right (marked ‘Man’) will directly alter
the controller’s output and hence the position of the valve it is attached to (the output
is shown on the scale on the bottom part of the faceplate). When the controller is in the
‘Auto’ condition, the controller algorithm is operational. In this position, fiddling with the
‘Man’ knob won’t do anything – the valve is now being adjusted by the controller. Instead,
it’s possible to adjust the controller setpoint by turning the knob marked ‘SET’ which is
halfway up the faceplate on the right. There are other adjustments available – the direction
of control action and controller algorithm adjustments, but these are hidden away either at
the back of the controller or inside the case. These are regarded as ‘engineering’ parameters
and should not be altered by the process operators. When the controller is installed in
the control room, these engineering adjustments will be completely inaccessible unless the
controller is physically removed from the control panel.

67
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Introduction to feedback control

Figure 32 – an electronic controller with traditional faceplate

Some modern, electronic, PID controllers use a similar faceplate design as the old pneumatic
controllers (figure 32). It gives a clear indication of measured value and setpoint, especially
if you are used to looking at displays of this type. The modern controllers, however, are
considerably more sophisticated and will include many additional features such as alarms,
self-tuning, a choice of control algorithms, etc. Most controllers of this type are no longer
single loop – they are actually multiple controllers in the same box and the display can be
switched between each controller.

As engineers and operators who were used to the old ‘faceplate’ style of controllers
become fewer, new controller designs based on LED displays are becoming much more
common (figure 33). These controllers only really differ in HMI – they still have multiple
extra functions and often contain multiple ‘loops’ – they can be used to control several
variables simultaneously.

Figure 33 – an electronic controller with LED display

68
 ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Introduction to feedback control

The trend in most process plants is to move away from discrete loop controllers and instead
incorporate control loops into a computer based control scheme. For small installations,
these loops might be incorporated in a device called a Programmable Logic Controller
(PLC). Larger installations (anything bigger than a dozen loops) will usually have a Scanning
Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) computer based system that will contain feedback
controllers, but will also present the operators with a set of nice mimic displays too. These
systems are discussed in more detail later.

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69
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Introduction to steady-state and dynamic response

8 INTRODUCTION TO STEADY-
STATE AND DYNAMIC RESPONSE
MAIN LEARNING POINTS
• Steady-state gain
• Introduction to non-linearity
• Basic types of dynamic response: time delay; integrators; self-regulators; instability
• First- and second-order response
• Measures used to describe controlled responses
• How to fit first-order plus dead-time (FOPDT) models to high-order step responses.

As chemical engineers we are used to thinking about most processes in terms of their steady-
state behaviour – when forming mass and energy balances the first thing that is usually
done is that the accumulation term (the d/dt) is set to zero. In the past most chemical
engineers were destined for large continuous plant, where steady-state analysis was reasonably
appropriate for most purposes. Steady-state analysis, however, is never appropriate for
control – we are very concerned with how things change dynamically. Nowadays, even for
general chemical engineers, the increasing importance of batch production of high value
speciality chemicals to the chemical industry means that an understanding of dynamic
behaviour is vitally important.

8.1 STEADY-STATE GAIN

It might seem odd to start a section on dynamics with a description of a steady-state
phenomenon. However, the steady state gain is an important factor in the dynamic response
of the system – it shows where the system will end up if the response is allowed to complete.

The steady-state gain of a component, or system (a group of components), is defined as

the steady-state change in the output signal divided by the steady-state change in the input
signal, it can also be expressed as:

AGFBGF š #4<@™<@BGF

70
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Introduction to steady-state and dynamic response

Figure 34 – gain in a non-linear system

In a linear system, the steady-state gain is constant throughout the systems range, but
non-linear systems (i.e. all chemical processes) have gains that vary with the point they
are measured (figure 34). For these systems it is important to state where a gain has been
obtained – for most process gains, this will be at the nominal operating point of the process.

All the components in a control system will have a steady-state gain. It is possible to calculate
the overall gain of a group of blocks directly from a block diagram (figure 35), e.g.

Figure 35 – A block diagram with gains

*\ *\ %\ %[ *\ *[ *Z

*H8D4>>
:4<@ š š ™ ™ š ™ ™ š ™™ š

%Z %\ %[ %Z %\ %[ %Z

Steady-state gains can be obtained from experiments on plant or simulations (by making a
small change in the input and wait until the output settles) but they’d be more commonly
obtained by more sophisticated system identification methods that allow model information to
be obtained from suitably stimulated process input-output data. Gains can also be obtained
from process models: consider this model for an isothermal CSTR, with a second-order
rate expression.

7d
1 š "dy} — "d — =1d[
7F

71
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Introduction to steady-state and dynamic response

at steady-state:

š "dy} — "d — =1d[

To find the gain between F and CA, we could make small changes in F and observe the
change in the concentration. However, we can also differentiate the equation wrt to F (i.e.
look at how it responds to differential changes in F):

7" 7d 7d

š dy} — d – " — =1d
7" 7" 7"
7d
" – =1d š dy} — d
7"
7d dy} — d
š EF847K
EF4F8
:4<@ š
7" " – =1d

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72
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Introduction to steady-state and dynamic response

8.2 DYNAMIC RESPONSE

Dynamic response is the time varying or transient behaviour of a system immediately and
soon after it is subjected to a change in input. The dynamic response of a system is affected
by the size and number of capacities that are present. These capacities are places where
conserved quantities (i.e. total mass/moles, component mass/moles, and energy) are held up
within the system. For total mass, capacities are as simple as the volume of vessels, reactors,
etc. – the larger the capacity, the slower the dynamic response is likely to be.

The order of a dynamic response is directly related to the number of capacities (holdups) in
a particular system between the input and output. Each of these capacities will need a first-
order differential equation (a mass, component or energy balance – mechanical systems will
include momentum balances too, which are fundamentally second-order, but most process
industry problems don’t require these) to describe its behaviour. A third-order process will
contain three capacities, and will be described mathematically by three inter-related first-
order differential equations leading to the overall dynamic response being defined by a
third-order differential equation.

The systems we deal with in the chemical industry tend to be very high-order – the simplest
system that can be imagined is a tank, a level measuring instrument and a valve – all of
these will have, at least, first-order dynamics, leading to a minimum of a third-order process.
Something like a distillation column can easily have dynamics of the order of a hundred
or more. High order dynamics can introduce very interesting dynamic behaviour, but a lot
can be understood by looking at the behaviour of lower order systems (which make up the
components of the high-order response).

8.2.1 DYNAMIC RESPONSE – DEAD TIME

Process

t=0

t=0 td
Figure 36 – a dead-time process

Dead time (sometimes called distance-velocity lag) is, in some ways, the simplest sort of
dynamic response that can be observed. If dead-time is present in a system the output will
not change (it will be dead) for a period of time after the input has changed (see figure 36).

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Figure 37 – distance-velocity lag

Dead-time is fairly common in process industry systems and can be caused by a number
of factors. Probably the easiest to understand (although the least likely in practice) is the
scenario that gives dead-time its alternative name – distance velocity lag (figure 37). In this
situation, it is assumed that the ‘process’ is a long pipe, of length ‘d’, with a measurement
device at the exit. Fluid is flowing through the pipe in a pure plug flow manner at velocity
‘v’. If a change (e.g. temperature or concentration) is injected into the fluid at time t=0,
no change will be registered at the measuring instrument until the element of fluid has
had time to move down the length of the pipe. This will take a time equal to the distance
(length of the pipe) divided by the velocity. Putting instruments at the end of long pipes is
not really good practice, and so pure distance-velocity lag isn’t common in real situations.

In real processes, dead-time is typically associated with the movement of materials in large
vessels. We are used to assuming that vessels are perfectly mixed, but this is rarely the case.
In an imperfectly mixed vessel, if there is a change in one of the inlet streams that change
will not immediately be seen in all parts of the vessel instantly. Instead there will be a delay
(dead-time) before anything at all will be seen at a particular point. An instrument inserted
into the vessel will not immediately detect changes in the vessel contents caused by changes
in an input stream. This dead-time will be variable and dependent on the size of the vessel,
agitation conditions, and the flowrates through the vessel.

Another potential source of dead-time in the process industries are chemical analysers. Some
of these analysers take a sample from the process and then take time to develop an output.
When the dead-time becomes large compared to the other dynamics present in a process,
it can cause real problems to feedback control systems. These controllers rely on being able
to immediately see the effect their manipulations are having on the controlled variable.
If significant dead-time is present, then the feedback controller is seeing the output of
the process as it responds to an input made a dead-time ago in the past. This temporal
decoupling of the input and output can cause issues with stability and special techniques
may have to be used to control such systems.

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8.2.2 DYNAMIC RESPONSE – INTEGRATORS

Figure 38 – an integrating process

An integrator is a process element that simply integrates input changes over time. The easiest
process related example is the level in a tank with a pumped discharge. The pump prevents
the outlet flow being significantly affected by the level in the tank. In this example, if the
inlet flowrate changes by a step, then the level in the tank will increase in a ramp (since
no extra flow will be leaving the tank). The tank is integrating the change in the inlet flow
over time.

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8.2.3 DYNAMIC RESPONSE – SELF-REGULATING SYSTEMS

Figure 39 – a self-regulating process

The outputs of most of the processes encountered in the process industries will not continue
to grow indefinitely after an input change (i.e. they are not integrators). Instead they will
tend to approach a final value asymptotically over time. An example of a self-regulating
process is the level in the tank that was used in the integrator example, but with the pump
replaced with a flow restriction. The flow out of the tank is now a function of the pressure
drop over the restriction, and hence the level in the tank. Now when the flowrate into the
tank changes by a step, the level will again start to rise but as it does so it will increase the
pressure drop over the restriction and hence the discharge flowrate. Eventually, the level
will rise far enough that flowrate out of the tank matches the flowrate in, and the level will
stop rising (mathematically this will take an infinite time, but for practical purposes the
time required can be assumed to be limited).

8.2.4 DYNAMIC RESPONSE – UNSTABLE SYSTEMS

Some systems are dynamically unstable – when an input changes, the output will grow
without bound (in theory to infinity, but in practice until something hits a limit or breaks).
This growth can either be linear (in the case of integrators), exponential, or oscillatory.

Figure 40 – unstable process responses

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Some processes are fundamentally open-loop unstable – to see an example of one, try
balancing a pencil on the end of your finger. An example from the chemical industries is
an exothermic CSTR, operated at its unstable temperature point. For these processes to
operate, active control is required to stabilise the system around the desired conditions.

Instability can also arise as a result of control action. Using the wrong direction of control
action can produce unstable controlled responses, and should always be avoided. Even if
the correct direction of control action is selected it is still possible to destabilise all practical
processes by making the controller too aggressive in its control action. Excessive control
action is the usual cause of oscillatory instability.

8.2.5 DYNAMIC RESPONSE – FIRST-ORDER SYSTEMS

First-order systems are described by first-order differential equations and always are formed
by taking balances (mass, component or energy) around a single capacity. The standard
equation for a first-order system is:
s missing. It should read:
τ dydt + y* = K mu* + K dd*
*

where P = the time constant – a factor that determines the speed of response and
is dependent on the size of the capacity involved
 K  = the output of the process (the asterisk has a special meaning that is
dealt with later)
&| = the steady-state gain associated with the manipulated input
G = the manipulated input
 &v = the disturbance steady-state gain – the steady-state gain associated with
the disturbance input
7  = the disturbance input

First order processes are the fundamental building block of all chemical process responses.
Some examples of systems that will be governed by first-order dynamics are: the temperature
of a thermometer bulb; the level of a tank; the reactant concentration in a reactor; the mole
fraction on a plate in a distillation column.

the figure has been slightly cutoff by the caption.

alking about a standard feedback loop

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Figure 41 – a first-order step response

First-order systems can be self-limiting or unstable (unstable first-order systems will have a
negative sign in front of the K  term. The response of a stable first-order system to a step
input always looks like figure 41.

Stable first-order systems always move at their fastest rate the instant the step is applied,
and then get slower as time moves on.

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The final change in the output is equal to the steady-state gain times the change in the
input. First-order responses will be approximately 95% complete after three time constants
and 99% complete after five time constants (the equations will be obtained later).

8.2.6 DYNAMIC RESPONSE – SECOND-ORDER SYSTEMS

In process industry situations, second-order systems are normally formed as a result of two
first-order systems acting together. Momentum balances will produce equations which are
fundamentally second-order (they model position, velocity and acceleration – velocity is
the first-derivative and acceleration the second-derivative of position) but these are rarely
required when considering process engineering systems.

The standard form of a stable second-order differential equation is:

7[ K  7K 
P[ – MP – K  š &| G – &v 7 
7F [ 7F

where P = n
 atural period of oscillation (not to be confused with the time constant
of a first-order equation
M = damping factor

A second-order system’s response to step-changes has richer behaviour than first-order systems,
and the form of the response is dependent on the damping factor.

Figure 42 – second-order overdamped response to step input

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Figure 42 shows the situation when the damping factor has values greater than one. This
type of response is known as an overdamped response. The final value is still dependent on
the steady-state gain (since steady-state isn’t a dynamic phenomenon, it is independent of
the order of the dynamics in the system). Note that second-order (and higher-order) systems
don’t start moving at their maximum speed until after a lag period – the system has built
in ‘momentum’ and needs to accelerate.

When the damping factor becomes equal to one, the system is said to be critically damped.
The response looks very like an overdamped response, but represents a limiting case. As
the damping factor drops below one, the response becomes underdamped, and produces the
oscillatory behaviour shown in the figure 43.

Figure 43 – underdamped second-order response

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8.2.7 DESCRIPTIVE TERMS FOR SECOND AND HIGHER-ORDER RESPONSE

Figure 44 – terms to describe responses

Rise time The time required to rise to the new setpoint for the first time after a setpoint
change. More aggressive control reduces the rise time

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Decay ratio The ratio of the heights of the first and second peaks of a response
after a setpoint change (the ratio should also be fairly consistent on
the following peaks too. Decay ratio may also be used to describe
response on disturbance changes.
Settling time The settling time is the time required for a response to settle within
a given band (often 5%) of the setpoint after a change. Settling time
tends to increase as the aggressiveness of control increases, and so there
is a direct conflict between minimising settling time and rise time.

8.2.8 FITTING A SIMPLE FIRST-ORDER MODEL TO HIGHER ORDER RESPONSES

There is often a need in dealing with control problems to obtain some sort of model of a
particular process (remember that in control engineering a ‘process’ is simply something that
converts input information to output information, and could be part of a unit operation,
a measurement instrument, etc.). It usually isn’t practical, or even desirable, to obtain the
full first-principles (based on fundamental balances) models and some sort of approximate
model that captures the main features of a response is better.

The most common type of approximate model used for this purpose is a first-order plus
dead-time model (FOPDT). This can be represented by the differential equation:

7K 
P – K  š &G F — Fv
7F

Figure 45 – a step response from a seventh order system

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The model has three parameters that need to be ‘fitted’ to make the model resemble the target
system. These are: the time constant (τ ); the steady-state gain (K); and the dead-time (Fv ).

One way of fitting this sort of model is to perform a step-test on the system to be modelled.
This involves putting in a step into the process and recording the response. This will only
work on over-damped higher order responses: the FOPDT model cannot represent overshoot
or oscillation. A typical response that might be obtained from a high-order system is shown
in figure 45.

As the order of the response increases, the length of the acceleration lag time also increases,
producing an effect that looks very much like dead-time (although the output is changing
from time zero, the changes are very small).

To fit a FOPDT model we can use the solution of the model’s response to a step change,
and this is:

‚a‚’
K F š &  — 8a † G

where is the size of the input step.

Steady-state gain can be determined by dividing the final steady-state change in output by
the steady-state change in input. In the example in figure 45 a step of 1 unit was used,
leading to a change of 1 in the output, and so the steady-state gain is 1/1 = 1.

This leaves two parameters to fix: the time constant and the dead-time. These can be
estimated by taking any two points on the curve. Any points can be used, but it makes
sense to choose points which are reasonably far apart and in regions of the curve where
the time and change are easy to measure. I suggest the points where the response is 30%
and 90% complete. The times at these points are read off from the response that’s being
modelled (see figure 46).

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Figure 46 – obtaining FOPDT fitting information

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At the 30% point

K ‚Š‡ a‚’

š
 š  — 8 a †
&G
‚Š‡ a‚’
8a † š

F\Y — Fv
— š 
¡
¢
P
F\Y — Fv
š
 
P

and at the 90% point

K ‚ a‚
a ‹‡ ’
š
 š  — 8 †
&G
‚‹‡ a‚’
8a † š

F_Y — Fv
— š 
¡
¢
P
F_Y — Fv
š 

P

Combining these two equations gives the values for the two dynamic parameters:

P š
 F_Y — F\Y

Fv š  F\Y —
 F_Y

In this example, F\Y š E and F_Y š 

E, giving P š E and Fv š E

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The fitted model is shown in figure 47.

Figure 47 – High order response with fitted FOPDT model

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9 DYNAMIC MODELLING
MAIN LEARNING POINTS
• Laplace transform solution of simple linear ODEs
• Transfer functions and block diagrams
• How to recognise response components (i.e. steady-state gain, order, poles, zeroes
and time delays) in transfer functions and explain the contribution they may make
to the final response
• Forming simple dynamic models from continuity equations (mass, component mass
and energy balances)

Dynamic modelling is the modelling of process dynamics. It involves forming the differential
equations, in most cases simplifying them if analytical (mathematical) solution is required,
and then actually solving them (either analytically or numerically). The most common
technique used for analytical solution in control is Laplace transform analysis.

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9.1 LAPLACE TRANSFORMS

When a differential equation (in the ‘t’ or time-domain) is mathematically transformed
through the use of Laplace transforms it becomes an algebraic equation (in the ‘s’ or Laplace
domain). This algebraic equation can be manipulated and solved using the normal rules of
linear algebra to produce an ‘s-domain’ solution. This solution is then inverted back into
the ‘t-domain’ using tables of inverse transforms.

