Control Valve Sizing
Control Valve Sizing
Control Valve Sizing
Vapor
Outlet
Vapor
Valve
Flash Drum
Feed
Feed
Valve
Liquid
Outlet
Liquid
Valve
The feed specifications are
The flash drum is to operate at atmospheric pressure, 14.7 psia. Pressure downstream of both vapor and
liquid valves is 9.7 psia.
With this information, you can create a steady-state simulation in HYSYS. Start by launching HYSYS and
opening a new case, as shown below.
1
You may find it best to use this document on-line while you are completing the tutorial, opened in
Acrobat Reader, rather than printing it out on a standard laser printer. In that way, you can see the
colors.
CHEN 4570 Control System Development with HYSYS Page 2
The Simulation Basis Manager window will appear, and you click on the Add button to create a fluid
package for the component set.
Click the View button and the Component List View window will show.
Enter acetone into the Match field and click the Add Pure button. Do the same for 2-propanol and water.
Exit the Component List View by clicking on the in the upper righthand corner. Click on the Fluid Pkgs
tab of the Basis Manager window.
CHEN 4570 Control System Development with HYSYS Page 3
Click on the Add button, as shown above. The Fluid Package window appears with the Setup tab
selected.
By scrolling down the Property Package Selection list, find the NRTL item and click on it. The NRTL
(non-random, two-liquid) activity model is appropriate for our aqueous mixture. Click on the Close ( )
button and return to the Simulation Basis Manager.
Click on the Enter Simulation Environment and, with the mouse, manually “stretch” the PFD window to fill
the available HYSYS window space.
CHEN 4570 Control System Development with HYSYS Page 4
Save the case as FlashDrumxyz (instead of xyz, use your initials). A .hsc extension (HYSYS Simulation
Case) will be automatically added to the file. The case name should now appear at the top of the HYSYS
window.
Click once on the blue arrow for Material Stream on the palette to the right.
Move the cursor to the left side of the PFD window, and you should see . Click there and a light
The light blue color indicates that the stream needs to be specified, so double-click on the arrow. A
stream specification window, labeled 1, should appear.
CHEN 4570 Control System Development with HYSYS Page 5
Start by clicking on the 1 to the right of Stream Name, and then enter Feed in the field that appears.
Once, you press the Enter key, Feed should now appear to the right of Stream Name and in the title bar
of the window. Next, click to the right of Temperature, and type 80 in the entry field up top.
Notice that the default units are the desired units, °C, so press Enter. Next, click to the right of Pressure
and type 20 in the entry field. The default units, kPa, are not correct for the 20 entry, so open the units list
to the right and select psia.
Click on psia and the entry will be made, changing the display of the units to kPa and converting the
numerical value to 137.9. In a similar fashion, enter the Mass Flow as 5, changing the entry field units to
kg/s. This should leave you with the following window now.
CHEN 4570 Control System Development with HYSYS Page 6
The rest of the quantities are still <empty> because the composition hasn’t been specified yet. So, click
on the Composition item on the left,
and then on the Edit button. Make certain the Mass Fractions option button is selected and enter the feed
specifications, [ 0.294 0.484 0.222 ], and confirm that the Total at the bottom is 1.0.
As shown, click OK, and the Feed window should show the compositions, along with a green OK banner
at the bottom.
CHEN 4570 Control System Development with HYSYS Page 7
Click on the Conditions item on the left, and the values should now be filled out.
You can see additional estimated properties by clicking the Properties item. Close out the Feed window
by clicking on the in the upper right corner. The stream arrow should now appear dark blue and with
Now, you will add the feed valve. Click on the valve symbol on the palette to the right.
Move your cursor to the right of the Feed stream and click. You should see a red valve symbol there.
Double-click on the VLV-100 valve symbol and you will get a window.
CHEN 4570 Control System Development with HYSYS Page 8
Click in the Name field and enter directly there a name Feed Valve. Open the Inlet drop-down list. There
should be only one item, Feed. Click on it.
In the Outlet field, type directly Drum Feed. Press Enter, and this stream will be created automatically by
HYSYS.
