Process Instrumentation

and Control System

Present By: Prakash Bahadur Thapa

Memorial University
St. Johns Newfoundland Canada
Email: pbt750@mun.ca
Tel: (1) 709 – 330 8666
 Process Instrumentation & Control

 Control valves make a significant contribution to pressure drop

(see later lecture on hydraulics)
 Control valve location can create a need for additional pumps
and compressors, and must be decided in order to size the
pumps and compressors
 It is therefore necessary for the design engineer to understand
the plant control philosophy even at the PFD stage and the PFD
usually shows the location of control valves
 More details of process control are usually included in the
piping and instrumentation diagram (P&ID) – see Ch 5
 This lecture is a very brief overview of control for design
purposes – more will come in your process control class

Chemical Engineering Design

 Process Instrumentation & Control
 Basics of process control
 Process instrumentation
 Reading a P&ID
 Control of unit operations
 Process safety instrumentation
 Plant-wide control and optimization

© 2012 G.P. Towler / UOP. For educational use in conjunction with

Towler & SinnottChemical Engineering Design only. Do not copy
Chemical Engineering Design
 Objectives of Process Control
 Ensure stable process operation
 Particularly, keep the plant operating under
safe conditions
 Minimize damage to equipment due to variation
in plant conditions
 Ensure operation meets product specifications
 Minimize impact of external disturbances
 Example: change in ambient temperature
 Optimize process performance
 Maintain process throughput
 Minimize operating costs

Chemical Engineering Design

 Control Loop Components

Instrument line
Alarms

PV PAH PIC
Actuator PT
PAL
Controller
Process or
utility stream
Final control Sensing
element element

 The sensing instrument detects the measured variable and sends a

signal to a controller, which signals the actuator to close or open a
control valve and adjust the manipulated variable (usually a flow rate)

Chemical Engineering Design

Control Valves
 The final control
element is usually a
Actuator control valve
 Exceptions: electric
heaters, mixers,
variable speed
drives
 The actuator is either
a motor or a bellows
that opens or closes
the valve in response
Valve
to the signal

Chemical Engineering Design

 Types of Control Loop

Feedback Feed Forward

 Control system measures  Control system
changes in a process output and measures disturbance
then adjusts manipulated and adjusts
variable to return output to set manipulated variable to
point compensate for it so
that controlled output
 Can be slow if process response
is not affected
time is long
 Requires greater
Disturbance knowledge of system
response
Disturbance
Manipulated Process Controlled
variable output Controller

Controller Manipulated Process Controlled

variable output

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 Feedback Control

Error Controller
Set + signal Function
point - generator

Input Output

Sensing Final control

element element
Measured variable Manipulated variable

Process

 Controller computes error between input and set point and adjusts
output based on a control algorithm

Chemical Engineering Design

 Typical Control Algorithms

 P: Proportional SP
 Controller output is proportional to error
 The proportionality constant is called the controller gain
 High gain gives fast response, but can lead to instability
 Low gain can cause offsets time
 I: Integral
 Output is proportional to integral of error
 Eliminates offsets from P control, but makes response more sluggish
 D: Derivative
 Output is proportional to rate of change of error
 Damps out instability and allows higher gain to be used
 Other functions such as summation, multipliers, and advanced models can
be easily coded in digital controllers

Chemical Engineering Design

PID Controller Response

 For a PID Controller,

 t 


 de 
Controller Output = G  e + (1 / T i) e dt - T d   
 o  dt  
 
where: G = Controller gain
e = Error (set point minus measured variable)
Ti = Integral time constant
Td = Derivative time constant

 The controller output is proportional to the error, the time

integral of the error, and the rate of change of the error. G, Ti
and Td are the controller tuning parameters.

 Much more of this in control class

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 Ratio Control

 One stream is controlled

in ratio to another
 Often used for FT

controlling feed rates to

try to maintain FFC

stoichiometry FFV

 Also used in some types FT

of distillation column
control to set reflux or
boil-up ratios

Chemical Engineering Design

 Cascade Control
 One primary controller is used to adjust the set point of a
second secondary controller
 Used to minimize outside load variations and increase process
stability

• Example: reactor
temperature (primary
controller) cascades
onto coolant flow
controller (secondary)
to control reactor
temperature

Chemical Engineering Design

 Process Instrumentation & Control
 Basics of process control
 Process instrumentation
 Reading a P&ID
 Control of unit operations
 Process safety instrumentation
 Plant-wide control and optimization

Chemical Engineering Design

 What Can Be Measured?
(& How Easily)