9.1.1 DEFINITION

If f(t) is a function in time, then its Laplace transform is defined as:

c
W 9 F š9 E š 9 F 8 a‚ 7F
Y

Some important properties of Laplace transforms (from Marlin 1995):

1) A Laplace transform does not exist for all functions. Sufficient conditions for its
existence are:
a) f(t) is piecewise continuous.
b) The integral has a finite value (i.e. f(t) does not increase faster than e-st decreases.
(Don’t worry about what ‘s’ actually is – it’s only a mathematical symbol and
has no physical meaning at all. If you think too much about it you’ll end up
joining the long list of mathematicians who’ve gone insane!)
2) Laplace transformation converts a function from the ‘t-domain’ into one in the
‘s-domain’, and the s domain function can have a complex (i.e. real and imaginary)
representation.
3) Laplace transformation is a linear operation.
i.e. W 49 F – 5: F š 4W 9 F – 5W : F
4) Tables of Laplace transformations are commonly used to convert equations (they are
available in text books). These tables are also used to provide inverse transformations.

9.2 DERIVATION OF BASIC TRANSFORMS

9.2.1 CONSTANT
9 F š
c
 c
 
W 9 F šW  š 8 a‚ 7F š — 8 a‚ Y š—
— š
Y E E E

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9.2.2 STEP

4F
F ›

9 F š G F
I;8D8
G F š

4F
F œ

c

W G F š W G F š 8 a‚ 7F š
Y E

9.2.3 EXPONENTIAL
9 F š 8 as‚
c c
W 8 as‚ š 8 as‚ 8 a‚ 7F š 8 a¡`s¢‚ 7F
Y Y

 ‚ c

š— 8 a `s š
E–4 Y E–4

9.2.4 DERIVATIVE OF A FUNCTION

c
79¡F¢ 79 a‚
W š 8 7F
7F Y 7F

Integrating by parts gives:

c
79¡F¢ c
W š 9¡F¢8 a‚ Y — 9 F  —E  8 a‚ 7F
7F Y
c
š
— 9¡
¢ – E 9¡F¢8 a‚ 7F
Y

š E9 E — 9¡
¢

This method can be extended to a derivative of any order by applying the integration by
parts several times to give:

7 } 9¡F¢ 79 7 }aZ 9
W }
š E } 9 E — E }aZ 9
– E }a[ – –
7F 7F ‚bY 7F }aZ ‚bY

9.2.5 INTEGRAL OF A FUNCTION

‚ c ‚
W 9 F 7F š 8 a‚ 9 F 7F 7F
Y Y Y

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integrating by parts gives:

‚ ‚ c c
 
W 9 F 7F š — 8 a‚ 9 F 7F – 8 a‚ 9 F 7F
Y E Y Y
E Y

For the transfer function to exist f(t) must increase more slowly than e-st decreases, so the
first term will be zero at both its upper and lower limits (e-st tends to zero as t tends to
infinity and the integral at the lower limit evaluates to zero).

Therefore:

‚

W 9 F 7F š 9¡E¢
Y E

9.2.6 TIME DELAY

c c
a‚ a‚’
W 9 F — Fv š 9 F — Fv 8 7F š 8 9 F — Fv 8 a ‚a‚’
7 F — Fv
Y Y

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Note that dt=d(t-td) because td (the time delay) is a constant. If the integration variable is
now transformed:

'8F
N š F — Fv
c c
a‚’ a ‚a‚’ a‚’
8 9 F — Fv 8 7 F — Fv š 8 9 N 8 a… 7N
Y a‚’

Note, by definition, that 9 N š

for N ›

9
c c
8 a‚’ 9 N 8 a… 7N š 8 a‚’ 9 N 8 a… 7N
a‚’ Y

š 8 a‚’ 9¡E¢

9.3 SOLUTION OF DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS USING

LAPLACE TRANSFORMS
For this example I shall use the differential equation:

7K 
 – K  š G ¡F¢
7F

where G ¡F¢ is subjected to a step of 5 units (i.e. its value jumps from 0 to 5) at time t=0.

9.3.1 STAGE 1 – CONVERT THE ENTIRE EQUATION INTO THE S-DOMAIN

Since we are using deviation variables (see later for a definition of these), the initial values
will all be zero (this is another very good reason for using deviation variables to solve
control problems).

7K 

I;8@
F ›

W  – K  š ™
7F 
I;8@
F œ

Note that y*(s) is the unknown output function that we are trying to obtain (in the s-domain).

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9.3.2 STAGE 2 – REARRANGE THE EQUATION ALGEBRAICALLY TO OBTAIN THE

ANSWER (IN THE S-DOMAIN)

EK  E – K  E š
E

E –  K  E š
E


K E š
E E – 

9.3.3 STAGE 3 – USE A TABLE OF INVERSE TRANSFORMS TO INVERT THE

SOLUTION BACK INTO THE ‘T-DOMAIN’

At this stage it is usually necessary to manipulate the s-domain function into a form that
matches one, or more, of the tabulated functions. This is actually the most difficult part
of the whole process.

Z] d e
In this case we can see that ccould be factorised to –
 ]`Z  ]`Z

and both of these factors appear in tables of inverse transforms:


W aZ š
E
  ‚
W aZ š 8a †
PE –  P

To invert the equation, we need to use partial fractions and evaluate A and B:

   E –  – E
š – š
E E –  E E –  E¡E – ¢

and equating terms:

s: 0 = 5A+B
1: 15 = A

so A=15 and B=-5x15, and so

    
š  — š  —
E E –  E E –  E E–


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So, the ‘t-domain’ solution is:

‚
K  F š   — 8 a ]

9.4 TRANSFER FUNCTIONS

Transfer functions are widely used to represent the s-domain dynamics of processes. The
definition of the transfer function of a process is simply:

'4B>468
FD4@E9AD?
A9
F;8
AGFBGF
/D4@E98D
9G@6F<A@ š
'4B>468
FD4@E9AD?
A9
F;8
<@BGF

for example, for a first-order process

7K 
P – K  š &G
7F
 PE –  K  E š &G ¡E¢
K  ¡E¢ K  &
š E š š /D4@E98D
9G@6F<A@
G ¡E¢ G PE – 

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NB: the second form of y*/u* with a single ‘s’ is simply a shorthand way of writing the ratio.

The transfer function contains all the information about how the process it describes will
behave in response to any input. The transfer function is a very powerful tool for handling
linear process dynamics.

9.5 BLOCK DIAGRAMS

Block diagrams are a very useful way of graphically representing and, through the use of
block diagram algebra, solving linear process control problems. Block diagrams are based
around s-domain representations of the various system elements.

Block diagrams are constructed from two types of blocks:

9.5.1 ADDITION/ SUBTRACTION BLOCK

This block adds (figure 48), or subtracts (figure 49), the signals supplied to it as inputs.

i1(s)

i2(s) + o(s) o(s) = i1(s) + i2(s)

+

Figure 48 – Addition block

i1(s)

i2(s) + o(s) o(s) = i1(s) + i2(s)

-

Figure 49 – Subtraction block

An alternative notation is to use a circle contain the Greek letter ‘Σ’, with the signs on the
signal lines attached to the block.

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9.5.2 TRANSFER FUNCTION BLOCK

This block contains a transfer function block – it can only ever have a single input and a
single output (figure 50).

i(s) 5 o(s)

3s+1

Figure 50 – Transfer function block

9.6 BLOCK DIAGRAM ALGEBRA

As well as representing dynamic and control systems graphically, block diagrams can be
used to combine the individual transfer functions to obtain the overall dynamic response.
The only rule of block diagram algebra is concerned with blocks in series. Consider the
system in figure 51.

i1(s) o2(s)
TF1 TF1

i2(s) =o1(s)
Figure 51 – two TFs in series

Now, the overall transfer function for this system is:

A[ A[ ¡E¢ AZ E
*H8D4>>
/" š E š  š /"  /"

<Z <[ ¡E¢ <Z E

Because AZ is the same as <[ .

RULE: for blocks in series, the overall transfer function is simply the product of the
individual transfer functions.

9.7 SOLUTIONS OF RESPONSES FOR HIGH-ORDER SYSTEMS

Although Laplace transforms can be inverted for high order systems, the algebra involved
in factorising the s-domain solutions into forms available in tables of inverse transforms
can be very compicated.

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However, a great deal can be said about the form of the response of a high-order system
simply by looking at the system transfer function.

9.7.1 FINAL VALUE THEOREM

This theorem is used to obtain the final steady state ‘t-domain’ solution directly from the
s-domain solution:

{y| {y|
‚c

9 F š Y

9¡E¢ E

e.g. for a first-order process subjected to a unit step (a step of value 1):

& 
9 E š 
PE –  E
{y| ><? & E
Y9 E  E š  š&
E 
PE –  E

For stable systems subjected to a finite input change it’s possible to use a variant of this
theorem to get the steady-state gain – just set ‘s’ to zero in all the terms of the transfer
function. This works even with very complicated TF’s!

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9.7.2 GENERALISED DYNAMIC RESPONSE

This section is concerned with the information on the dynamic characteristics of the response
that can be obtained from the transfer function. This information comes from the roots of
the denominator (poles) and the numerator (zeroes).

9.7.2.1 Poles
The denominator of a transfer function, also known as the characteristic equation, determines
the overall form of the response of the process represented. The order of this equation
determines the order of the system response (i.e. if the highest power in ‘s’ is 4, then
the transfer function represents a fourth-order system, and the corresponding t-domain
differential equation would be fourth-order). The roots of the characteristic equation are
called the poles of the system and each root contributes something to the overall response
(think of what you would do if you were trying to invert an s-domain solution – the first
thing required is for the denominator to be factorised into bits that can be looked up in a
table of inverse transforms). Obviously, the number of poles for a transfer function is the
same as the order of the transfer function.

Poles that have real values always lead to pure exponential terms appearing in the t-domain
solution. If a pole has a negative real value (e.g. a factor like (s+1) – ‘s’ has a value of -1),
then it will give rise to a term of the form e −αt in the t-domain solution, i.e. a term that
will decay exponentially as time increases. If, on the other hand, the pole has a positive
real value (factors like (s-1)), then it will give rise to a term of the form eαt , i.e. one which
increases exponentially with time. Terms of this type cause the system to be exponentially
unstable – no matter what the other terms are, a single unstable pole will make the whole
response unstable.

In process engineering problems, complex poles always appear in conjugate pairs (i.e. a +
ib and a – ib). Complex poles give rise to sinusoidal terms in the t-domain response. If the
real part of the pole (the ‘a’ bit) is negative then the sinusoid will decay away exponentially
with time (whether the oscillation is apparent in the t-domain response depends on the
relative values of all the poles of the transfer function). If the real part of the pole is positive,
however, then the t-domain term will be a sinusoidal oscillation that grows exponentially in
amplitude with time (oscillatory unstable). A single pair of such complex poles will cause
the whole system to be unstable, regardless of what the other poles are.

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9.7.2.2 Zeroes
The roots of the numerator of a transfer function (if any) are called the zeroes of the process.
Zeroes modify the behaviour, but don’t change the overall order of a system’s dynamic
response (unless they exactly equal a system pole and cause pole-zero cancellation – in this
case the order of the response will be reduced by one for every cancellation).

Zeroes with negative values will accelerate the initial response, and can cause overshoot even
in processes with no complex poles.

Systems with positive zeroes are more difficult from a control point of view since they exhibit
what is known as inverse response. A system with inverse response initially responds in the
opposite direction that its steady-state gain would indicate. This causes obvious problems
with feedback control were the direction of control action is chosen on the basis of the
sign of the steady-state gain on the manipulation term.

Systems with positive zeroes always occur because there are two, or more, routes whereby
an input can affect the output, but with opposite gains, for example for the system shown
in figure 52.

Figure 52 – a system with a positive zero

 
A E š — < E
 – E  – E
 – E —  — E
š < E
 – E  – E
 — E
š <¡E¢
 – E  – E

This is a second-order system with two negative poles and a single, positive, zero. The
response of this system to a positive unit step is shown in figure 53.

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Figure 53 – step response of an inverse response

Inverse response isn’t uncommon and can be seen in processes such as boilers and distillation
columns. It can, however, cause big headaches when setting up feedback controllers.

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9.8 FORMING DYNAMIC MODELS

For many control purposes, when dynamic models are required they are produced by fitting
simplified models to process data (e.g. the FOPDT model fit that was described earlier).
Producing a dynamic model from first principles is a major undertaking, not just because
of the number of equations involved but also because of the need to obtain good estimates
for all of the many parameters in the equations (e.g. heat and mass transfer coefficients).

However, for some purposes, it is necessary to produce models that closely resemble the
real process. For standard processes, this can often be done by using the ‘stock’ models that
are available in the dynamic parts of process simulation packages (e.g. Aspen Dynamic). In
theory, these models can be produced as a follow on from steady-state flowsheet modelling,
by simply adding the various capacity parameters necessary for dynamic modelling (remember
that capacities are what make processes dynamic). In reality, the modelling process is a lot
more complex, and often special models need to be written to deal with non-standard bits
of equipment.

Although real dynamic modelling can be difficult and complex, the ideas behind it are
relatively simple and involve only one equation – the continuity equation. As chemical
engineers you’ll be very familiar with this equation already, although you’ve probably been
calling it a mass balance or an energy balance or a component balance. The full equation
is always done over a capacity (something that has the capability of holding some of the
quantity being balanced) and has the form:

-4F8
A9
466G?G>4F<A@ š -4F8
%@ — -4F8
*GF – -4F8
A9
#8@8D4F<A@

The continuity equation needs to be applied to a conserved quantity: total mass (or moles);
component mass (or moles); energy; momentum. Momentum balances are unusual in
process engineering, and so we are normally concerned with just three quantities (total
mass, component mass and energy).

Forming the accumulation term is easiest if the following approach is taken:

-4F8
A9
466G?G>4F<A@
7
š
!JBD8EE<A@
F;4F
E4KE
;AI
?G6;
A9
F;8
CG4@F<FK
<E
<@E<78
64B46<FK
7F

Remember that continuity balances are always made over a capacity.

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When you form continuity balances you should always get in the habit of checking the
units of each term – this will check dimensional consistency, but will also highlight mistakes
that may have been made in forming the equations. Terms in a mass, or component mass,
balances always have units of mass/time. Energy balance terms always have units of energy/
time. Remember to check the consistency of both the mass or energy units AND the time
units used in the equation (i.e. don’t mix hours and minutes).

9.8.1 LEVEL IN A TANK WITH A FREE DRAINING DISCHARGE

Figure 54 – level in a free draining tank

We need to use a total mass balance to model the system

7
/AF4>
?4EE
A9
><CG<7
<@
F4@= š -4F8
A9
?4EE
<@ — -4F8
A9
?4EE
AGF
7F

Assuming constant and equal densities in all streams

7
;O š "y} O — "~ƒ‚ O
7F

Assuming exit flowrate will be proportional to the square root of the pressure head, "~ƒ‚ š  ;

7;
 š "y} —
 ;
7F

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ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
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9.8.2 CONCENTRATION IN A CSTR

Figure 55 – concentration in a continuous stirred tank reactor

This can be a little more complicated if we assume that the total mass balance is not constant,
and a good bit more complicated if constant temperature is not assumed (i.e. if we need a
dynamic energy balance). Let’s look at the simplest case first.

Assume constant and equal densities in all streams; perfect level control (with the previous
assumption this gives a constant mass balance and Fin=Fout); perfect mixing; perfect
temperature control (i.e. constant temperature – no need to consider the effect of temperature
on reaction rate).

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ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
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All we are left with is a component balance for the reactant (and another for the product
if we want to model this).

7
$AI
?G6;
D846F4@F
<E
<@
D846FAD
7F
š -4F8
A9
D846F4@F
<@ — -4F8
AGF — -4F8
A9
78EFDG6F<A@

Assuming a first order rate expression (you’d normally know what the reaction kinetics were)

7
1 š "y} — " — =1
7F
7
1 š
"y} — " — =1
7F

And that’s all there is to it!

If we remove the perfect level control assumption, then we need to include a total mass
balance (and the inlet and outlet flows might be different)

7 1O
š "y} O — "~ƒ‚ O
7F
71
š "y} — "~ƒ‚
7F

The component balance also needs to be reworked as V is no longer assumed constant

g
7
1 š "y} y} — "~ƒ‚  — =1
7F

7 71
1 – š "y} y} — "~ƒ‚  — =1
7F 7F

we can get an expression for dV/dt from the total mass balance

7
1 š "y} y} — "~ƒ‚  — =1 — ¡"y} — "~ƒ‚ ¢
7F
7
1 š "y} y} —  — =1
7F

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ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
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Relaxing the level control assumption hasn’t changed the order of the response for the
reactor concentration to changes in inlet flow or concentration.

If we go a step further and relax the perfect temperature control assumption, we need to
add an energy balance to the system (assuming constant and equal specific heat capacity)

7 h
1Ol ¡/ — /€wx š "y} Ol /y} — /€wx — "~ƒ‚ Ol / — /€wx – =~ 8 a mo 1 —$m
7F
71 7/
Ol / — /€wx – Ol 1
7F 7F
h
š "y} Ol /y} — /€wx — "~ƒ‚ Ol / — /€wx – =~ 8 a mo 1 —$m
7/ h
Ol 1 š "y} Ol /y} — /€wx — "~ƒ‚ Ol / — /€wx – =~ 8 a mo 1 —$m
7F
— Ol / — /€wx "y} — "~ƒ‚
7/ h
Ol 1 š "y} Ol /y} — / – =~ 8 a mo 1 —$m
7F

The component balance will also need to be modified to take into account the temperature
dependent rate constant, giving:

7 h
1 š "y} y} —  — =~ 8 a mo 1
7F

Note that the energy balance contains the concentration and the component balance contains
the temperature – it isn’t possible to solve these equations individually. They need to be
solved simultaneously and will produce second order dynamics in both the concentration
and temperature responses.