The Feed Valve window is now “complaining” that it needs a pressure drop, Delta P. Eventually, this will
be determined dynamically, but, for now, we can enter the steady state value, 5 psi. So, click on the
Parameters item on the left and enter a value of 5 psi. You will have to adjust the entry units to do this.
The Feed Valve window shows about 35 kPa and the green OK at the bottom indicates that the window is
“happy and satisfied” now, so close out the window by clicking on the . Later, we will have to come
back to size the valve for dynamic simulation purposes.
2
You should re-Save your case frequently by clicking on the button.
CHEN 4570 Control System Development with HYSYS Page 9
Now, you will add the major equipment component, the flash drum. Find the separator icon on the palette
Place your mouse cursor to the right of the Drum Feed arrow on the PFD and click. The separator should
appear in red.
Double-click on the separator to get its window, and immediately change its name to Flash Drum.
Click on the <<Stream>> item under Inlets, and select Drum Feed from the drop-down list above.
In the Vapour Outlet field, type Vapor, and in the Liquid Outlet field, type Liquid.
CHEN 4570 Control System Development with HYSYS Page 10
The Vapor and Liquid streams have been created automatically, and, for now, the Flash Drum window is
“happy as a clam at high tide” as shown by the green banner with OK. We’ll have to come back to it later
for dynamic specifications, but it closed for now.
As you go along, you can “yank” components on the PFD around to neaten things up, if you’re one of
those “drive between the lines” types.
Now, it’s a matter of installing the Vapor Valve and Liquid Valve, each with a 5 psi pressure drop and
outputting to Vapor Outlet and Liquid Outlet streams. Based on your experience to this point, do that (not
much guidance provided here) and your finished steady-state PFD should look like the figure below.
CHEN 4570 Control System Development with HYSYS Page 11
To make sure you have everything correct and consistent, you can check the conditions and
compositions of the to outlet streams3. These are shown below.
This completes the steady-state simulation development. Make sure you save your case.
From the HYSYS steady-state case, the volumetric flow rate is 22.5 m3/h (99.1 gpm). The flash drum is
sized for a 5-minute hold-up at this flow rate. This requires an operating liquid volume of 1.88 m3. This
leads to the following vessel design.
Diameter 1.5 m
Operating Level 1.06 m
Vessel height 2.5 m
Operating Level 42%
3
If your results differ, did you enter mole fractions instead of mass fractions?
CHEN 4570 Control System Development with HYSYS Page 12
These specifications are now entered into the HYSYS case4. Double-click on the flash drum unit and
select the Rating tab along the bottom of the window. Enter the diameter as 1.5 m and the height as 2.5
m, then the volume will be computed automatically. This is shown below.
Now click on the Dynamics tab and enter a Liquid Volume Pct value of 42. This should look like
4
It might be a good time to save your steady-state case, and then “Save As” to a new file name for your
dynamics case.
CHEN 4570 Control System Development with HYSYS Page 13
HYSYS helps you with the sizing of the control valves. Sizing is not required for the steady-state case,
but must be done for dynamics with control. Start by double-clicking on the Feed Valve and click on the
Rating tab. With the valve opening at 50% (default), the Cv radio button on (default), and linear radio
button on (default), click the Size button. You should then have
Close out the Feed Valve window. Complete sizing of the other two valves.
Just to check, the Cv values for the Liquid and Vapor Valves should be about 66 and 600 respectively.
In flow control loops, often the control valve represents the slowest element of the loop. Once the control
valve stem moves, the adjustment of flow and its measurement are relatively instantaneous. This is
especially true with incompressible fluids. Most valves, except for big ones with some type of hydraulic
motor drive, can be adequately modeled with a first order transfer function with a time constant of a few
seconds. So, it is important to include valve dynamics in the simulation, especially for the feed flow
control and pressure control loops here.
It's possible to add dynamics to control valves in HYSYS, but you have to enable a special licensing
option first. Select Integrator from the Simulation menu.
One or two other windows related to the HYSYS Fidelity package may be displayed as you make these
changes.