Easy Difficult
 Temperature
 L/L level
 Pressure
 pH
 Flow rate
 Certain components
oxygen, sulfur, hydrogen,
 V/L Level CO
 Pressure difference  Composition
 Conductivity  Density
 Voidage

• Easy means cheap, reliable instrument with fast response time

and accurate measurement
Chemical Engineering Design
Temperature Measurement:
Thermocouples
 When a junction between dissimilar wires is
heated, an EMF (voltage) is developed, which
can be read by a millivolt transmitter
 The junction is usually housed in a
thermowell

THERMOCOUPLE HEAD
LEAD WIRE

A A + Cu
MILLIVOLT
TRANSMITTER
B B - Cu
HOT JUNCTION (T1 )
COLD JUNCTION (T2 )

ISA TYPE A (+) B (-)

E CHROMEL CONSTANTAN Typical
J IRON CONSTANTAN
K CHROMEL ALUMEL High T
T COPPER CONSTANTAN

Chemical Engineering Design

Temperature Measurement:
Thermocouples
 Response depends on thermowell location and heat
transfer
 Instrument error is usually  3 to 4 F
 Theremay be additional offsets if the
thermowell is incorrectly located
 Response is fast if located in a flowing stream
 Sometimes thermocouples are also strapped to
walls of vessels
 For high temperature processes or processes
with large exotherms

Chemical Engineering Design

 Pressure Measurement
 Pressure instruments usually measure differential pressure
 If one side is atmospheric pressure then the difference is the
process gauge pressure (usually written barg or psig), not
absolute pressure (bara, psia)
 Several possible methods:
 Mechanical: measure displacement of a bellows or Bourdon tube
 Electrical: attach a strain gauge to a bellows
 Capacitance: diaphragm moves capacitor plate (most common type)
 Piezoelectric: measures change in semiconductor conductivity
 Pressure measurement devices respond quickly and accurately
 Differential pressure measurement is used as the basis for flow
and level measurement

Chemical Engineering Design

Flow Rate Measurement

 Place a restriction in the flow path and measure the resulting pressure
drop using a differential pressure (PD) cell
 If fluid properties are known, results can be calibrated to flow rates

PD PD

Orifice Meter Venturi Meter

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Level Measurement
Displacement Differential Pressure
 Displacer moves up and
 Measures static head
down with level due to of liquid using a
bouyancy differential pressure
cell
 Displacer movement is
detected via mechanical or
 Density of the liquid
magnetic linkage and vapor must be
known and constant

Sensor element

PD

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 Composition Measurement

 Some components can be detected at low concentrations using sensors

that have been designed to pick up that component
 Examples: O2, CO, H2S, H2
 Component sensors are often sensitive to other components, so check
carefully with vendor to make sure the device is rated for the application
 More detailed composition can be measured by on-line GC methods
 TCD: thermal conductivity detector
 FID: flame ionization detector
 Response can be slow (5 to 30 minutes), particularly if a long column is used
 Online NIR can be used in some cases
 Composition is often inferred from other properties
 Boiling point
 Conductivity

Chemical Engineering Design

Process Instrumentation & Control

 Basics of process control

 Process instrumentation
 Reading a P&ID
 Control of unit operations
 Process safety instrumentation
 Plant-wide control and optimization

Chemical Engineering Design

Piping and Instrument Diagrams
 The P&ID shows all the instruments and valves in the process
 Not just control loops
 Vents, drains, sample points, relief valves, steam traps, isolation
valves, etc.
 The P&ID usually also indicates line sizes and pipe metallurgy
 Companies occasionally use their own symbols, but U.S.
standard is ISA-5.1-1984 (R1992) from the International Society
for Automation
 The P&ID is usually produced in consultation with a specialist
controls engineer
 Example of real P&ID: see Ch5

Chemical Engineering Design

ISA 5.1 P&ID Symbols

Control Valves

General Three-way Globe Diaphragm

Actuators

S D M

Diaphragm or Solenoid Digital Rotary motor

unspecified
actuator

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Valve Failure Positions

Fails open Fails closed Fails locked in Failure mode

current indeterminate
position

 It is important to specify what happens to a control

valve if the signal fails
 The final valve position has an impact on process
safety and pressure relief scenarios and may affect
other instrumentation

Chemical Engineering Design

ISA 5.1 Instrument Lines

 Most newer plants use

Instrument supply or connection to process electric signals
Undefined signal  Pneumatic signals are
found in older plants
Pneumatic (instrument air) signal and locations where
electric signals would
be unsafe
or Electric signal (4 to 20 mA)
 Binary signals are used
for digital signals and
for solenoids and other
or Electric binary (on-off) signal on-off devices
 Instrument lines are
Internal system link (software or data always drawn lighter
link) than process lines on
the P&ID