9.8.3 TEMPERATURE OF A THERMOMETER BULB

Figure 56 – temperature of a thermometer bulb

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ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
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We need to use an energy balance for this

7
(  ¡/ — /€wx š 0¡/ — /t ¢
7F t  t

Be careful about the direction of the temperature difference – as written an increase in

surroundings temperature will produce a +ve temperature derivative (i.e. an increase in
thermometer temperature) which is fine. Assuming bulb mass and heat capacity are constant:

7/t
(t  š
0¡/ — /t ¢
7F

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105
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
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10 ANALYTICAL SOLUTION OF REAL

WORLD MODELS
MAIN LEARNING POINTS
• Non-linearity
• Linearisation
• Deviation variables
• Step-response solution for a simple, but realistic, process

Laplace transforms are a very powerful method of solving differential equations, but they
are limited to linear differential equations. There is, in fact, no general solution method for
non-linear differential equations. Unfortunately, almost without exception, the models that
are produced for process engineering problems will involve non-linear equations.

These non-linear models can be solved using numerical (dynamic simulation) techniques,
but analytical (mathematical) solutions have advantages. It’s much easier to understand
the overall behaviour, and sensitivity, of a solution by looking at an equation than it is
by looking at the results of multiple simulation studies. Linear solutions also allow more
advanced analytical techniques to be used for controller design.

10.1 TYPES OF NON-LINEARITY

Before considering how we can deal with non-linearity it is worthwhile looking at the
sorts of non-linearity that can arise in process industry models. A differential equation is
non-linear if a non-linear function, or multiplicative combination, is applied to any of the
time-varying (inputs or outputs) terms.

10.1.1 FUNCTIONAL NON-LINEARITIES

Functional non-linearities are the easiest to spot – a non-linear function is applied to

input or output terms. The following are examples of process engineering equations with
functional non-linearities:

7;
 – „ ; š "y}
7F
7
1 – " – =1 [ š "y}
7F

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ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
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It is possible to subject linear differential equations to non-linear inputs and have something
that is perfectly solvable (since the differential equation itself is linear):

7K
P – K š &G I;8D8
G š 9¡F¢
7F

if G š 
¡QF¢, then this can be inserted into the equation:

7K
P – K š &E<@¡QF¢
7F

This equation can be solved.

10.1.2 COMBINATIONAL NON-LINEARITIES

Combinational non-linearities occur when two, or more, time varying terms are multiplied,
or divided, together. They can be awkward as an equation can change from being linear to
non-linear depending on the assumptions that are made as to what terms are time varying.
For example, consider the reactant balance in a simple CSTR:

7
1 š "y} — " — =1
7F

If we assume that only the inlet concentration (y} ¢ (and also, since it’s the equation output,
the outlet concentration) is variable, then the equation is linear. However, if we also allow
the flowrate through the reactor (") to vary as well, then we end up with two combinational
non-linearities ("y} and ")

10.2 LINEARISATION OF NON-LINEAR EQUATIONS

One way of dealing with non-linear equations is to approximate (linearise) them with linear
equations. This only works if the amount of variation is limited to a small region around
the point where the equation is approximated (the point of linearisation). In most control
problems in the process industries we are concerned with disturbance rejection around the
nominal flowsheet conditions and linearised equations can give reasonable approximations.

The process of linearising an equation involves identifying all the non-linear parts of the
equation and then replacing them with a linear approximation. This can be understood
either graphically or with reference to Taylor series approximation.

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10.2.1 GRAPHICAL INTERPRETATION OF LINEARISATION

Figure 57 – graphical linearisation

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In figure 57, ‘X’ is the time varying quantity (input or output) that is subjected to some
non-linear function, producing the relationship shown in the blue line on the graph. If
we want to approximate this function with a straight line, we first need to pick where we
want to form the approximation – the linear approximation we get will vary radically with
the point of linearisation that is chosen. In this case we’ve chosen to linearise around the
nominal steady-state (which is what’s usually chosen for control). To approximate the non-
linear function at this point, we draw a straight line through the point of linearisation with
a slope which is tangent to the curve at that point. The equation of this straight line will
now give use the linear approximation to the function, i.e.

7" "¡3¢ — "¡3nn ¢

#D47<8@F
4F
3 š 
73 r•• 3 — 3nn

or

7"
" 3 
" 3nn – 3 — 3nn
73 r••

10.2.2 TAYLOR SERIES INTERPRETATION OF LINEARISATION

A Taylor series:

7" 7[ " [
" 3  " 3nn – 3 — 3nn – 3 — 3nn –
73 r•• 73 [ r••

can be used to approximate any function to any desired degree of accuracy. For linearisation,
we can’t use any terms after the first order terms – if we do we’ll end up with non-linearities
(e.g. 3 [ ) in our ‘simplified’ expression. If we omit all terms which are second-order and
higher then we get:

7"
" 3 
" 3nn – 3 — 3nn
73 r••

which is exactly the same as that obtained from the graphical interpretation.

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ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
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There are advantages in thinking about linearisation in terms of the Taylor series. The
first is that it allows us to gauge how accurate our approximation will be. For Taylor
series approximation, the error is of the same order as the first-term that is omitted. For
linearisation this is:

7[ " [
3 — 3nn
73 [ r••

So, the linearisation accuracy is dependent on the second-derivative of the non-linear

function, and on the square of the distance from the point of linearisation. The second
derivative can be thought of as a measure of the non-linearity of the function at a particular
point – high values of second-derivative means that the slope of the function is changing
rapidly, i.e. it is highly non-linear.

The second advantage of the Taylor series interpretation is that it can be easily extended to
multi-variable (combinational) non-linearities, e.g.

" 3Z  3[    3}
R" R"

" 3Z nn  3[ nn    3} nn – 3Z — 3Z nn – 3[ — 3[ nn
R3Z nn
R3[ nn

R"
– – 3} — 3} nn
R3} nn

10.3 SIMPLIFYING EXPRESSIONS THROUGH DEVIATION VARIABLES

In control problems we are usually interested in how things change around a particular
operating point – usually the nominal steady-state. Leaving steady-state information in our
equations can make things really messy. This mess comes from two sources: linearisation,
and initial values in Laplace transforms of derivatives.

Linearisation always produces a whole bunch of steady-state terms that need to be included
in the linearised equation (e.g. "  3 ). When we take the Laplace transform of a derivative
of a variable with a non-zero initial value (i.e. it has a steady-state component), then we
get an expression of the form:

7K
W š EK E — K
7F

Higher-order derviative will produce more steady-state terms.

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All this steady-state information makes the equations messy and difficult to handle and
contributes absoultely nothing. The steady-state information will be the same at the end of
the solution as it was at the beginning.

Deviation variables are a mathematical trick that get rid of the steady-state components of a
solution and make equations much easier to handle. The definition of a deviation variable is:

K  š K — Knn

The value of the deviation variable (marked with an asterisk) is equal to the full-value variable
(which changes with time) minus the steady-state value of the variable (that is fixed).

It’s possible to convert an equation to deviation variable form by inspection, although care
needs to be taken to take the deviation of complete non-linear terms (rather than the non-
linear function of the deviation), e.g.

7;
 š "y} —
 ;
7F

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ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
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becomes

7; 
 š "y}  —
 ;
7F

Using deviation variables makes things much simpler, e.g.

7K 7K 
W š EK E — K
 W š EK  ¡E¢
7F 7F
"d“”  "d“” – d“” nn " — "nn – "nn d“” — d“” nn
nn

 "d“”  d“” nn "  – "nn d“”

10.4 PROCEDURE FOR SIMPLIFYING AND SOLVING A

NON-LINEAR MODEL
The following is the best procedure to be followed when analytically solving non-linear
equations:

1. Identify non-linear terms and draw a bracket around them

2. Take the deviation of all the time-varying terms – remember to take care with
non-linearities.
3. Linearise the non-linear parts of the expression
4. Solve the model using Laplace transforms
5. If required, add back the steady-state components.

10.5 PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER – A REACTANT BALANCE FOR A CSTR

A continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR) is used to breakdown a material in a reaction
with a second order rate law:

Xd š —=1d[
=: ;D aZ

The reactor operates at constant density and has perfect level and temperature control (the
total mass and energy balances are steady-state). The nominal operating conditions for the
reactor are shown in table 9.

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ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
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Operating volume 3 m3

Flowrate through the reactor (inlet and outlet) 1m3.hr-1

Inlet concentration of reactant 50 kg.m-3

Outlet concentration of reactant 0.1 kg.m-3

Table 9 – reactor conditions

Develop a dynamic model of the reactor around its nominal operating conditions and show
how it responds to a) a step change in the flowrate from 1 to 1.1m3.hr-1; b) a step change
in inlet concentration from 50 to 55 kg.m-3.

The first thing to do is to form the continuity equations necessary for modelling the reactor.
We’re told that we have a constant total mass balance and a constant energy balance (and
reactor temperature), so the only equation we need to form is the component mass balance
for the reactor:

7
$AI
?G6;
D846F4@F
<E
<@
F;8
D846FAD
7F
š -4F8
<@ — -4F8
AGF — -4F8
A9
78EFDG6F<A@

It’s always worthwhile, at least initially, to write down the equation in words first. Now
let’s add the maths:

7
1 š "y} — " — =1 [
7F

or

7
1 š "y} — " — =1 [
7F

since the liquid volume is constant.

Check the units of each term – the flow rate x concentration terms are kg/hr, as is the
reaction rate. The term inside the bracket on the accumulation is kg, and a d/dt derivative
is being applied to it, which converts it to kg/time unit. Since the RHS of the equation is
using hours as the time unit, this is the unit that the derivative will be expressed in too.
The units in the equation are fine.

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The next stage is to identify non-linearities. We know that the C2 term will be a functional
non-linearity, since C is the output of the equation and so is time varying. There are two
other possible ("y} and ") combinational non-linearities in the equation, if F is allowed
to vary. We know that we’ll have to vary F to get the answer to part (a), so it makes sense
to include it as a potentially time varying term. In control problems the more variables that
are allowed to change with time, the more complicated the solution and so it’s important
to only allow things to vary if you have to.

At this point we’ve identified the time varying quantities; all the other terms in the equation
will be constants (at least from the point of view of this problem). It’s worthwhile getting
the values of these constants in now:

7
š "y} — " — =  [
7F

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ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
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‘k’, the reaction rate constant, is a constant but we haven’t been given its value. We do,
however, have the nominal steady-state values for the other variables and so can calculate
‘k’ from a steady-state balance:

7
1 š
š "y} nn — " nn — =1 [ nn
7F

š ™
— ™
 — =™ ™
[
= š ™
\
=: ?a\ aZ  ;aZ

Inserting this back into the dynamic equation gives

7
š "y} — " — 
 [
7F

Bracketing the non-linear terms and taking deviation variables:

7   
š "y} — " — 
 [ 
7F

Now we need to linearise the bracketed non-linear terms


R"y} R"y} 
"y}  " – y}
R" nn Ry} nn

 y} "  – "nn y}

 
"  – y}

"  nn "  – "nn  

"  –  

\ [ 
7 
 [
™
  
7 nn

 
 nn ™

  

Substitute the linearised approximations back into the original equation:

7  
š 
"  – y} —
"  –   —  
7F

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ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
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Rearranging

7  
š "  – y} —  
7F

Converting to standard form:

7  
™
a\ –   š

"  – 
a\ y}
7F

We can see a lot about the sort of response we can expect just by looking at the equation.
The equation is first-order and is stable, so we know the shape of the response to a step
change in input. The time constant of the response is 3×10-3 hrs, or 10.8 seconds – after
a step, we can expect the response to be 63% complete after 10.8sec (one time constant),
95% complete after 32.4sec (3 time constants) and 99% complete after 54 seconds(5 time
constants). The steady-state gain on flowrate changes is 0.04995 – if we change the flowrate
by 0.1 m3.hr-1, we can expect the final outlet concentration (steady-state) to change by
0.004995 kg.m-3. The gain on the inlet concentration is 10-3 – a change of 5 kg.m-3 in the
inlet concentration should produce a final outlet concentration change of 5×10-3 kg.m-3.

The t-domain response to a step in F* we’ll get from this system is described by the equation:
p g y
a‚
  F š

™"™  — 8 \™ZYŒŠ

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ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
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11 PID CONTROLLER ALGORITHM

MAIN LEARNING POINTS
• On-off control and deadbands
• The components of a PID algorithm and how they contribute to the overall
controlled system behaviour
• The effect of controller gain, reset time and derivative time constant on a controlled
system’s response
• Some of the different forms of the PID algorithm

I’ve already discussed the basic idea of feedback control, where the controller takes a fed-
back measurement of the controlled output, compares it with a setpoint, and then computes
a manipulation value that will bring the two closer together. We haven’t so far considered
the algorithms that can carry out this computation, but we’ll do so in this section.

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11.1 REALLY SIMPLE FEEDBACK CONTROLLER – ON-OFF

Figure 58 – pure on-off control

The simplest type of feedback controller is one that implements an on-off control algorithm.
In this algorithm, the controller output has only two states: fully on; or fully off. Let’s say
the process to be controlled has a negative overall gain (i.e. a fully on controller action will
produce a negative change in controlled variable output). In this case, if the measurement
rises above the setpoint the controller will open its output fully and so drive the controlled
variable back down. The controller will hold its output on until the controlled variable
crosses the setpoint and becomes less. At this point, the controller output will switch to
fully off, to raise the output once more towards the setpoint. This behaviour will repeat at
a frequency which is dependent on the dynamics in the system, producing a fast oscillation
like that shown in the figure 58.

Figure 59 – on-off with deadband

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The high frequency oscillation of pure on-off control holds the controlled output close to
the setpoint at all times (provided the control effort is sufficient) but is often not acceptable
due to the wear it causes to the final control element which must switch between fully on
and fully off at a high frequency. In situations where this is likely to be a problem (i.e.
almost always) on-off control may be implemented with a deadband around the setpoint.
The deadband, which is often made adjustable, is a region around the setpoint where the
controller takes no action at all. If a deadband was added to the controller in the example
above, then the controller would not change state the first time until the controlled variable
moved past the upper edge of the deadband. This would cause the controlled variable to
start to move down, back towards the setpoint and cross back into the deadband region. The
controller takes no action and the controlled variable moves further down, and eventually
crosses the setpoint. The controller still takes no action, until the controlled variable crosses
the lower edge of the deadband. At this point, the controller switches the output to fully
off and the controlled variable begins to rise again. This behaviour continues for as long
as the controller is switched on, causing a lower frequency oscillation which is dependent
on the dynamics of the system and on the width of the deadband – larger deadbands will
cause lower frequency oscillations. The behaviour of an on-off controller with dead-band
is illustrated in figure 59.

Deadbands are sometimes used with more sophisticated controllers too as they prevent
the controller taking action when the controlled variable is oscillating around the setpoint
value due to noise.

On-off control is common in domestic applications – most central heating systems operate
using this type of control. However, the continuously oscillating nature of the response is
not desirable in process engineering applications, where there are usually several hundred
individual controllers involved.

11.2 PROPORTIONAL-INTEGRAL-DERIVATIVE (PID) CONTROL

The Proportional-Integral-Derivative controller is almost universally used in feedback control
applications in the process industries. Even when more sophisticated controller techniques,
such as predictive control, are used they often cascade down onto lower level PID controllers
that actually make the changes to the process.

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The PID algorithm was first developed by an engineer who was designing an automatic
steering system for ships in the US Navy. He observed that the human helmsman, who was
given a bearing to steer by the captain, adjusted the position of the ships wheel according
to three factors: how far the current bearing was from the desired bearing (a big difference
would result in a big change in wheel position – the action is proportional ); how long the
bearing had been different from the desired bearing (if a difference was persisting, then the
helmsman would turn the wheel further – effectively integrating the error); how quickly the
actual bearing was changing (if the actual bearing was changing very quickly towards the
desired bearing, then the helmsman would see that the time based derivative was too high
and move the wheel back a bit).

The earliest PID controllers implemented these human generated control rules by mechanical
means, with bellows, nozzles, flappers and compressed air. Soon, however, there was a need
for analysis and the PID algorithm was expressed mathematically. There are many different

360°
forms of the PID algorithm, but the one we’ll mainly be using in this course is what is

.
known as the classical form:

64 š ˜ &f L –

Pi
L7F – Pgthinking
7L
7F
– <4E

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thinking . 360°
thinking .
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Where 64 = control action (controller output)

˜ = a switch, to switch the controller between direct (‘+’) or reverse
(‘-’) action
L = error = K — Knl
&f = controller gain, an adjustable parameter
Pi = integral time constant, also known as reset time, an adjustable
parameter
Pg = Derivative time constant, an adjustable parameter
<4E = The nominal controller output at zero error, an adjustable
parameter.

The PID controller can be used in a variety of different ways, and the individual parts
(proportional, integral and derivative) can be switched off to make the algorithm suit different
applications. The most common way PID controllers are used in the process industry is
as a PI controller (with the derivative switched off), P controllers (integral and derivative
switched off) are sometimes used for level control, full PID control is used on fairly slow
non-noisy systems. The other possible control modes (I,ID,PD) are very rarely (never?)
used in the process industries and derivative-only control is never used, as it wouldn’t work!

It is useful to consider each of the three control modes individually, however.

11.3 PROPORTIONAL ONLY CONTROL

This is a PID controller with the integral and derivative actions turned off (by setting the
respective time constants to infinity and zero). The algorithm is now:

64 š ˜ &f L – <4E

Proportional action provides the fastest response of the three terms when an error enters
the system. It generates a change in the controller output instantaneously, and the size of
the change is proportional to the size of the error.

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Figure 60 – a P-controlled level

When used on its own, as a P controller, proportional action does have limitations. Consider
the system shown in figure 60. When the system is at its nominal steady-state (steady-state
at flowsheet conditions) the error in the controller will be zero (the level will be at the
setpoint) and the manipulated exit valve will be held open, by the bias term, far enough
to make sure that the exit flowrate matches the inlet flowrate. If a disturbance now enters
the process that causes the inlet flowrate to rise, the level in the tank will start to increase.
The controller will detect this increase, and will start to open the valve. If the gain is very
large it will open the exit valve a long way, to bring the level back towards the setpoint
very quickly. However eventually, provided the system is stable, the controller will reach
a steady-state where the outlet flowrate matches the inlet flowrate, and the level will stop
changing. However this steady-state will only occur if there is a non-zero residual steady-
state error called the steady-state offset. If the offset isn’t present (i.e. the error is zero) the
output of the controller will be equal to the bias and the flow out will be equal to the
original flow. The only way the system can come to steady-state under proportional-only
control is to have a steady-state offset. This is a ‘feature’ of proportional-only control and
occurs on all disturbance changes, and on almost all setpoint changes (the one exception
is when controlling a system with an integrator, such as the system in figure 60) where
setpoint changes will be tracked without offset.