In particular, the window below showing licensing options should be set up as shown.
Make similar entries for the other two valves on the PFD.
Click on Dynamic P/F Specs as shown. You can see how the colors are assigned by clicking on the
palette and the Edit This Scheme button. Note the color codes.
Now, you can close this box by clicking on the and close the PFD Color Schemes box in the same
way. You will see that the Feed stream to the process is now coded red. This means that both the
pressure and flow of this stream is specified, and that HYSYS has to figure out the distribution of flows
and pressures through the system starting with these specifications.
Double-click on the Feed stream and on the Dynamics tab. You should see
Since we are going to use the Feed Valve to control the flow rate, you want to remove the Mass Flow
spec active checkmark.
Close the Feed window, and the Feed stream arrow should now appear green5. Activate pressure specs
on the Vapor Outlet and Liquid Outlet streams. These streams should then appear green.
To switch over to dynamics mode, you need to click on the button on the HYSYS toolbar:
5
Just had to get rid of that red!
CHEN 4570 Control System Development with HYSYS Page 16
You will then get a warning and need to confirm the switch.
Click on the Yes button. If all is well, you are in dynamics mode. There should be an “Integrator Reset”
message in the window at the bottom and the Dynamics Model button should appear depressed.
Click on the Control Ops item on the palette. Find the PID
controller and click on it. Move your cursor to a point above the Feed Valve on
the PFD and click. You should then have
Now, it is necessary to configure the controller. First, notice what the mass flow rate is for the Drum Feed
stream by double-clicking on it.
CHEN 4570 Control System Development with HYSYS Page 17
Close the Drum Feed window and double-click on the PID controller icon. Change the Name field to
Feed FC, as shown.
Click on the Select PV… button, and use the Object Browser to select the Drum Feed stream and the
Mass Flow variable.
CHEN 4570 Control System Development with HYSYS Page 18
Click OK. Now, click on the Parameters tab in the Feed FC window, and enter range values for the
Process Variable (PV) as shown below.
Click back to the Connections tab and click on the Select OP… button. Then, as shown below, select the
Feed Valve and click OK.
You will set up the control action and tuning parameters later. For now, close the Feed FC window. The
Feed FC controller icon should now be “connected” to the PFD.
The connecting lines are a bit complicated, so, next, you will flip the Feed FC icon horizontally. Right-
click on the icon and select Transform, then Mirror about Y, and click.
CHEN 4570 Control System Development with HYSYS Page 19
Then, right-click on the Drum Feed stream arrow and select Transform, then Mirror about X and click.
Next, click on the Size Mode button on the PFD window toolbar.
And, right-click on the Feed FC icon again, but select Move/Size Label.
Move the Feed FC label above the controller icon and “stretch” the label
box so that it appears like
These are just cosmetic moves, but they neaten things up a bit.
Repeat this process twice, adding controllers for Liquid Level and Vessel Pressure according to the
specifications below:
CHEN 4570 Control System Development with HYSYS Page 20
Arrange the PFD so that it looks about like the figure below.
In order to operate the controllers, you will now insert controller “face plates” into the HYSYS window. To
do this, double-click on the Feed FC icon and click the Face Plate button at the bottom. The inserted face
plate should something look like
The Setpoint is shown by the red triangle. The current PV value is shown along with the current OP
value. The controller mode is Manual and tuning parameters can be accessed via the Tuning button.
Insert face plates for the other two controllers. Minimize the PFD by clicking on the
“slot” button in the upper right corner of its window.
For now, rearrange the 3 face plates so you can see them all.
CHEN 4570 Control System Development with HYSYS Page 21
Using the Variable Navigator, you need to select the variables that will appear on your stripcharts. First,
select Feed FC, for the feed flow controller, and PV, for its process variable, the Drum Feed volumetric
flow rate. Then click the Add button as shown below.
Then, for the same Feed FC, “Add” the OP and SP variables. Add the same three variables (PV, OP and
SP) for the other two controllers (Drum LC and Drum PC). These 9 variables will let you follow the
progress of the controllers.