The amount of offset can be reduced by increasing the gain (as the gain tends to infinity,
the offset tends to zero), but in practical systems stability considerations limit the maximum
value of gain that can be used.

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The most common use of pure proportional control is in level control, where exact control
of the level isn’t usually required – all that is important is that the level is kept between
certain limits(although in practical situations a little integral is still added to ‘centre’ the
response). In these situations, allowing the level to vary can be a positive advantage, as
the capacity can smooth out variations in the input signal. Figure 61 shows the level in a
system like that in figure 60 with a very high gain proportional controller, with the input
flow being subjected to a sinusoidal variation.

Figure 61 – Level in a high-gain P controlled tank

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ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
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The setpoint of the controller is set at 1, and you can see that the high gain of the controller
is very successful in holding the level close to this value.

Figure 62 – inlet and outlet flows at a high gain

However, now look at figure 62 – this shows the input (red) and output (blue) flowrates
from the tank (you won’t be able to see the two traces as they overlap). The high gain
means that the controller is moving the valve a long way in response to level changes, and
the variations in the inlet flowrate are being passed straight through to the outlet.

Dropping the controller gain results in much more variation in level (figure 64), but also
reduces the variation in flowrate that is passed through the tank (figure 63). The tank is
being used for surge control.

Figure 63 – inlet and outlet flows at low gain

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Figure 64 – Level changes at low gain

11.3.1 CALCULATING THE GAIN FOR LEVEL CONTROL APPLICATIONS

If the plan is to use the capacity of a vessel to even out variations in the inlet flow, then
it is possible to calculate an appropriate gain directly from a knowledge of the maximum
allowable variations in the level, and the maximum changes in the disturbance flowrate. The
maximum variation in level will be when the system comes to steady-state after a maximum
change in disturbance flowrate. At this point, the manipulated flowrate needs to be equal
to the disturbance flowrate, so the change in the manipulated flowrate needs to equal the
change in the disturbance, i.e.

G š #4<@™L š 7

Hence, the gain can be calculated. Note that the gain that is calculated is the product of the
controller and valve gain (i.e. the gain between the measurement and the change in flowrate).

Example:
What gain would be required to limit changes in level to ±0.5m, when the inlet flowrate
changes by ±5m3.h-1.

 \ aZ
#4<@ š š 

?  ; ?



The controller gain would need to be obtained from this value from a knowledge of the
valve gain. Adjustments would also have to be made to deal with the dimensionless gains
that are used in all controllers. In practice the gains on level control systems are usually
adjusted by trial and error, guided by prior knowledge.

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11.4 INTEGRAL ONLY CONTROL

Although integral-only control isn’t commonly used (and is impossible to implement using
the classical PID algorithm) it is useful to consider its behaviour as it sheds light on the
contribution integral action makes when mixed with the other control modes.
An algorithm for integral-only control is:

64 š ˜ &i L7F – <4E

The integral gain, &i , is an adjustable constant. In the classical algorithm it is made up of
two other constants, i.e.

&f
&i š
Pi

changing either &f or Pi will change the value of the integral gain, and hence the effect of
integral action. However if the controller gain is changed then this will affect the proportional
and derivative components as well (which makes controller tuning a bit easier). In mixed
mode (e.g. PI or PID) controllers the relative effect of integral action is adjusted by changing
the integral time constant.

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ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
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Now, let’s look at an integral-only controller’s response to a constant error (let L š ! where
E is a constant). In this case the controller output is:

64 š &i !7F – <4E

64 š &i ™!™F – <4E

So, a pure-integral controller will respond to a constant error with a controller output that
increases linearly with time, with a gradient which is dependent on the size of the error
and on the integral gain.

This is the big advantage of the integral term – while an error is present in the system,
integral action will always be changing the controller output to try to eliminate the error.
The integral part of a PID control will only stop changing the controller output when the
error becomes equal to zero. A controller which has integral action enabled will not suffer
from steady-state offsets – these will always be eventually eliminated by the integral part
of the algorithm.

There is a practical downside to the continuous integration of the error and hence the
continuous change in controller output. In real systems there is a limit on the range of
any manipulation that can be applied – a valve can’t be more closed than fully closed, nor
more open than fully open. A pure integral controller won’t recognise this – it will continue
to integrate the error even when the controller output has reached it high or low limit
(this is known as output saturation). This causes problems when the error reduces – the
large error integral that has been built up will hold the output against the limit for a long
time, resulting in the measured value grossly overshooting the setpoint. In extreme cases
this behaviour, which is called integral saturation or reset windup, or just windup, can cause
the output of the controller to oscillate between its high and low limits. All controllers
are protected against local windup (windup caused by the limits of that controller being
reached). This is often done by simply switching off the integration of the error when an
output limit is reached, and then switching it back on when the output moves off the limit.
Saturation is a potential problem, however, when multiple controllers are connected in a
cascade arrangement – this is described later.

11.5 DERIVATIVE ACTION

Derivative only control is never used. The reason is clear to see when the equation for
derivative-only control is considered:

7L
64 š ˜ &f Pg – <4E
7F

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Derivative action works on the derivative of the error. It only changes the controller output
when this derivative is non-zero. Provided the error isn’t changing, derivative action will
do nothing at all, regardless of the actual value of the error. As a mechanism for reducing
error, derivative action is useless.

When working with the other control modes, however, derivative action can result in
significant control performance improvements. Derivative action generates a controller output
change which is proportional to the rate of change of the error. If the error derivative is
large and positive (i.e. the error is rapidly increasing) then derivative action will make a
big positive change in the control action – it will apply lots of effort to try to reduce the
future error. On the other hand, if the error derivative is large and negative (i.e. the error
is rapidly decreasing) then this is probably because excess control action has already been
applied and the measured value is likely to significantly overshoot the setpoint. In this case
(with a large negative error derivative) derivative action will make a big negative change in
the control action to try to reduce the rate of setpoint approach. Using derivative action
alongside the other control modes can stabilise the controlled response and allow higher
gains and shorter integral time constants to be used, and so improve the quality of control.

However, despite the potential improvements that derivative action can provide, there are
two reasons that it isn’t frequently used: it’s awkward to tune; and it has real problems
with noisy systems. Derivative action is difficult to tune because it only really improves
controlled response through its interactions with the other control modes. Changing the
gain or integral time constant will change the effect that the derivative action has. This can
lead to a long, and expensive, trial and error tuning process. However, the second problem
(it’s sensitivity to noise) is even more serious.

Figure 65 – Moisture measurements from a dryer in a whisky distillery

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Figure 65 shows some moisture measurement information from a grain dryer in a whisky
distillery. The important thing to notice is the spikes and ‘rapid’ fluctuations in both
traces. The real process was a big rotating dryer (over 4m long and 2m in diameter) which
contained several tonnes of grain. This had a time constant measured in hours, and this can
be seen clearly on the trace on the right, where the controller moves the moisture content
from just under 15% down towards the setpoint of 12.5%. On top of the real process
variation there is a whole lot of random noise that is superimposed. The grain in the dryer
isn’t perfectly mixed and the infra-red sensor (used for moisture measurement) only looked
at a small portion. Sometimes the grain that was measured could have come from direct
contact with the heated surface and so be much dryer than the bulk, and other times grain
that hadn’t really touched the heaters would be scanned. These variations gave ‘spikes’ in
the moisture measurement.

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Imagine what would happen if a measurement signal of this sort was fed directly into a
controller with derivative action. The derivative part of the controller generates a change
in output that is proportional to the error derivative, and the spikes would produce huge
values of this (even if the error wasn’t large, the derivative is). This would cause the derivative
action to make large changes to the controller output, which would then be applied to
the process causing large, real, changes to the controlled variable. Very quickly the whole
system would become unstable.

If derivative control is to be used on a system, then any noise needs to be filtered out. This
is relatively straight forward when the noise is of a significantly different frequency, compared
to real process changes. In temperature control in large tanks the noise frequency will be
multiple Hz, compared to the vessel time constants of several hours and the noise can be
almost completely removed without affecting the process signal. In faster systems, like flow
control, where the noise and real measurement change at similar rates it is impossible to
remove the noise without significantly degrading the process measurement, and derivative
action should never be used.

11.6 PROPORTIONAL-INTERGRAL (PI) CONTROL

PI control is by far the most common type of feedback control in the process industries. It is
achieved by simply setting the derivative time constant to zero, producing the PI algorithm:


64 š ˜ &f L – L7F – <4E
Pi

With the classical algorithm, the controller gain affects both the proportional and integral
parts of the algorithm. To change the relative balance between the two, the integral time
constant is adjusted.

In the PI algorithm, the proportional part provides the immediate, fast, response to errors
entering the system. The integral part of the algorithm then removes any residual steady-
state error.

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11.7 PID CONTROL RESPONSE

Figure 66 – a PID controlled response

Figure 66 shows the results of a simulation of full PID control of a third-order process.
The top plot shows the values of the controlled variable (in red) and the constant setpoint
(the green line). The process was disturbed at time t=0 by injecting a step disturbance, and
the PID controller attempted to counteract the effects of this disturbance. In the three
plots below the controlled variable, I’ve separated out the contributions made to the overall
controller output by the proportional, integral and derivative parts.

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At point ‘A’ the disturbance has caused the controlled variable to move away from the
setpoint, but the error is fairly small. Proportional action has gone positive, but isn’t too large
as the error is small. Integral action has also gone positive, but the effect is small, because
the error and the length of time it has existed are tiny. Derivative action has gone positive,
and to a larger extent than the other two control modes. Although the error is small, the
error derivative is large. By applying a large positive control action the derivative term will
act to reduce this error derivative and so reduce the amount of deviation from the setpoint.

At point ‘B’ the controlled variable has reached its maximum positive deviation from the
setpoint. The proportional action is now generating its maximum positive effect (remember
that it generates an action which is proportional to error). The effect of integral action has
increased, but is still well below its maximum value – the time hasn’t been sufficient to
build up a big error integral. Derivative action is at zero as the direction of change switches.

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At point ‘C’, the error is still positive but the controlled variable is moving back towards the
setpoint. The proportional term is still producing a positive control action, but less than the
maximum. The integral term is adding a large positive contribution, as it has been integrating
the error over all the time since the disturbance entered the system. Derivative action is
now producing a negative contribution to the overall control action – it is reducing the
effect of the other two control modes. This is because the error derivative is now negative.
Derivative action is slowing the rate of approach to the setpoint and hence the size of the
subsequent undershoot of the setpoint.

At point ‘D’ the controlled variable dips below the setpoint, and the error becomes negative.
Proportional action switches negative as a result, and is trying to drive the controlled variable
back up. Integral action remains positive – it has built up a big positive integrated error.
The output from the integral term is a bit less that its maximum value because the negative
error has started to eat away at the accumulated positive error integral. The derivative term
is still negative as the error derivative is negative, and derivative action is working with the
proportional term to pull the controlled value back towards the setpoint. At point ‘E’ the
system has now almost reached steady-state. The controlled variable is sitting on the setpoint
and so the error is zero. The proportional and derivative terms’ contribution have dropped
to zero as the error and error derivative are zero. Integral action is, however, significantly
non-zero. This is because the integral action is applying all the steady-state correction that
is required to precisely counteract the effects of the disturbance. Although the other two
control models are doing nothing at the final steady state, they did contribute significantly
to the dynamic behaviour of the response.

11.8 OTHER FORMS OF PID ALGORITHM

The classical form of the PID algorithm is only one of many that are available. In the past
individual manufacturers had their own takes on the algorithm and supplied controllers
with these ideas built in. Nowadays most modern controllers offer a choice in the type of
algorithm that the controller uses. There usually aren’t strong reasons to use one algorithm
over another; it’s often just a matter of taste and what the particular control engineer is
used to.

11.8.1 PARALLEL, OR NON-INTERACTING, ALGORITHM

7L
64 š ˜ &l L – &i L7F – &g – <4E
7F

In this algorithm the proportional, integral and derivative terms have their own independent
gains. Adjusting the proportional gain no longer affects the other two terms.

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11.8.2 SERIES ALGORITHM

 7L
64 š ˜ &f L– L7F  – Pg – <4E
Pi 7F

This is a bit of a mess of an algorithm that is a historical artefact; it can be implemented

using a single pneumatic or electronic amplifier. The problem with the algorithm is that
all of the terms interact with each other making it difficult to relate the output of the
controller to the individual modes (which is handy to be able to do for controller tuning).

11.8.3 ALGORITHM TWEAKS

There are lots of minor and not so minor tweaks for the PID algorithm that may be
implemented in particular controllers.

Derivative action is sometimes based on the derivative of the measured variable, rather
than the error. This deals with the potential problem that can be caused with the standard
method (derivative of error) when somebody introduces a step change in setpoint (and so
creates an infinite error derivative!)

Almost all practical derivative action is implemented with a built-in first-order filter. In early
controllers this was essential, as it was the only way that the derivative could be obtained –
an analogue mechanism can’t ‘save’ old values like a digital system. With current controllers,
the filter provides protection against sudden changes in setpoint (if the derivative is error
based) and spikes in the measurement (although the measurement should already be filtered
sufficiently outside of the controller).

Modifications can also be made to proportional action. Using the square of the error
dramatically increases the change on large errors, but reduces the action on smaller errors.
However, this produces a non-linear controller that can be awkward to tune.

11.8.4 DIGITAL IMPLEMENTATIONS OF THE PID ALGORITHM

The PID algorithm needs to be altered to work in digital systems that rely on sampling
the process (the measurements are numbers that represent snapshots of the process state).
The positional algorithm is a direct conversion of the analogue algorithm into its digital
equivalent, and generates the actual value of the controller output:

z
F L = — L¡= — ¢
64 = š ˜ &f L = – S < – Pg – <4E
Pi F
ybZ

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where 64 = = controller output at the current (kth) sample

L = = error at the current sample
F = 
sample interval for the controller (the time between successive
snapshots)

An alternative form of this, called the velocity algorithm is much more commonly used.
This is formed by subtracting the previous output (at sample k-1) from the current one:

64 = — 64 = — 

š ˜ &f L = — L = — 

z zaZ
F F L = —L =—
– S < — L < – Pg
Pi Pi F
ybZ ybZ

L =— —L =—
— Pg
F

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ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
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or

F L = — L = — 
64 = š ˜ &f L = – L = – Pg
Pi F

The control algorithm gives the change required in the controller output, and so this needs
to be added to the previous output. The reason that this form of the algorithm is popular is
because it provides bumpless transfer from manual to automatic operation in the controller.
Most processes are moved to new operating points under manual control. When the operator
gets the process near to where it should be they will flip the switch to put the controller
into automatic mode. With the positional algorithm, if the error is not exactly zero then
the proportional term will cause a sudden change in the controller output and this will be
transmitted to the process causing a sudden disturbance (a bump). If the velocity algorithm
is used, then a non-zero initial error won’t cause an immediate proportional response (since
the proportional action operates on the change of error). Instead, integral action will activate
(this will be tuned to be much less aggressive than proportional) and make gradual changes
in the controller output to reduce the error.

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12 CONTROL SYSTEM ANALYSIS

MAIN LEARNING POINTS
• Analysis of simple feedback control systems using transfer functions and block
diagrams
• Analysis of the response of first- and second-order process under pure proportional
control
• Analysis of the response of first-order processes under pure integral control.

Control system analysis involves using mathematics to understand the behaviour of control
systems. This lets us predict how particular systems will respond and, more interestingly, allow
us to design control algorithms and systems that will produce particular desired behaviours.

12.1 ANALYSIS OF A TYPICAL FEEDBACK CONTROL SYSTEM

Transfer functions, which we have already covered, and block diagrams are a very powerful
way of analysing control systems. A typical feedback control system is illustrated in figure 67.

Figure 67 – a typical feedback control system

GC is the transfer function for the controller algorithm; GCV is the control valve TF; GP
is the manipulation process transfer function (i.e. the ‘process’ by which the manipulation
affects the controlled output); Gd is the disturbance process transfer function; and Gm is
the transfer function of the measuring instrument.


Knl ¡E¢ is the Laplace transform of the setpoint signal (expressed in deviation variables);

7 ¡E¢ a disturbance signal; and K  ¡E¢ the controlled variable.

Gd and Gp represent the model of the whole 2 input/single output process that is being
controlled. The input to GP is the manipulation signal, which is being adjusted by the
control loop.

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Using the rules of block diagram algebra, we can get an expression that shows us the overall
transfer functions between the setpoint and controlled variable and the disturbance and
controlled variable. To do this, start from the right hand side of the block diagram and
work backwards.


K  E š #v 7  E – ˜ # #fq #f #| K  E — Knl E

The K  that appears on the right-hand side needs to be moved across:


K  E  — ˜ # #fq #f #| š #v 7  E — ˜ # #fq #f Knl E

The ˜ term is simply the switch on the controller to move it between reverse and direct
acting. Whether it takes a positive or negative value depends on the sign on the control
valve and process gains. The control valve gain sign will switch depending on whether an
air-to-open or air-to-close valve is used (air-to-open will have a positive gain – an increase
in input will lead to an increase in flow). The sign on the process gain is entirely dependent
on the process model. Ultimately, we want to choose a controller action that gives a positive
summation on the left side of the equation above (and also a positive setpoint gain), i.e.


K  E  – # #fq #f #| š #v 7  E – # #fq #f Knl E

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The control valve and measurement transfer functions are real – there is a gain between
the controller output and the flowrate, and the measurement and the signal transmitted
back to the controller, and both devices will have dynamics. However, for simplicity, we’ll
be assuming that the dynamics are very fast (i.e. time constants close to zero) and that the
gains are absorbed into the process transfer functions (i.e. Gp contains not just the process
gain, but the gains of the control valve and measuring instrument too).

The equation can therefore be simplified to


K  E  – # #f š #v 7  E – # #f Knl E

or

#v # #f 
K E š 7 E – Knl E
 – # #f  – # #f

12.2 THE PID ALGORITHM AS A TRANSFER FUNCTION

To carry out a control analysis on a PID-controlled system, we need the controller transfer
function. The classical algorithm is:

 7L
64 š &f L – L7F – Pg – <4E
Pi 7F

This needs to be converted into deviation variable form:



 
7L 
64 š &f L – L 7F – Pg
Pi 7F

and then into Laplace transforms:

 
 L E
64 ¡E¢ š &f L E – – Pg EL  E
Pi E


64 ¡E¢ š &f  – – Pg E L  E
Pi E

and so the transfer function of the PID controller is:

64 ¡E¢ 
#f E š 
š &f  – – Pg E
L E Pi E

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12.3 ANALYSIS OF PROPORTIONAL CONTROL OF A

FIRST-ORDER PROCESS
For a proportional controller

#f E š &f

and for a first-order process

&| &v
K E š G E – 7  ¡E¢
 – PE  – PE

if the time constants for the disturbance and manipulation are the same (as they often
are). ‘u’ is the symbol normally used for the manipulated variable, ‘d’ for a disturbance,
and the ‘K’s are the manipulation and disturbance steady-state gains. Note these are shown
as positive in this example, but can be either positive or negative – it depends completely
on the process model.

We can represent this controlled system on a block diagram shown in figure 68.

Figure 68 – A first-order process with proportional control

Forming the overall (closed-loop) transfer functions:

&v &| 
K E š 7 E – & — K  E — Knl E
 – PE  – PE u
&| &f &v &| &f 
K E  – š 7 E – K ¡E¢
 – PE  – PE  – PE nl
&v &| &f 
K E š 7 E – Knl ¡E¢
 – PE – &| &f  – PE – &| &f

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We can look at the steady-state behaviour of this system by setting terms with ‘s’ to zero:

&v &| &f

K š 7 – K
 – &| &f  – &| &f nl

If the system was open-loop (with the controller switched off), then the steady state change
in the output on a disturbance change would be &v 7  . Adding proportional control has
reduced this change in the output by a factor of  – &| &f . The closed loop disturbance
gain of the system is now:

&v
 – &| &f

When the disturbance changes, there will be a steady-state offset even when the controller
is active. However this offset will be smaller when the controller is active than when the
system is open-loop. The controller gain, &f , is an adjustable parameter and can be altered
to provide any desired reduction in offset – as the gain approaches infinity, the offset will
approach zero.

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There will also be an offset on setpoint changes, as the closed loop gain is less than one.
The size of the offset will be given by:

&| &f
— K
 – &| &f nl

A controller with no offset would have a setpoint gain of one. Again, larger values of
controller gain will make this residual steady-state offset smaller.

Now let’s look at the effect of control on dynamic performance. To do this, rearrange the
closed loop TFs slightly to get them into standard form:

&v &| &f

 – &| &f  – &| &f 
K E š 7 E – Knl ¡E¢
– P –& & E – P –& & E
| f | f

Adding the controller has not changed the order of the response – the controlled process
will still respond in a first-order manner, but it has changed the gains (as we’ve already seen)
and the time constant. The time constant has been reduced by a factor of  – &| &f , and
so the controlled process is faster than the open loop process. The higher the controller
gain is set, the faster the controlled response.

In a pure first-order process there is no limit to how high the controller gain can be set. It
is impossible to destabilise the controlled response by increasing gain. However, all practical
processes are third-order or higher (see earlier) and these can always be destabilised by excessive
controller gain. Eliminating offsets by using very large controller gains is never practical.

12.4 EXAMPLE OF A FIRST ORDER PROCESS UNDER

PROPORTIONAL CONTROL
A stirred tank with refrigeration coil is used to cool a process stream. The inlet temperature
of the process stream is subject to disturbances and it is desired to use a proportional
controller to regulate the outlet temperature of the tank by manipulating the power of the
refrigeration unit.

The transfer functions of the system have been estimated as:

 



/ E š /y} E — , ¡E¢
 –
E  –
E

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where T is the tank outlet temperature, Tin, the inlet temperature and Q the refrigeration
power in W. The time constants of the TFs are in minutes.

If a proportional controller is used, what gain is required to reduce the steady-state change
in outlet temperature to 0.1oC after the inlet temperature changes in a step by 5oC? Sketch
the response of the controlled system and indicate how long it will take to come to steady-
state. What will be the change in refrigeration power at the new steady-state?

Normally I’d draw a block diagram of the controlled system, but since we’ve already had
several of these let’s just insert the controller algorithm directly into the TFs:


, E š &f /  ¡E¢ — /nl ¡E¢

Note that I’m using a direct-acting controller – this is because the gain on the manipulation
process is negative. Substituting for the manipulation in the TFs gives:

 


 
/ E š /y} E — & /  ¡E¢ — /nl ¡E¢
 –
E  –
E f

Moving T to the LHS of the equation


&f  


&f 
/ E  – š /y} E – / ¡E¢
 –
E  –
E  –
E nl

we’re just interested in disturbance rejection, and so we can set the setpoint change to zero
and re-arrange:


/ E š / E
 –
E –

&f y}

The steady-state gain is given by:

/ 
 
 š š
/y}   –

&f

and so the appropriate value of the gain can be calculated:

&f š 

at this gain, the time constant will be reduced to:

š

?<@GF8E š 
E86A@7E
 –

™

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Figure 69 – response of the example 1st order process under proportional control

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The final refrigerator power change can be calculated by using the controller algorithm at
the final steady-state conditions:

, š 

™
 —
š 
2

12.5 EXAMPLE OF A SECOND-ORDER PROCESS UNDER

PROPORTIONAL CONTROL
A process has the following transfer functions:
g
 
K E š [ G E — [ 7  ¡E¢
E – E –  E – E – 

A proportional controller is to be used to regulate against disturbances and to provide

setpoint tracking. Answer the following:

a) Sketch the open loop disturbance response

b) What is the maximum gain that can be used in the proportional controller before
the response will tend to oscillate?
c) At this gain, what is the steady-state offset on disturbance changes, as a percentage
of the open loop change expected?
d) At the same game, what is the offset on setpoint changes, as a percentage of the
change in setpoint.

a) The steady-state gain on the disturbance is -2. To find out more about the response
we need to get the roots of the characteristic equation:

— ˜ [ — ™™ — ˜ 
Eš š
™ 

so, the roots are -0.5 and -1. The roots are both negative, real and distinct – the response
is stable and overdamped (Figure 70).

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Figure 70 – open-loop disturbance response from example

b) Adding a proportional controller (the gain on the manipulation is positive, and so

a reverse acting controller is required).

 

K E š &u Knl ¡E¢ — K 
¡E¢ — 7  ¡E¢
E [ – E –  E [ – E – 
&f &f 

K E  – [ š [ Knl E — [ 7  ¡E¢
E – E –  E – E –  E – E – 

&f 

K E š Knl E — [ 7  ¡E¢
E [ – E –  – &f E – E –  – &f

To avoid oscillation, we need to make sure that the roots of the characteristic equation
stay real. The roots are:

— ˜  — ™™  – &f
Eš
™

For the roots to stay real, the term inside the square root must evaluate to a number
greater than, or equal to zero:

 —   – &f ž


—
&f   

&f 



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c) The closed loop disturbance gain is:

 
— š— š —
 – &f  – ™



The open loop gain is -2, and so the closed-loop steady-state offset as a percentage of the
open loop offset is

—
™

 š 
—

d) The steady-state gain on setpoint changes is:

&f ™


š š


 – &f  – ™



So the offset on setpoint changes, as a percentage of the setpoint change is  —


 ™

 š
 - if the setpoint is changed by 1, the output only reaches 0.056.

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12.6 ANALYSIS OF INTEGRAL CONTROL OF A FIRST-ORDER PROCESS

A pure integral controller has the transfer function:
L  ¡E¢
64 E š &i
E

Inserting this into the same first order process we used for proportional control gives the
block diagram in figure 71.

Figure 71 – Integral control of a first-order process

Forming the closed-loop TFs:

&v &| &f  

K E š 7 E — K E — Knl ¡E¢
 – PE  – PE E
&| &f &v &| &f 
K E  – š 7 E – K ¡E¢
 – PE E  – PE  – PE E nl
&v &| &f 
K E š 7 E – Knl ¡E¢
&| &f E  – PE – & &
 – PE – | f
E

multiplying top and bottom of the disturbance term by ‘s’ to get rid of the 1/s, and
rearranging:
&v E &| &f 
K E š [
7 
E – [
Knl ¡E¢
PE – E – &| &f PE – E – &| &f

The steady-state gain on setpoint changes (found by setting terms in ‘s’ to zero) is

&| &f
&| &f š 

and so perfect steady-state setpoint tracking is achieved. The steady-state gain on the
disturbance term is zero – when the system comes to steady-state the effect of the disturbance
will be completely eliminated. You can see that the controller gain, &f , appears in the
characteristic equation. The form of the second order response can be altered by changing
the controller gain. Higher gains will lead to less and less damping (moving an overdamped
process eventually to underdamping).

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13 CONTROLLER TUNING
MAIN LEARNING POINTS
• What’s involved in configuring a controller to suit a process
• What is a good controller performance
• Algorithmic methods of controller tuning (open-loop, closed-loop and lambda tuning)
• Trial and error tuning
• Control loop health monitoring

All controllers need to be tuned to suit a particular process application. In the case of PID
controllers it’s necessary to set appropriate values for the adjustable constants (controller
gain, reset time and derivative time constant). There are a variety of methods for doing this
that are discussed in this section.

Modern control systems can also monitor the controlled system behaviour over time and
use this information to spot potential problems. This loop monitoring is also discussed in
this section.

13.1 WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE TO TUNE A PID CONTROLLER?

There are a number of stages involved in setting up a PID controller for a particular
application:

1. The direction of control action needs to be specified. This is completely dependent

on the process (manipulation) gain and the type of valve (air-to-open or air-to-
close) that is used, but the switch in the controller needs to be set in the ‘direct’
or ‘reverse’ position before proceeding.
2. It is necessary to decide what types of control modes are required. A proportional-
only controller is the simplest, but has a problem with offset. PI is a bit more
complicated to tune, but doesn’t have offset problems. PID can, potentially, give
the best results but extreme care needs to be taken with noise. If derivative action
is to be used, then noise filters need to be in place before tuning takes place.
3. The controller constants need to be set at values appropriate to the process. High
gain processes usually have low controller gains. Processes with long time constants
usually have longer integral time constants. Most controller tuning will involve
some amount of trial and error. The process of setting the controller constants to
suit a particular process is known as controller tuning.

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13.2 HOW DO YOU DECIDE WHAT IS A GOOD

CONTROLLER PERFORMANCE?
In theory this should be easy – you choose the setup that maximises the economic
performance of the system. However chemical plants are complicated systems and usually
have hundreds of control loops. It is virtually impossible to assess the economic impact of
a particular controller’s performance. In place of a direct economic assessment then, other
measures are used. These can be split into two broad categories ‘academic’ measures and
‘practical’ measures.

13.2.1 ACADEMIC MEASURES OF CONTROL SYSTEM PERFORMANCE

If controlled system responses are to be compared scientifically, then it is useful to have a

single number that can indicate the superiority, or otherwise of a particular scheme. This
is particularly the case in academic papers, where the authors are often seeking to compare
some new proposed technique with existing methods.

The most common academic measures that are used are Integral Absolute Error (IAE); Integral
Squared Error (ISE); Integral Time-weighted Absolute Error (ITAE).

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Integral Absolute Error (IAE):

This is a measure that integrates the absolute value of the error signal over a particular test
period. All of the academic measures require the test period (usually after a disturbance or
setpoint change) to be stated as part of the problem definition. The absolute value of the
error is taken to avoid negative errors cancelling out positive values (if the absolute wasn’t
taken then a system in sustained oscillation would have an error integral of zero).

%! š L 7F

IAE treats all errors equally. There is no weighting against very large errors, nor against
errors that persist for a long time.

Integral Squared Error (ISE):

This measure integrates the square of the error over the test period.

%.! š L [ 7F

ISE weights against larger errors (because it squares them). To optimise for ISE, a controller
will have to eliminate larger errors quickly and this may mean tolerating smaller errors for
a longer time.

Integral Time-weighted Absolute Error (ITAE):

This measure integrates the absolute error, but weights the error with the time.

%/! š F L 7F

Because of this time weighting, errors that exist later in the experiment will have a much
larger effect than errors at the start. A controller optimised for ITAE will tend to eliminate
errors quickly, even if this means larger errors in the early part of the response.

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Figure 72 – A PI controller optimsed for the three response measures

Figure 72 shows the response of a PI controlled system (a third-order system with a negative
zero) with the gain and integral time constant optimised for the three different control
measures. ISE is producing the fastest response. The controller is trying to eliminate the
large error as quickly as possible. The aggressiveness of the controller is causing slightly larger
overshoots, but the larger errors are being eliminated quickly. The ISE tuned controller is
taking longer to eliminate the residual steady-state error – the tuning emphasises proportional
action for maximum speed of response, and small errors are acceptable. The IAE tuning
isn’t as aggressive as ISE – all errors are treated equally. The ITAE tuned controller is the
least aggressive. The priority with this controller is to damp down oscillation – errors that
exist later in the test will be highly weighted by the measure.

13.2.2 PRACTICAL MEASURES OF CONTROL PERFORMANCE

The academic measures are of little use in industrial applications. It is virtually impossible
to get a fixed period of operation where other disturbances are absent from the system and
this makes the comparisons using the academic measures impossible.

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Instead, much more simple, but robust measures are used. These include:

• Amount of steady-state offset.

• Rise time: the time taken to rise to the new setpoint for the first time after a
setpoint change. Controllers in the process industries are mainly used for disturbance
rejection, not servo action. However, disturbances, by definition, can not be called
up to order and controllers are normally tuned by observing their response to small
setpoint changes around the nominal operating point.
• Settling time: the time take to settle within a fixed amount (often 5%) of setpoint
after a change. Rise time and settling time are opposed. A system with a short rise
time is likely to be aggressive, with lots of overshoot and oscillation – leading to
long settling times. A system tuned to have a short settling time is likely to be
quite sedate, with limited overshoot and oscillations, but quite a long rise time.
• Decay ratio: the decay ratio is the ratio of the first and second oscillation peaks
after a setpoint change. The rule of thumb is that a decay ratio of ¼ represents a
good balance between rise time and settling time, and this is often the target used
by control engineers when carrying out trial and error tuning.

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13.3 SOME METHODS OF CONTROLLER TUNING

There are a number of ways in which at least initial estimates of the correct tuning parameters
for PID controllers can be obtained. None of these methods are foolproof, however, and the
very best controller tuning often requires some trial and error. In industry, it is relatively
common to find controllers that haven’t been tuned at all – the instrument people set
the correct direct of control action and leave the default factory settings for the control
parameters. The main reason for this is that controller tuning can be time consuming and
also requires engineers with the required skill set – these are relatively rare. However, often,
good tuning can pay for the time taken many times over.

13.3.1 CLOSED LOOP METHODS – ZIEGLER-NICHOLS

This method requires the controller to be put into automatic and set up for proportional-
only control. A series of small setpoint changes are then made and the response of the loop
observed. The object is to get the loop into a sustained oscillation by altering the controller
gain. If oscillations in the loop die away after a setpoint change, then the gain is increased.
If they start to grow (i.e. the system is unstable) then the gain is reduced (quickly!) Once
sustained oscillations are achieved, the controller gain is noted (this is called the ultimate
gain) and the period of oscillation (known as the ultimate period ) is also measured.These
values are then used to obtain the controller constants from table 10.

KC VU VT

P
&p - -


PI
&p +p -
 

PID
&p +p +p
  

Table 10 – Ziegler-Nichols settings

The Ziegler-Nichols settings can result in rather aggressive control, and alternative settings
have been suggested by Tyreus and Luyben (Table 11).

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KC VU VT

PI
&p +p -


PID
&p +p +p
 

Table 11 – Tyreus and Luyben controller settings

The Zielger-Nichols method sounds attractive at first, as the process remains under control
during the required tests. However, there are a number of problems with it that means that
it is rarely used in practical situations:

• Many processes have slow dynamics, and it can take a long time to form a pattern
of oscillations that can be used to determine whether they shrinking, growing or
holding steady.
• All processes are subject to random disturbances which will almost certainly interfere
with a long duration test.
• The method requires the process to be driven to the edge of stability. Without
careful monitoring of the test this could lead to serious problems.

13.3.2 OPEN-LOOP METHODS – PROCESS REACTION CURVE

Process information for tuning can be obtained by carrying out a step test on the open
loop system. This is done by putting the controller in manual and making a small step
change in output. A first-order plus dead-time model is then fitted to this resulting output
response (see earlier in the course) producing values for the manipulation process gain, &l ,
the time constant, τ, and the dead-time, Fv , and the controller parameters obtained from
one of the sets of published formulae (see tables 12 and 13).

KC VU VT

P
P &l ™ - -
Fv

P
PI
™&l ™  ™Fv -
Fv

P
PID ™&l ™ ™Fv
™Fv
Fv

Table 12 – Ziegler-Nichols open loop tuning parameters

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KC VU VT

 P Fv
P – - -
&l Fv P

Fv
 P Fv Fv
– P
PI
 – -
&l Fv P Fv
 – 
P

Fv Fv
 P Fv Fv  – P
PID  – F
&l Fv P Fv  –  v P
 –  P

Table 13 – Cohen-Coon open loop tuning formulae

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13.3.4 LAMBDA (OR IMC) TUNING

This is a ‘model based’ technique that seems to have become popular in industry (particularly
in the USA). The technique is basically a model-based control design called Internal
Model Control, but many of those writing about it seem to think that it has some sort of
magical powers!

The advantage of model based control is that you can design the controller to produce a
desired response rather than the response being adjusted after installation by altering controller
parameters. A true model-based design would require high-order, accurate, models, but the
lambda tuning technique approximates the process model by using a FOPDT (first-order
plus dead-time) model.