Additionally, you may want to track what happens to the compositions in the liquid and vapor outlet
streams. To do this, “Add” the following variables also:
CHEN 4570 Control System Development with HYSYS Page 22
Cancel or close the Variable Navigator window. If you “stretch” the Databook window now, it will look like
Now, click on the Strip Charts tab, click the Add button and change the Logger Name field to Feed FC.
Click on the boxes in the Active column for the three Feed FC variables (PV, OP, SP), and then click on
the Strip Chart… button.
CHEN 4570 Control System Development with HYSYS Page 23
Drag and resize the stripchart windows and reposition the controller faceplates so that your HYSYS
window looks like the figure below. Note: you can close the Object palette by pressing the F4 key or
clicking on the small in its upper right corner.
Your simulator is about ready for its first dynamic test, so it would be a good idea to save it now.
CHEN 4570 Control System Development with HYSYS Page 24
Then minimize the Integrator window by clicking on its “slot” button in the upper right.
Start the simulation by clicking on the Integrator Active button on the toolbar.
After a few seconds, flatline traces should appear across your stripcharts and the status window at the
bottom should show
If flatline traces do not appear, that is, if the traces are shifting significantly with time, you've done
something incorrectly.
It’s probably worthwhile at this point to do some cosmetic work on your stripchart displays. Drag the small
red triangle to the left to cover all of the dark blue stripe.
Before: After:
CHEN 4570 Control System Development with HYSYS Page 25
Right-click on the chart and choose Select Curve and Feed FC – PV, as shown below.
Return to the DataBook window by selecting Tools then DataBook from the HYSYS menu. Select the
FeedFC stripchart entry and change the Sample Interval from 20 seconds to 1 minute, as shown below.
This will now be considered a base case for starting dynamic test simulations, so save the case with the
name FlashDrumxyzBase.hsc where xyz are your initials, as before.
The first dynamic test is run with the Feed FC loop. The dynamics here a relatively fast, so, temporarily, it
will be advantageous save data at a shorter time interval. Go back to the DataBook, select the Strip
Charts tab, and the Feed FC stripchart again. Change the Sample Int. to 1 second for now. Click on the
CHEN 4570 Control System Development with HYSYS Page 27
Setup... button and change the Logger Size to 2000. This will allow enough data to be stored during your
test.
Close out the small Logger Set-up window and the Databook window too.
For the first dynamic test, change the FeedFC controller output from 50% to 60%. Place your mouse
cursor on the OP field in the FeedFC box and double-click.
Since the controller is in manual, you have direct control over the signal going to the valve, OP.
Restore the Integrator window, , and set the End Time to 60 min. From here, if you
wish, you can just click the Continue button to restart the simulation and then click the Minimize button for
the Integrator window to get it out of the way.
CHEN 4570 Control System Development with HYSYS Page 28
Minimize button
When the Integrator has stopped at 60 min, “stretch” the stripchart plots again by dragging the red
triangle all the way to the left on each stripchart.
The FeedFC chart on the left shows the step change in the OP signal to the Feed Valve and a very rapid
response in flow rate in the Drum Feed stream. There are also noticeable effects on the Drum pressure,
as shown in the middle stripchart, and the integrating nature of the flash drum shows in the DrumLC
stripchart on the right.
Next, you will need to export and save the data from your test. To do this, access the Databook again
from the Tools menu. Select the FeedFC stripchart and click on the Historical… button.
CHEN 4570 Control System Development with HYSYS Page 29
and name the file FeedFCxyzStepTest. Pick a location to save the file, like the Desktop and click the
Save button.
Now, you can close out the Historical Data window and the Databook window.
CHEN 4570 Control System Development with HYSYS Page 30
Launch Excel and Open the FeedFCxyzStepTest.csv file. If you neaten up the column widths a bit, the
spreadsheet should look something like
To prepare this file for Control Station, delete the first 11 rows with the result
You can delete the rows of data up to three or four values of 50 before the change to 60. Also, column D
is the SP variable and is not needed, so delete it. The result is
You can also re-origin the time column to zero. To do this, insert a column between A and B [click on B,
right-click, and Insert], and enter the formula
=A1-$A$1
in the empty cell B1. Then, double-click on the fill handle to copy that formula down.