This model approximation is the same as that used in Ziegler-Nichols and Cohen-Coon
tuning, but those methods use tuning constants that minimise some error measure (e.g. ISE).
Lambda tuning, on the other hand, uses tuning constants that should always produce an
overdamped response to setpoint changes. It is still necessary to identify the gain, dead-time
and time constant for the approximate model, but lamda tuning introduces another, design,
parameter ‘λ’ that allows engineers to tailor the controlled response to different applications.

To tune a process using lamda tuning, the engineer first performs a step test and estimates
the model gain (K), time constant (τ) and dead-time ( Fv ,) (or identifies the model in some
other way). The value of ‘λ’ then needs to be chosen. ‘λ’ is essentially the closed-loop time
constant (if the model was perfect), and so the controlled response to a setpoint change will
be complete after 3λ to 5λ. However, this is only true in general if the approximate model
is a good representation of the real process. Model error can mess up lambda tuning and
produce responses with oscillation. To avoid this large values of ‘λ’ have to be used and
these provide what is known as robustness to the controller design (the closed loop response
will behave in the expected way even when there are fairly large errors in the model).

A common recommendation for lambda is that it should be three times the value of the
assumed process time constant or dead-time, whichever is bigger. Many authors suggest
modifications to this for different types of process, but the closed-loop response is always
slower that the open-loop response.

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Once lambda is chosen, the following rules are used for PI controller tuning:

P
&f š
&l N – Fv
Pi š P

where &f = controller gain

Pi = integral time constant
N = lambda
&l = process gain
P = process time constant
Fv = process dead-time

Advantages of Lambda tuning are:

• The slow setpoint reponse means that changing setpoints has limited effect on other
loops in the process. This has made lambda tuning popular in the paper industry.
• Multiple loops can be ‘synchronised’ to have similar closed loop responses.
• Important loops can be given precedence by allocating smaller lambda values to them.
• The method is robust and tolerant to pretty poor process testing and model-fitting.

Disadvantages of Lambda tuning

• The response is really slow – slower than open loop

• As a result of the slow response, disturbance rejection is terrible
• Special tuning rules need to be applied for non-standard processes (e.g. integrators
or open-loop unstable/oscillatory)

13.3.5 AUTOTUNING

Many PID controllers are sold with an autotuning feature. Usually this is a specific function
that needs to be activated, runs for a period, and then stops. adaptive controllers that
continuously modify their parameters to match changing process conditions are popular in
academia, but very uncommon in industry. Using an adaptive controller requires absolute
confidence that the adaption algorithm won’t do something horrible.

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There are a variety of autotuning techniques used by different manufacturers ranging from
relay-based methods (a bit like an automatic version of Ziegler-Nichols) to expert systems
(that look at controlled responses like an expert might). Although autotuning can be useful,
it can’t be relied on as a complete solution to the tuning problem for the following reasons:

• Just like the manual closed-loop and open-loop techniques, the formula used to
calculate controller constants from response parameters are not guaranteed to give
the best results in all cases.
• In interacting systems (where there are many manipulations and controlled variables,
and manipulations can affect several controlled variables) the behaviour of controllers
will change depending on whether other controllers are in manual or auto. This
is very common in the process industries (it exists, to some extent, in all practical
processes). and automatic tuning cannot take this into account.

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13.3.6 TRIAL AND ERROR TUNING

Trial and error tuning involves someone with some expertise playing with the loop and
adjusting the tuning constants to achieve the desired performance. Skilled tuners can
produce good results in less time that it takes to run Ziegler-Nichols or reaction curve tests.
Tuning of important loops will always be finished with some manual tweaking as experts
can always produce more tailored tuning that the general algorithms used in the methods
or in auto-tuning algorithms. The methods used for manual tuning vary with the person
doing the tuning, but one procedure is:

1. Set up the controller in P-only mode

2. Adjust gain until approximately ¼ decay ratio on small setpoint changes
3. If offset unacceptable, then reduce gain by around 20% and add integral action.
4. Adjust gain/integral time constant according to the form of response obtained.
5. Derivative control needs special considerations

At step 4, the gain and integral time constant needs to be adjusted – the map shown in
figure 64 could be useful.

Figure 73 – Tuning map for PI control

The ‘ideal’ tuning in figure 73 is in the centre of the map, with quick rise time, settling
time and quarter decay ratio. At the bottom left the gain is too low (the immediate change
in output on setpoint change is small) and the integral time constant is too long (it’s taking
ages for the controlled variable to rise to the setpoint). At the top left, the gain is too high
(the process has been driven into sustained oscillations) but the integral time constant is
still too long – the centre of the oscillations is taking ages to centre on the new setpoint.
The rest of the map is self-explanatory.

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13.4 CONTROL LOOP HEALTH MONITORING

Controllers that were initially well tuned sometimes become less effective as time goes on.
This can because of process changes, such as heat exchangers fouling or catalysts degrading,
that cause the gains and dynamic parameters of the process response (and hence the required
tuning) to change. Operating points may also change – production levels can be varied and,
in some plants, the grade or even type of product produced can be changed.

Often these changes in the gains and dynamic parameters of the process cause only gradual
reductions in controller performance that are not really noticed until the effects become
really bad.

Some modern SCADA (Scanning Control And Data Acquisition) systems can provide
control loop health monitoring, which can monitor the loops in a plant and provide early
warning of potential problems. Some of the things that can be monitored are:

• The fraction of time a loop spends in auto. If this changes, with the loop spending
more time in manual then it suggests that operators are unhappy with the loop
performance.
• The percentage of the operating time the output from the controller is saturated.
All controllers will occasionally saturate (the output bumps against a limit) but
when they do they are no longer adequately controlling the process. An increasing
length of time spent saturated suggests that the available control effort is no longer
suitable for the process – perhaps the valve needs resized or pipework cleaned.
• The oscillation index is a measure used to characterise the amount of oscillation in
a controlled response. If this changes significantly it indicates that something has
happened to put the loop out of tune.
• Variability in controlled variable and manipulation can be measured in a number
of ways (e.g. by calculating the standard deviation over a fixed, moving, period) If
the process is assumed to be operating in a roughly constant way, then changes in
variability suggest something has changed in the loop.
• IAE and other control measures can be used in a moving period basis (e.g. the
IAE is calculated over 50 hours, but the period covered moves forward every five
minutes) and used as alternative measures of controlled variable variability.
• Stiction represents the force required to get something moving from a standing
start, and takes into account the impulse but also the ‘stickiness’ involved. Control
valves drive valve stems up and down through sealing systems. When an air pressure
is applied, the valve won’t start moving until the pressure reaches a level sufficient
to overcome the stiction between the stem and the seal. As the seal wears, or gets
contaminated, the stiction involved will change, and consistent changes may suggest
the need to service the valve.

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• Settling time is another measure associated with variability, and for it to be used
effectively requires that the process operates in pretty much the same way over time.
• Operator activity can also be recorded. This includes changing setpoints or flipping
the controller from auto to manual and back again. Increases in the amounts of
operator activity on a loop suggest that they are giving it more attention and that
there is a potential problem.

13.5 CONTROL LOOP DIAGNOSTICS

When there is a problem with a control loop, it usually isn’t the controller that’s at fault.
Instead it’s much more likely to be one of the other loop components: an instrument
might be faulty, or in need of recalibration; a control valve may be sticking; there may be
interference in a communications line. It’s important to eliminate other possible trouble
sources before attempting to retune the controller. Retuning may mask other problems for
a while, but it won’t eliminate them. Even when it’s decided that retuning is necessary it’s
worth trying to find out why – has the process changed? Has new equipment been installed?
Are heat exchangers fouling? Only after a reasonable explanation for the need for retuning
been established should the controller actually be adjusted.

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14 MORE ADVANCED SINGLE-LOOP

CONTROL ARRANGEMENTS
MAIN LEARNING POINTS
• Extensions to basic feedback control: cascade; selective and override control
• Ratio control
• Steady-state and dynamic feedforward control

Up to now we’ve been talking about a standard feedback loop, where there is a controller,
final control element, process and measuring device all connected together in a loop. In
practice there are often modifications made to this scheme for various purposes. Also, there
is a completely different type of single-variable control, called feedforward control. These are
the subjects of this chapter.

14.1 CASCADE CONTROL

Figure 74 – reactor control without a cascade

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Cascade control is very common in the process industries. To understand how it works,
consider the process in figure 74. This represents a CSTR with both the inlet and outlet
valves being manipulated. The outlet valve is being used to control the level in the reactor,
and the inlet to control the outlet concentration by varying the flow through the reactor (and
hence the mean residence time). Let’s look at the operation of the concentration controller.
This will work for changes in most of the potential disturbances: e.g. inlet concentration
changes; temperature changes; etc. However, it won’t give the best possible performance
for one of the most common types of disturbance: pressure variations in the feed line.
These pressure variations could be caused by upstream changes (e.g. a change of level in a
vessel) or by variations in density or and/or viscosity in the feedstream. The signal from the
controller only sets the stem position of the valve, and if the pressure drop over the valve
changes, then this will quickly lead to a change in the flowrate being delivered by the valve.
The change in flowrate will then change the mean residence time in the reactor and lead to
a gradual change in the outlet concentration. The concentration controller will detect this
and act to eliminate the disturbance, but if the reactor is large, then the dynamics will be
slow and it could take a considerable time for the controller to alter the inlet valve position
to suit the new pressure.

A better way of regulating against inlet flow line pressure variations is shown in figure 75.
In this P&ID a flow controller has been added onto the inlet flowrate. This flowrate can
now be regulated against disturbances in the flow line pressure. The reponse of the loop
will be very fast – the only significant dynamics are those of the valve and these will have
a time constant of seconds, or less. There is a big problem with this scheme, however,
and that is that we’ve given up controlling the outlet concentration from the reactor. Any
disturbances, other than flow line pressure changes, will now cause the outlet concentration
to drift from its desired value.

Figure 75 – Reactor with inlet flow control

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We need to be able to control the outlet concentration, but we have no valve available to
allow a controller to be connected to the process. We do, however, have an input that we
can use – the setpoint to the flow controller. If we plug the output of our concentration
controller into the flow controller setpoint, we’ll get the scheme shown in figure 76. This
arrangement is called cascade control – we’ve cascaded the output of XC001, the primary or
master controller, onto the setpoint of FC001, the secondary or slave controller. If a disturbance
enters the process that causes the outlet concentration to change (such as a change in inlet
concentration) then XC001 will deal with this by altering the flow setpoint. FC001 will
track this new setpoint and change the flowrate through the reactor. The overall control of
concentration will be relatively sluggish as it will be dictated by the dynamics of the reactor.
However, if an inlet pressure disturbance occurs this will be corrected very quickly by the
flow controller, leaving very little for the concentration controller to deal with.

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Figure 76 – Reactor with cascade control

Cascade control is widely used in the process industries. The most common application are
controllers cascading onto flow controller secondaries – that way the primary controllers are
adjusting flowrates rather than valve stem positions, but other cascade loops are used too.
For cascade to be applicable, the following conditions must be present:

• The overall process must be made up of at least two sub-processes, and the outputs
of the sub-processes must be measurable
• The secondary process (the flow system in the example) must have a strong causal
effect on the primary (the outlet reactor concentration in the example).
• The secondary process needs to be at least five times as fast as the primary (if it
isn’t then cascade won’t produce performance improvements).

Cascade control is easy to set up, provided it’s done in a systematic way.

1. Set-up the secondary controller first. Switch the controller to accept a local setpoint
and then tune it using one of the techniques discussed earlier.
2. Prepare the primary. The measurement and setpoint limits will be set as normal, but
the output of the controller is now going to the setpoint of the secondary. If the
control system in use simply specifies outputs as a percentage (i.e. 0–100%), then
nothing special needs to be done. However, many SCADA systems use engineering
units, and appropriate units and ranges need to be set to make the output signal
match the setpoint of the target secondary controller (for the example above, the
units might be set to m3.h-1, and the limits set to whatever are appropriate limits
for the flowrate (but see below about saturation).

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3. Connect the primary output to the secondary setpoint (with a wire, or a software
link) and then flip the secondary controller’s setpoint source switch from local to
remote (so that the setpoint is now taken from the output of the primary). Put
the secondary controller into AUTO.
4. Now tune the primary as normal – the secondary controller effectively becomes
part of the process being controlled.

Integral saturation can be a problem in higher level controllers in a cascade system. single
loop controllers are usually protected against saturation in their own outputs (e.g. when the
output hits a limit, the integral action is switched off). However, the primary controller in
a cascade loop isn’t directly connected to the process. It is possible for the primary to set
an output that causes the secondary controller to saturate (i.e. the valve moves to a limit).
Without extra protection, the primary won’t know this, and will continue to integrate the
error. To deal with this there needs to be extra communication between the secondary and
the primary to inform the primary of the saturation in the secondary – extra logic can then
switch off the integral action in the primary. Most controllers have features that allow this
extra anti-windup protection to be setup, but sometimes the engineers who have installed
the control system don’t setup the protection properly. This should always be checked if a
cascade loop is suffering from large overshoots on setpoint or disturbance changes.

14.2 SELECTIVE OR AUTIONEERING CONTROL

Figure 77 – temperature profile in a tubular reactor

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In some pieces of equipment in chemical plant, the controlled variable can change not
just with time, but also with the position it is measured in the equipment. An example of
this is the temperature in an exothermic tubular reactor. In these reactors the temperature
changes as the reactants move along the length of the reactor (figure 77). The reactants
enter the reactor relatively cool, but then begin to react and get warmer. As the temperature
increases the rate of reaction rises, increasing the rate of temperature increase. Eventually,
however, the reactants become depleted and the rate slows down again. As the hot gases
move along the reactor they meet colder and colder coolant that is flowing, in a jacket or
tubes, counter-current to the reacting mixture. When the reactants are almost exhausted
this cooling effect overcomes the reaction heating and the reacting mixture begins to cool.
This leaves a temperature profile in the reactor similar to that in figure 77, where there is
a clear ‘hot-spot’ in the reactor. Control of this hot-spot temperature is important: if it is
too low, then the reaction may not progress to the extent desired, or catalyst may foul; if it
is too high, then structural damage may be caused to the reactor. The problem is that the
hot-spot doesn’t stay in a fixed position. As the flow rate of the reactants, inlet concentrations
or inlet temperatures change, the hot-spot moves up and down the reactor.

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Obviously a single temperature sensor is not going to be able to reliably capture the
maximum temperature over the length of the reactor. Instead it will be necessary to use
multiple sensors. However, this leaves us with the problem of how to connect these to the
temperature controller. A controller can only deal with a single input. The way around this
is process the signals, using what is called a computational unit, to extract the maximum
and then feed this to the controller input. The control scheme is shown in figure 78. In
this case we are using a unit to extract the maximum signal, but computational units can
be used to extract the minimum and for other functions too. These computation units are
available in all SCADA systems, but were also available, as discrete boxes, in the days of
pneumatic controllers. The type of control scheme that has been set up for the reactor is
called an auctioneering or selective control system.

Figure 78 – a selective control scheme

14.3 OVERRIDE CONTROL

Figure 79 – a flooding distillation column

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We are limited in the number of things that we can simultaneously control in a plant
by the available degrees of freedom (this concept is explained in the control system design
section). Sometimes, however, it is necessary for variables that are not usually controlled to
override an existing loop to maintain process operation, or to avoid damage to equipment.
For example, consider the system in figure 79. The bottoms mole fraction (of the most
volatile component) of this column is normally controlled by manipulating the steam flow
to the reboiler. However, under a fault condition it is possible for the bottoms mole fraction
to rise excessively. When this happens the controller increases the steam, and hence the
vapour rate up the column to try to drive the volatiles away. At some point this vapour
rate becomes so large that it interferes with the movement of liquid down the column and
the column floods. At the flooding point the column is useless: not only bottoms mole
fraction control is lost, but also the tops. A way to prevent this happening is to install the
override control scheme shown in figure 80. In this scheme a differential pressure cell is
fitted over a section of the column. Rises in the DP will indicate an approach to the flooding
condition (as more vapour tries to force its way up the column). A pressure controller is
setup to control this differential pressure by manipulating the steam flow. However, the mole
fraction controller is still there to control the mole fraction under normal conditions, and
this wants to manipulate the steam flow valve too. It is impossible for two outputs to be
connected to the valve simultaneously, so the most appropriate one must be selected by a
computational unit (in this case a minimum unit needs to be used). The scheme works are
follows. Under normal conditions the DP will be well below the setpoint of the pressure
controller, and so the pressure controller will be demanding a large steam flow to try to
drive the DP upwards. At the same time the mole fraction controller will be operating,
but will be requesting a smaller steam flow. The ‘min’ computational unit will select the
minimum signal and so will connect the mole fraction controller to the valve. Under the
fault condition, the mole fraction controller will demand more and more steam, until the
DP eventually crosses the DP setpoint in the pressure controller. At this point, the output
from the pressure controller will become the smallest and it will be connected to the valve.
Differential pressure control will override bottoms mole fraction control. When overridden
the bottoms mole fraction controller is no longer operating – we have lost control of the
bottom composition. However the column will still be operating and control should still
be possible at the top of the column.

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Figure 80 – An override control system

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14.4 RATIO CONTROL

Ratio control is a common requirement in chemical processes. Many of the systems we work
with require streams to be held within a certain ratio of each other, e.g. reactant streams
into a reactor; reflux ratio in a distillation column; liquid to gas ratio in an absorber. The
controller used for ratio control is the first example of non-feedback control in the course.

Figure 81 – Ratio control

A ratio control scheme always consists of at least two streams. The first is called the wild
stream. This stream is not manipulated by the ratio scheme and represents a disturbance
to the ratio being controlled. The other stream is the manipulated stream and this is the
stream that is adjusted by the ratio controller. It is common to manipulate the stream
through a cascade to a secondary flow controller – that way it is the flowrate of the stream
that is manipulated rather than the valve position. An example of ratio control is given in
figure 81. In this case the controller is setup to control the reflux ratio of the column. The
distillate stream (monitored by FI001) is the wild stream – it is manipulated by the level
controller, but is a disturbance to the ratio control system. MLT001 is the ratio controller
itself. It is just a multiplier that multiplies the measured flowrate of the wild stream by
the reflux ratio (which can be set in the device, or set remotely by another controller in a
cascade) and then sends the result to the setpoint of the secondary flow controller (FC001).

Ratio controllers do not usually measure the ratio of the flows (the controlled variable), but
instead measure the wild stream (a disturbance). This makes ratio control a simple form of
feedforward control rather than feedback control.

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14.5 FEEDFORWARD CONTROL

Feedback control systems operate by monitoring the controlled variable, a process output,
and adjusting the manipulation to drive this output towards the setpoint. The problem with
a feedback control system is that a disturbance entering the system has to actually affect
the process before it will be detected at the output and the correction process started. If
the process includes large capacities, then large amounts of material can be altered by the
disturbance and it can take a long time for the system to recover to the setpoint value.

Feedforward control offers an alternative strategy to improve disturbance rejection in processes

with large capacities. A feedforward controller is one which measures the disturbance, a
process input, rather than the controlled variable. The controller uses a model to estimate
the effect this disturbance will have on the controlled variable and then another model to
calculate the manipulation change which is required to precisely counteract the effects of
the disturbance. In theory, if both the disturbance and manipulation models are perfect, it
is possible for a feedforward controller to reject a disturbance with no change at all being
observed in the controlled variable.

Figure 82 – A block diagram showing feedforward control

Let the models of the process be represented by the equation

K  E š #lŸ G E – #gŸ 7  ¡E¢

where #lŸ and #gŸ are the model transfer functions for the manipulation and disturbance
effects.

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The object of the controller is to hold the output at the setpoint so, for controller design
purposes

K  E š Knl ¡E¢

and the design equation can be rearranged to produce the feedforward controller:

  #gŸ 
G E š K E — 7 ¡E¢
#lŸ nl #lŸ

If the real process (i.e. not the model) has the transfer functions #l and #g , then the
controlled system can be represented as in the block diagram in figure 82.

Note that there are no loops in a feedforward controller Provided that the controller and

360°
process are open loop stable, it isn’t possible to destabilise a feedforward controlled system.

.
Equally, however, feedforward control can’t be expected to stabilise open loop un-stable

thinking
processes (the special case of pole-zero cancellation just doesn’t happen in real life due to
plant-model mismatch).

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14.6 STEADY-STATE FEEDFORWARD CONTROL

There are two basic types of feedforward controller. The steady-state feedforward controller is
designed around steady-state models of the manipulation and disturbance effects. These can
be obtained from first principles steady-state modelling (and so can be made non-linear)
but it’s much more common to use gain-only models. These gains can be obtained from
transfer functions, if these are available, or from simple tests on the real process or on a
steady-state simulation model (e.g. an Aspen flowsheet).

Figure 83 – A steady-state feedforward controller

The modelled system for gain-only models is:

K  E š &l G E – &g 7  ¡E¢

as before, this can be re-arranged into a feedforward controller:

  &g 
G E š Knl E — 7 ¡E¢
&l &l

if we use a simple first-order process as an example system we get the block diagram shown
in figure 83.

The transfer functions for the controlled system can be obtained by looking into the block
diagram from the output:


&g 
&l   &gŸ 
K E š 7 ¡E¢ – K E — Ÿ 7 ¡E¢
 – Pg E  – Pl E &lŸ nl &l
Ÿ
& g &g &l  & l
K E š — Ÿ 7 E – Ÿ K E
 – Pg E &l  – Pl E &l  – Pl E nl

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If we have a perfect model (&g š &gŸ , and &l š &lŸ ) and the disturbance and manipulation
dynamics are identical (Pg š Pl ), then the system reduces to:


K  E š
™7  E – K E
 – Pl E nl

So, in a steady-state feedforward controlled system with equal manipulation and disturbance
dynamics a perfect model will result in perfect disturbance rejection. When the disturbance
changes it will be immediately cancelled by manipulation changes made by the controller
and no deviation will occur in the controlled variable. The setpoint response is less exciting.
Although setpoint changes are tracked exactly (if a perfect model is used) the speed of
tracking is just the open loop speed of the process. Setpoint tracking will be much slower
than can be achieved with a feedback controller.

Now, let’s consider what happens if we have equal disturbance and manipulation dynamics,
but imperfect steady-state models:

&l &l
&g — &gŸ
&lŸ  &lŸ 
K E š 7 E – K E
 – PE  – PE nl

The effect of the disturbance is no longer zero. It is now a first-order process with dynamics
the same as the open-loop process and with a gain of:

&l
&g — &gŸ
&lŸ

This means that a steady-state error will be left when the disturbance changes. Provided
j
the model is at least somewhere nearly correct (j    and &gŸ  &g ), the controlled gain

will be much less than the uncontrolled gain, but there will be some steady-state change in
the output. Similarly, the gain on the setpoint TF is no longer 1 and so perfect set-point
tracking will not be obtained – there will be an error. Errors in the gains in models for
feedforward controllers always produce steady-state errors in the controlled variable after a
disturbance or setpoint change.

Finally, consider the case where we have a perfect model, but different manipulation and
disturbance dynamics (in this case the time constants are not equal).

&g &g 
K E š — 7 E – K E
 – Pg E  – Pl E  – Pl E nl

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The setpoint response is unaffected, and it’s still pretty terrible. The disturbance response has,
however, changed. At steady-state (when the terms in ‘s’ go to zero) there will be no change
in the output, but until steady-state is reached there will. Although the manipulation is
immediately changed to counteract the disturbance at steady-state as soon as the disturbance
enters the system, the two changes move through the process at different rates, and the
output is altered for a time. Consider a unit step in the disturbance and no setpoint change:

&g &g 
K E š —
 – Pg E  – Pl E E
‚ ‚
K  F š &g  — 8 a † —  — 8 a †

Figure 84 shows the sort of response that will result when the disturbance process is faster
than the manipulation. The effect of the disturbance gets through to the output first, causing
the output to deviate away from the setpoint. As the manipulation works its way through,
the output deviation is reduced and eventually eliminated as the system moves to steady-state.

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Figure 84 – Dynamic error in feedforward control

This sort of transient error is called dynamic error.

14.7 DYNAMIC FEEDFORWARD CONTROL

If the manipulation and disturbance dynamics are very different then the amounts of dynamic
error may be large. In these cases it may be worth considering a full dynamic controller
(where dynamic process models are used instead of steady-state ones). For a first-order
process, we have the following assumed model:

&lŸ &gŸ
K E š G 
E – 7  ¡E¢
 – PlŸ E  – PgŸ E

and rearranging this into a dynamics feedforward controller equation gives:

 – PlŸ E  &gŸ  – PlŸ E 

G E š Knl E — 7 ¡E¢
&lŸ &lŸ  – PgŸ E

The setpoint controller function is potentially troublesome. If a step is made in the setpoint,
then this transfer function will generate an infinite controller output. Additionally, if there
had been any dead-time in the TF inverting it would lead to positive exponentials in ‘s’ –
representing prediction rather than time-delay terms and producing what is known as a
physically unrealisable controller. For these reasons, and because steady-state controller servo
response is poor, feedforward control is never used for setpoint tracking. We’ll proceed on
this basis by setting the change in the controller setpoint to zero.

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Inserting the controller into the process gives:


&l &gŸ  – PlŸ E  &g
K E š — Ÿ Ÿ 7 ¡E¢ – 7  ¡E¢
 – Pl E &l  – Pg E  – Pg E

&g &gŸ &l  – PlŸ E 
K E š — 7 ¡E¢
 – Pg E  – PgŸ E &lŸ  – Pl E

In the case of a perfect model (the corresponding gains and time constants are equal) perfect
disturbance rejection is achieved.

If the dynamics are correct, but the gains are inaccurate, then there will be a residual steady-
state error on a disturbance change. Even if the model is incorrect worthwhile reductions
in dynamic error can be achieved.

If the gains are correct, but the time constants are inaccurate then there will be a dynamic
error in the response (it’s easiest to see this by assuming that it’s only the disturbance time
constant that’s inaccurate). Again, if the models are nearly correct then the controlled
behaviour will be much better than a steady-state controller.

14.8 FEEDFORWARD/FEEDBACK CONTROL

Perfect modelling is never possible – there will always be some errors – and so perfect
disturbance rejection isn’t achievable from a feedforward controller. Feedforward control is
also very poor at tracking setpoint changes. For these reasons feedforward control is seldom
used on its own and is almost always combined with a feedback controller to produce as
feedforward/feedback controller. There are a number of proposed arrangements for this in the
literature, but the most sensible is shown in figure 85.

In this arrangement all setpoint tracking is dealt with by the feedback controller, and the
feedforward controller doesn’t get involved. When a disturbance enters the system it is
detected by the feeforward controller, and this immediately outputs a manipulation signal
that should counteract the disturbance. If this works, then there will be no change in the
controlled variable, and the feedback controller won’t get involved. However, if there is
model error in the feedforward controller then there will be some change in the controlled
variable, and this will be detected and acted upon by the feedback controller.

179
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS More advanced single-loop control arrangements

Figure 85 – a feedforward/feedback control arrangement

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180
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Design of control systems

15 DESIGN OF CONTROL SYSTEMS

MAIN LEARNING POINTS
• Steady-state control envelopes
• Multi-variable processes
• How to determine the number of things that can be controlled
• Plant mass balance control
• How to select control loops

The design of a control system for a processing plant is a major task, involving many different
areas of expertise. As chemical engineers we are most likely to get involved in specifying
what loops are required, what other measurements are necessary and what safety systems
may be needed. We also might get involved with control valve and instrument selection.
Some chemical engineers, who specialise in control systems, also get involved with specifying
the control system architecture – what hardware and communication systems will be used.
Electronic, electrical and instrument engineers are usually involved in the design of the
physical installation.

This section of the course is to give you an introduction to what is involved in loop selection
in a control system design.

15.1 CONTROL ENVELOPE

Imagine you have a job packing shelves. You are expected to be able to lift a variety of
packages from floor level onto the shelving. There will be a maximum weight of box that
you’ll be able to lift and this will be set by your physical makeup. If a bigger box comes
along, you won’t be able to handle it. Just like the big boxes, there are physical limits on
the size of disturbances that a control system can handle. These limits are set by the degree
of variability built into the control valves, i.e. by how much control effort is available. The
limits to control action are determined by steady-state considerations, but have important
implications on dynamic behaviour near the edges of the envelope.

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ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
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Consider a mixing vessel which is used to further dilute a low-concentration salt stream
prior to waste treatment. The salt stream flows into the vessel and is mixed with a flow
of water that is manipulated by a controller that is controlling the exit salt concentration
from the vessel. The level in the vessel is perfectly controlled and there are no significant
density differences between the streams. The potential disturbances to the system are the
flowrate and inlet concentration of the salt stream. The steady-state component balance for
the system is given by:

š "y} – "v ™
— " – "v ~ƒ‚

To work out the control limits we need to place limits on the manipulated variable and
set the outlet concentration to the setpoint value – this will give us two equations: one for
the upper limit on the manipulated variable and another for the lower:

š
"y} — " – "v‘ ~ƒ‚

š
"y} — " – "vŽ ~ƒ‚

and these can be arranged to produce the equations for the two edges of the control envelope:

" – "v‘ ~ƒ‚

y} š
"

" – "vŽ ~ƒ‚

y} š
"

Let’s put some numbers in and calculate the control limits. Assume that the normal inlet
salt concentration is 0.01 kg.m-3 , and that the desired exit concentration is 0.001 kg.m-3.
If the nominal flow of salt solution is 1m3.min-1, this gives us a nominal diluent flow
requirement of 9 m3.min-1. Assume that we choose a valve that allows us to vary the diluent
flow between 2 and 12.6 m3.min-1. Putting these numbers into the equations above generates
the curves shown in figure 86.

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ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Design of control systems

Figure 86 – A control envelope

183
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Design of control systems

For all the combinations of inlet flowrate and salt concentration inside the green area,
steady-state operation (and hence control) is possible. It isn’t possible to control the process
if the disturbance combinations fall in the red areas (outside of the control envelope ).

At the edges of the envelope, the manipulation will be hard against one of the controller
output limits. Dynamic operation near the edges will almost certainly result in the controller
output saturating, producing poorer control performance than will be achieved further
inside the envelope.

Earlier I described a rule of thumb for control valve sizing (the valve should be sized for
1.4 times the nominal flow). This is fine for a general rule, but control system designers
should always consider the effect this may have on the control envelope – processes with
very low process gains may need a much bigger range of manipulation variability to be
successfully controlled.

15.2 MULTIVARIABLE PROCESSES

In the course so far we’ve considered control systems with a single manipulated and a single
controlled output. Real processes are much more complicated with multiple controlled
outputs, manipulations and disturbances. Figure 87 shows an s-domain block diagram for
a 3 input/2 output Multiple-input/Multiple output (MIMO) system.

Figure 87 – a 3 input/2 output MIMO system block diagram

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ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Design of control systems

The s-domain representation of a MIMO system is a simplification of most real MIMO

processes as the s-domain necessarily represents a linear (or linearised) model. However, it is
useful for discussing the major features of such systems. The main thing to notice is that each
input is capable of affecting either, or both, outputs. This means that a disturbance entering
the process can change both of the system outputs. It would be possible to setup control loops
to control the outputs connecting GZ to KZ and G[ to K[ , but it is also possible to setup
an alternative control combination where GZ is used to manipulate K[ and G[ manipulates
KZ . Either of these control schemes may be used to control the process, although it is
likely that one of the loop combinations will be better than the other. If there are equal
numbers of manipulated and controlled variables( say ‘n’), then the number of possible loop
combinations is @ i.e. if there are 4 controlled variables there are ™ ™™ š  different
ways of combining the manipulations and controlled variables in loops.

Choosing the best way to combine controlled outputs and manipulations in a multi-loop control
system is not a trivial task, and there is no general method to achieve the best performance.
Some rules of thumb can be used to at least eliminate the worst loop combinations:

• Choose loops where there is a strong causal relationship between the manipulation
and disturbance
• Choose loops that minimise the dead-time between the manipulation and disturbance
• Choose loop combinations that minimise the interaction between the loops
• Choose loops with a reasonable process gain (this limits the manipulation
range required)
• Where possible, choose loops with an approximately linear relationship between
the manipulation and disturbance (often this isn’t possible).

Another alternative to controlling these MIMO or multivariable systems is to use a full

multivariable controller. This is a controller that considers the system as a whole and doesn’t
decompose the control into single loops. This type of controller has been present in the oil
industry for many years (e.g. Dynamic Matrix Control) and is getting increasingly popular
in other applications. Multivariable control is beyond the scope of this introductory text.

15.3 HOW TO DETERMINE THE NUMBER OF CONTROLLED VARIABLES

In our discussion of control we have automatically assumed that we know what the controlled
variables of a system are. In real situations, this isn’t predetermined and the first job of
the control system designer is to decide what should be controlled on a process. Also, the
designer isn’t free to choose as many controlled variables as he/she thinks are necessary –
they will be limited by the available degrees of freedom in the system.

185
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Design of control systems

You will have encountered degrees of freedom in thermodynamics and statistics, and they
have a similar effect on control systems. The formal definition of the degrees of freedom
for a system is:

*" š )G?58D
A9
<@78B8@78@F
H4D<45>8E — )G?58D
A9
8CG4F<A@E
D8>4F<@:
F;8?

The degrees of freedom are the number of ways that the system can move without violating
a constraint. In control, the degrees of freedom are further limited by disturbance variables,
which are set externally and not available for control. The degrees of freedom for control are:

*"f š *" — )G?58D
A9
7<EFGD54@68E
<@6>G787
4E
<@78B8@78@F
H4D<45>8E

The object of control is add control loops (in a multi-loop design) to reduce the number of
control degrees of freedom to zero. Each control loop will reduce the degrees of freedom by
one (by fixing one direction of movement) so the number of loops will be equal to *"f .
If there are fewer loops than this, then the system will not be fixed (i.e. controlled) and
will not produce consistent results. If there are more loops than degrees of freedom, then
the system is overdetermined, and some of the control loops (and it’s difficult to predict
which) just won’t work.

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ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Design of control systems

It’s actually really difficult to sit down and work out the number of degrees of freedom
involved in most realistic process systems, and practical control engineers never bother to
do this. Instead, they judge the number of control loops required from experience. Usually
this isn’t too hard to do, but care does need to be taken. Generally it’s much more likely
for less experienced engineers to have too many controllers than too few.

A rough rule of thumb is the maximum number of things that can be controlled in a
system is equal to the number of manipulable streams entering or leaving the capacity.
These streams can be mass or energy streams. However, it is necessary to have a mass or
energy balance on the system so it isn’t possible to control ALL the mass or energy streams
to particular values.

15.3.1 CONTROL OF A BLENDER

Figure 88 – a simple blender

If we consider the simple mixing process (figure 88) in isolation (i.e. all three streams can
be manipulated) then we have three potential manipulations, three loops and three possible
control variables. The choice of what could be controlled is varied, but some combinations
are not possible (see the table 14).

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ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Design of control systems

Some possible controlled

Some combinations that are not possible
variable combinations

All three flows (once you’ve picked two, the

Two inlet flows, blender level
third is fixed)

Anything involving the inlet concentrations

One inlet flow, one outlet flow, blender level (there is no causal link between the
manipulations and the inlet concentrations.)

Any combination that doesn’t include blender

Blender lever, outlet flow, outlet concentration level (failing to control the inventory will result
in the vessel overfilling or emptying.)

Blender level, one inlet flow, outlet concentration.

Table 14 – Control configurations for a blender

15.3.2 CONTROL OF A REACTOR

This simple reactor (figure 89) has three streams – two mass and one energy. Assuming the
reactor operates in isolation and none of the three streams are being set by another system,
there are three potential manipulations, three control loops and three controlled variables.
Some possible and impossible combinations are listed in table 15.

Figure 89 – a simple reactor

188
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Design of control systems

Some possible controlled Some combinations that are not possible

variable combinations

Inlet flow rate, reactor level, outlet Anything involving both inlet and outlet
concentration flowrates (need to keep a mass balance).