CHEN 4570 Control System Development with HYSYS Page 31
Then, select the filled cells in column B, initiate a Copy (Ctrl-c), and Paste Special from the Edit menu.
Click on the Values radio button and then OK, as shown below.
Then, you can delete column A, and you will be left with
When dealing with data files from other tests, the exact time window required to capture the dynamic
change may be different. Creating a graph in Excel may help you decide what time window to include
and then which rows to eliminate.
CHEN 4570 Control System Development with HYSYS Page 32
22500 62
22000
60
21500
58
21000
56
20500
20000
54
19500
52
19000
50
18500
18000 48
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000
Now, you need to save the file in the .TXT form. To do this, first execute Save As (F12 key) and save the
spreadsheet as an Excel workbook file (.XLS). Then execute Save As again and save the file as a .TXT
file.
Close out Excel, and launch Control Station. Click on Design Tools. In the Design Tools window, click on
the Open File button.
Browse and open your .TXT file. The Label Data Columns … window should open, and the Process and
Manipulated labels may be reversed. Fix this then click OK.
Next, click on the Plot button to see a plot of your test. It should look something like
CHEN 4570 Control System Development with HYSYS Page 33
The form of the output suggests a 2nd-order-plus-lead transfer function with dead time. Close out the
Print Data window by clicking on the X. Back in the Design Tools window, click on the Select Model
button and make the settings shown below.
Click the Done button and then the Start Fitting button. Eventually, you should see a fit plot like
Close the Print Data window and the model parameter results are shown back in the Design Tools
window6.
6
Your results may differ somewhat because your test data will not be identical.
CHEN 4570 Control System Development with HYSYS Page 34
Control Station also states that it cannot compute controller tuning parameters for this type of model.7
But, with a little more knowledge of stability analysis and controller design, based on the model
parameters, suggested tuning parameters for a PI controller are
Starting with the base case conditions (all controller outputs at 50% and the process at steady state8), you
should now run step tests for the other two controllers and develop tuning parameters for PI controllers.
Once you have done that, you’re ready to proceed with the next step.
•
•
•
Click on the Tuning button on FeedFC faceplate. Enter the values above for Kc and Ti (use the minutes
value).
Note that the default Action is Reverse. This is correct here but would change to Direct for the other two
controllers in the PFD. Close the tuning window. Change the mode on the FeedFC faceplate from Man
to Auto.
7
Note: for the Drum PC controller in the HYSYS model, an FOPDT model should work well, and then
Control Station will give you tuning parameters. An SOPDT/Integrator will be needed for the DrumLC
controller and IMC tuning parameters might be used (Table 12.1 in the text).
8
You can run the simulation back to base steady-state conditions, or you can re-open your base case.
CHEN 4570 Control System Development with HYSYS Page 35
Run the simulation for about 30 min more to observe the performance of the FeedFC controller. The
FeedFC stripchart should look something like
At this point, you should implement your tuning settings in the DrumLC and DrumPC controllers, one at a
time, and confirm that they perform well. Occasionally, it is necessary to make a “field modification” of
your initial tunings to improve performance.
When you have all three controllers performing well, run a test where you make a 10% (up or down)
change in the FeedFC Setpoint and observe how well (or poorly?) your DrumLC and DrumPC maintain
the conditions in the Flash Drum. Your results might look something like those on the next page.
You can document your stripcharts by right-clicking on them and clicking on Print Plot. You can
document your HYSYS case via Reports on the Tools menu.
This gives you a good example, although for a simple process, of how dynamic simulation and control
system development can take place in an environment like HYSYS. Other simulation products, such as
Aspen+ and SimSci ProVision, have similar features available.
CHEN 4570 Control System Development with HYSYS Page 36
The axis scales on several of the above stripcharts have been adjusted to exaggerate the dynamic
changes.