Outlet flow rate, reactor level, outlet Anything involving inlet temperature or
concentration concentration (there is no causal link).

Inlet flow rate, reactor level, outlet

temperature

Outlet flow rate, reactor level, outlet

temperature

Reactor level, outlet temperature, outlet

concentration

Table 15 – control configurations for the reactor

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189
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Design of control systems

15.3.3 CONTROL OF MULTIPLE UNITS

Figure 90 – blender/reactor combination

When units are joined together, degrees of freedom are lost due to shared streams. In the
example shown (figure 90) the blender output now becomes the reactor inlet stream. This
removes a degree of freedom (controlled variable) from either the reactor or the blender.

15.3.4 SELECTION OF CONTROLLED VARIABLES

Degrees of freedom, or other methods, tell us how many things may need to be controlled
to fix a system, but they don’t tell us what the best controlled variables may be. Some rules
of thumb for selecting appropriate controlled variables are:

• Inventories (levels in liquid systems and sometimes pressures in gas systems) always
need to be controlled and should be the first controlled variables that are selected.
• Other controlled variables should be aligned to the strategic goals of the unit. If
a distillation column is intended to purify a volatile compound, then the tops
composition needs to be controlled (either as a composition, or as some inferred
composition measurement, such as temperature).
• Controlled variables should be readily measured. Compositions are very important
in many chemical process units (e.g. distillation columns, absorbers, reactors) but
composition is often rather difficult to measure. In many of these systems other
variables which are related to composition (e.g. top plate temperatures in a distillation
column) are used as control variables instead.
• Controlled variables need to be strongly influenced by at least one of the available
manipulations. If there is no strong causal relationship between manipulations and
controlled variables, then good control will not be possible.

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ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
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15.4 PLANTWIDE MASS BALANCE CONTROL

In a complex processing plant there needs to be some point at which the overall production
rate for the process is set. When this production rate is changed then all the individual
units within the production process need to change their output to suit the new production
rate. At first glance, this seems to be a hugely complex problem that will require complex
control calculations. In fact it is easy to achieve using the interactions between individual
unit inventory controllers.

The first thing that needs to be decided is what end of the process will set the production
rate. It might be assumed that the best place to do this is at the output end (downstream
mass balance control  ) and for some processes this is the appropriate thing to do. However,
for others, such as processes involving distillation columns in the main process route, it
is often better to adjust the production rate from the raw materials end (upstream mass
balance control   ).

Figure 91 is an example of downstream mass balance control. In this process the production
rate is set at the output by flow controller FC001. For the process to maintain a mass
balance, all of the units on the main process route need to maintain their inventories by
manipulating their input streams as shown. If FC001 increases the production rate, this will
start to reduce the level in the third unit. LC003 will try to counteract this by increasing
the flowrate into the unit, which in turn will reduce the level in the second unit. In this
way, the change in the production rate at the output is transmitted backwards through the
controlled units to produce an increase in raw materials into the process.

Figure 91 – Downstream mass balance control

191
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Design of control systems

Figure 92 – Upstream mass balance control

192
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Design of control systems

Upstream mass balance control is shown in figure 92. In this case the production rate is
set at the raw materials end by flow controller FC001. If this flowrate is increased, then
the level in the first unit will start to rise causing level controller LC002 to open the valve
and allow more flow into the second unit. Through the interaction between the inventory
controllers the increase in the flow of raw materials will make its way through to the output
of the process. Where processes have side-streams (e.g. a process has a distillation column
with the bottoms on the main process route and the tops as a side-stream) then the side
stream inventory controllers always need to be configured to manipulate the outlet stream,
regardless of the type of mass balance control. This is because the production rate is set on
the main process route and the side-stream has to take whatever has been set for the main
process. An example of side stream mass balance control is shown in figure 93.

Figure 93 – Upstream and downstream mass balance control on a column with a major product in
the bottoms

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16 CONTROL SYSTEM
ARCHITECTURE
MAIN LEARNING POINTS
• Effect of technology on process plant control rooms
• Human factors in control systems

Control systems are implemented by a combination of hardware and software and have been
affected more by the changes in technology in the last thirty years than probably any other
system in process plants. The introduction of new technology has completely changed the
way in which plants are operated, the number of people involved, and the jobs that they do.

16.1 THE EFFECT OF TECHNOLOGY ON PROCESS PLANT

CONTROL ROOMS
Before the widespread use of electrical communications signals almost all measurement and
control signals were transmitted by pneumatic signals (3–15psi) passing through narrow
diameter brass tubes. These tubes limited the distance a signal could be transmitted, not
just due to the cost involved in the tubing, but also because the dynamics of transmission.
When an instrument at one end of a tube changed its output air pressure, a significant
dynamic lag existed due the air volume in the tube – the signal at the other end took time
to reach the transmitted pressure. This lag grew as the length of the tube increased, and
this meant that tube runs had to be kept relatively short.

Figure 94 – a control room in 1971

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ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Control system architecture

The limitation had a significant effect on the way plants were operated. Since tube runs had
to be kept fairly short it was usual to have several local control rooms in a plant rather than
a single central control room (the first plant I worked in was a compound fertiliser plant
and had three control rooms: one for phosphoric acid preparation; one for the granulation
drums; and the third for the dust extraction equipment). Since each control room required
a minimum of two operators to be present (for safety) there were many more operators
on plant than would typically be seen nowadays. In addition, to save tube runs, it was
common for some instrument displays to be kept ‘in the field’, i.e. the display was near
the instrument. This meant that operators were often walking around the plant rather than
spending all of their time in the control rooms.

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195
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Control system architecture

Figure 95 – a modern control room

The control rooms themselves looked very different from modern rooms. Figure 94 shows
a petrochemical plant control room in 1971. At this time the only visual display units were
cathode ray tubes and the computers that were available were too large, fragile and low-
powered to be used to drive chemical plant display systems. Instead the control panel is
made up of various gauges and other instruments which had a direct pneumatic connection
with the instrument concerned. The large circular devices you can see on the control panel
are chart recorders. These recorded the trends of certain key variables in ink on a circular
paper chart. These charts were replaced at frequent intervals and, along with paper records
produced by the operators, they represented the only historical data that was available on
plant operation.

Contrast figure 94 with the control room shown in figure 95. Figure 95 is the control room
for the same plant (South Hampton Resources, Texas) but in 2014. Modern instrumentation
now is almost exclusively based around analogue electrical or digital communications.
The length of cable runs is relatively unimportant – they no longer affect the signal being
transmitted. As a result, most plants now have centralised control rooms rather than
distributed rooms. The control rooms may be sited some distance from the plant (for safety
reasons) and very few instruments are now field located. This means that fewer operators
are required and that, in some factories, they rarely go out on plant. Modern control room
displays are computer driven and present a large amount of information to operators on
paged screens. Historical data is now directly recorded onto disc and is easily retrievable by
process engineers looking for information about the process behaviour.

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ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
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The working environment for operators has also considerably improved. Since they were
based on plant the old control rooms could be noisy, hot and uncomfortable. Modern
control rooms are air conditioned and much more like a standard office environment.

16.2 HUMAN FACTORS IN CONTROL ROOM DISPLAYS

The old control rooms HMI (human-machine interface) were pretty primitive and operators
need significant amounts of training just to remember what particular instruments were
telling them. Some companies made attempts to improve things by physically embedding
the instruments (i.e. cutting a slot for them in the plywood) in plant ‘mimic’ diagrams
that were painted on a wall in the control room. Due to the number of instruments that
a typical chemical plant requires for control, this strategy never worked too well.

Modern SCADA (scanning, control and data acquisition) systems now include editors that
allow engineers to create plant displays and embed the output of instruments or operator
adjustable controls. The displays can be set up in a hierarchy that allow operators to bore
down through general plant information into very specific displays that represent particular
process units.

Figure 96 – a display that doesn’t follow ASM guidelines

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ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
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Although being able to edit plant displays (and adding pictures, colours and animation)
is a very powerful feature of these systems, it has been overused in the past. There are
many examples of plant control systems with displays in garish colours or with very high
information densities (figure 96). Poorly designed displays increase operator stress during
plant incidents and make it hard for them to reach the information they need to make the
correct decisions. A group of companies and academics recognised the need for good human
factors in control room HMIs (human-machine interface) and formed the Abnormal Situation
Management (ASM) consortium. The consortium have produced a number of publications
on subjects ranging from best practises for information presentation to alarm management.

198
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Control system architecture

Figure 97 – an ASM compliant display

A big message from the ASM publications on operator displays is that the use of colour
should be minimised and only used to highlight abnormal conditions. Plant mimics are
greyscale so that they enhance rather than detract from the information that is being
presented. ‘Three dimensional’ images of plant equipment are also avoided as these distract
from the information. Instead shapes filled with a neutral grey are used to represent the
process items.

Figure 98 – annunciator panels in an electricity substation

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ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
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Alarm handling is another important area in HMI design. Alarms are generated by the
normal process control system (as opposed to SIS (safety instrumented system) events)
when a process value, or rate of change, exceeds pre-set high or low limits. The object of
alarms is to warn the operators of unusual events. In the pre-computer age (and still in
some modern) control rooms alarms were shown on annunciator panels. These were panels
of colour coded (usually amber/yellow for warnings and red for serious problems) lights
with text on the front describing the alarm involved (e.g. ‘Reactor Temperature High’). The
lights were normally off, but would flash when an alarm condition was breached, often
accompanied by a siren sounding. The control room operators would ‘accept’ the alarm by
pressing the face of the annunciator and operating a switch – this stopped the flashing and
siren, but left the alarm illuminated for as long as the condition persisted.

Annunciator panels limited the number of alarms that could be presented to operators, as
there was a limited amount of wall space in the control room. When computer based systems
were first introduced, however, this limitation disappeared. Alarms were now presented to
operators in an alarm list that had an almost unlimited length. In the early days of computer
control systems, engineers tended to add alarms to almost every variable just to be ‘on the
safe side’. When an incident occurred this meant that operators were bombarded with dozens
of alarms related to a single fault. The stress and pressure of dealing with multiple alarms
meant that operators found it very difficult to diagnose and deal with the real problem
behind the alarm conditions. Alarm management, which involves many things including
careful selection of alarms and operator training, is now taken very seriously in the process
industries. The aim is to provide operators with sufficient warning of abnormal events
without overloading the operators’ ability to cope.

16.3 DISTRIBUTED CONTROL SYSTEMS

Distributed control systems (DCS) are now widely used in the process industry. This has
really been driven by the use of microprocessor technology, which provides control system
devices (instruments, controllers and valves) with a degree of ‘intelligence’ that wasn’t available
in the past. A DCS distributes the information gathering and decision making tasks in a
control system amongst multiple devices. These devices are additionally normally arranged
in a hierarchy where devices at different levels have different sorts of decision making tasks.

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ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
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16.4 SAFETY INSTRUMENTED SYSTEMS

A safety instrumented system (SIS) is a control system that is completely separate from the
normal process control system. A SIS has its own instruments, control hardware and software
and final control elements. The purpose of the SIS is to take over from the normal process
control system in extreme situations where normal process control is failing to keep the
plant in a safe condition (e.g. in a fire). The valves on a SIS are normally open/close – the
object is no longer to regulate the process, but is instead to put the plant into a safe place
(by, for example, shutting off flows to reactors and opening cooling water lines).

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201
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Bibliography

17 BIBLIOGRAPHY
This text has covered the IChemE syllabus and provided an introduction to the field of
chemical process control. For those who wish to study the subject in more detail, there are
a wide range of more advanced textbooks available. Some are listed below.

Principles and practice of automatic process control, Smith and Corripio; Wiley, 3rd Edition
2005 : Aimed at the control of chemical processes. I find it a bit dry and difficult to read,
but others don’t!

Process control: designing processes and control systems for dynamic performance, Marlin;
McGraw-Hill, 2nd Edition 2000: Easy to read and stronger on control system design than
most of the competition.

Process dynamics and control, Seeborg, Edgar, Mellichamp and Doyle; Wiley, 4th Edition
2016: I like this book as it’s fairly comprehensive and easy to read.

Essentials of process control, Luyben and Luyben; McGraw-Hill, 1996: A standard textbook
for many courses, but I find it really hard to get into.

Chemical process control: introduction to theory and practice, Stephanopoulos; Prentice-Hall,

1984: Fairly old, but still worth a read (and easy to get into).

Process automation handbook: a guide to theory and practice, Love, Springer 2007: Not a
textbook, but an encyclopaedia of just about anything concerned with process control.
Worth having a look at.

Industrial automation, IDC Technologies; BookBoon: Hardly any equations and good textual
descriptions of many areas of basic control. Very strong on communications.

Process control, Automation, Instrumentation and SCADA, IDC Technologies; BookBoon:

Companion book to the one above.

Control Engineering, Atherton; BookBoon: Almost all equations, but very good. An
introduction to control theory.

202
ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Acknowledgements

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Pictures are really important in a book like this and I’d like to thank the following people
and organisations for allowing me to use their copyrighted images.

Honeywell International: Figures 6, 8, 10, 15 and 33

Abnormal Situation Management Consortium: Figures 96 and 97

Stewart Instrument Co., Inc.: Figure 31

South Hampton Resources: Figures 94 and 95

Creative Commons: Figures 7, 9 and 98

I’d also like to thank the students that I’ve taught for the past thirty years for teaching me
a lot more about process control that I taught them. In particular the classes over the last
four years have helped me develop the new IChemE curriculum course by provide lots of
really helpful feedback.

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ESSENTIAL PROCESS CONTROL
FOR CHEMICAL ENGINEERS Appendix

APPENDIX
THE USE OF SOFTWARE FOR TEACHING PROCESS CONTROL AT
STRATHCLYDE UNIVERSITY
Chemical engineering students typically find process control a very difficult subject to
grasp. One of the main reasons for this is that control is fundamentally dynamic, whereas
almost everything else in the chemical engineering curriculum is taught as steady-state.
Another reason is that control is a systems based discipline, where looking at one element
in isolation is rarely useful. The behaviour of a control system is the result of multiple
subsystems responding to each other, and this is very difficult for students new to the
discipline to visualise.

To deal with these problems I’ve always used computer simulation to support my control
classes. When I started teaching (in 1986) Strathclyde had just joined a teaching experiment
run by IBM using their mainframe based Advanced Control System (ACS). The mainframe
was based at Imperial College in London and about half a dozen other UK universities were
connected to this by landline. Although there were problems in running in this way, working
with ACS really opened my eyes to what could be possible. Due to the limited number
of terminals that we had we ran the ACS work as a laboratory with groups of students
were rotated through the computer room during a working week. During each lab session
the students worked through a series of set tasks that were based on a course developed at
Purdue University (one of the first Universities involved in the IBM experiment). ACS was
popular with the students and we also ran several introductory control classes for industry
using the system.

The experiment was abandoned after a couple of years. I think IBM realised that mainframe
computers weren’t where the future of process computing was going. We’d also had significant
problems with the reliability of the landline down to London and couldn’t justify the costs
associated with maintaining this. I searched for alternative pieces of software that could
support dynamic simulation in chemical engineering control classes and came across a
program called UCONLINE that was being developed by a team led by Prof. Alan Foss
at UC Berkeley.

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UCONLINE was quite different from ACS in that it ran on microcomputers (which is what
we called PCs at that time!) using MSDOS. In the late eighties and early nineties micro-
computer prices had fallen to the level where they were affordable to purchase in numbers
suitable for teaching, and Strathclyde began creating PC laboratories across the campus.
This meant that we were able to include computer simulation as a class activity where the
whole class met in a computer room once a week to do dynamic simulation work.

Although MSDOS-based, UCONLINE was a powerful tool for teaching. Students could
change valve positions and watch the effects on the process. They could add their own
control arrangements, ranging from basic PID up to more complicated systems with dead-
time compensators, decouplers and feedforward controllers. They could then simulate the
complete control system and tune and adjust their controllers as required.

When Alan Foss retired, support for UCONLINE disappeared and we were forced to look
for a new way of using simulation in our classes. For a number of years we used the block-
structured dynamics simulation languages, VisSim and Simulink. These are powerful pieces
of software, but are really designed for real simulation modelling and not for teaching. The
diagrams the students were producing also looked nothing like the P&IDs that chemical
engineers use every day. This really hit home when a former student wrote a letter complaining
that he hadn’t been taught about P&IDs. He had, of course, but I realised that he had spent
most of his time looking at block diagrams and hadn’t realised the importance of P&IDs.

We did try to use Aspen Dynamic for teaching (Aspen Dynamic is the dynamic modelling
add-on for Aspen Plus, the steady-state flowsheet modeller). This had the advantages of
being a package that was used in industry and that it produced control diagrams that were
very similar to standard P&IDs. However the software is complicated to use and we found
that our control class wasn’t teaching control, but was instead training students to use the
software (badly!).

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Figure 99 – The PISim main screen with a control system added

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When I started to design the new introductory control class (which is the material covered
in this book) I realised that I needed better software to support the simulation elements. I
could find nothing available that met my needs and so, with a group of colleagues decided
to build my own. The main requirements of the software were:

• It had to represent the process and control system on a standard P&ID (Figure 99)
• Learners should be free to add instruments and controllers in any way they wished
• It had to mimic the elements on the P&ID with virtual devices (created as users
added P&ID elements) that could be attached to a virtual control panel or SCADA
screen (Figure 100).
• It had to include a lesson system that presented material to learners and also
measured their performance (by, for example, comparing their control layout with
an instructors).
• It had to be capable of simulating the system (process plus attached controllers and
instruments in real and accelerated time).

The software, called PISim has been in development over a three year period and has been
used in the last two cycles of the control class. Even though the software used by the
students was at a relatively early stage of development it has proven to be easy to use and
popular. Some of the student comments from the 2016/17 session were: ‘I think the PISim
element of the course was extremely useful’; ‘very useful in showing how control systems
work’; ‘Practical simulations with PISim were fun’; ‘PISim was a very effective teaching tool’.

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Figure 100 – a PISim created control panel

We are planning to have the production version of PISim ready by late autumn 2017.
Future versions of this book will include links to PISim material.

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