Chemical Engineering Design

ISA 5.1 Controller Symbols

Field mounted Panel mounted Panel mounted in Dual function

in primary auxiliary location instrument
location (local panel)

Distributed Control Shared Display Symbols

Field mounted shared display device with limited access to

adjustments

Shared display device with operator access to adjustments

*AH
*AL Shared display device with software alarms (* is measured variable)

Chemical Engineering Design

 Shared Display Devices

 Most plant control rooms

now use shared display
devices that show the
outputs of multiple
instruments on a VDU screen
 Operator can see a flow
diagram that identifies
where the instrument is and
can enter set points
 Software also allows data to
be plotted as trends
 Data can be accessed
remotely Source: UOP

 Data is collected and logged

for process records
Chemical Engineering Design
ISA 5.1 Nomenclature

PIC

Pressure Indicator Controller

 Two- to four-letter codes are used to identify the

instrument or controller
 First letter always indicates the initiating or
measured variable
 Subsequent letters I = indicator, R = recorder, C =
controller, T = transmitter, V = valve, Z = other final
control element, S = switch, Y = compute function,
AH = high alarm, AL = low alarm

Chemical Engineering Design

ISA 5.1 Nomenclature: First Letters

 A Analysis (composition)  Q Quantity

 F Flow  R Radiation
 FF Flow ratio  T Temperature
 J Power  TD Temperature
differential
 L Level
 P Pressure (or vacuum)
 W Weight
 PD Pressure differential
 C, D, G, M, N, O can be
user-defined variables

Chemical Engineering Design

Exercise: Identify The Instrument
 Can you figure out what each of these ISA 5.1 codes
means and what the instrument does?
 TRC
 AR
 PAH
 PAHH
 LI
 PC
 TSH
 FFY
 PT
 JIAL

Chemical Engineering Design

ISA 5.1 Other Common Symbols

Restriction orifice Pressure Hand control valve Gate valve or

relief or isolation valve
safety valve

Self-contained Stop check (non-

backpressure return) valve
regulator

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Process Instrumentation & Control

 Basics of process control

 Process instrumentation
 Reading a P&ID
 Control of unit operations
 Process safety instrumentation
 Plant-wide control and optimization

Chemical Engineering Design

 Level Control
 A level control is
needed whenever there
LAH LIC
is a V/L or L/L interface
LT LAL

 Level control sets

inventories in process
equipment
 Many smaller vessels
are sized based on level
M
LV
control response time

Chemical Engineering Design

 Pressure Control
 Pressure control is usually
by venting a gas or vapor
 In hydrocarbon processes, PV
off-gas is often vented to
fuel
 In other processes,
nitrogen may be brought in
to maintain pressure and PT
PIC
vented via scrubbers
 Most common arrangement
is direct venting (shown)
 Several vessels that are
connected together may
have a single pressure
controller
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 Pressure Control

PV
 If vapor has a high
loading of
condensable
material, then
pressure control is on
the vent gas stream
from the condenser PIC
PT

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 Pressure Control: Condensers
Coolant PIC

PT PV
Process
vapor
Process PIC
PT

PV
Coolant

 Alternatively, for a condenser, we can control the

coolant supply or the heat transfer surface (by
varying the liquid level)
 These methods control pressure by changing the
rate of condensation

Chemical Engineering Design

 Flow Control
 Most common arrangement is a control valve
downstream of a pump or compressor
 Using a variable speed drive is a more efficient
method, but higher capital cost

FIC FIC

FV
PI M PI FT
FT

Chemical Engineering Design

Flow Control: Reciprocating Pump

FIC

 Reciprocating pumps and

FY
compressors and other
positive displacement
FV devices deliver constant
FI flow rate
FI
 Flow can be controlled by
manipulating a spill-back to
PI FT the pump feed
FT

Chemical Engineering Design

 Flow Control: Vaporizer

FIC
Vapor
 Vaporizer flow control needs
LIC to prevent liquid accumulation

FT
FV  Hence use level controller to
actuate heat input to the
LV
vaporizer and maintain a
LT constant inventory
Feed  Control of liquid flow in is
easier than control of vapor
Steam flow out
Trap
Condensate

Chemical Engineering Design

 Temperature Control: Single Stream

 Heaters and coolers are

Hot or cold usually controlled by
manipulating the flow rate
utility of the hot or cold utility
stream
Process  Final control element can be
on inlet or outlet of utility
TE TT
TIC side

TV

Chemical Engineering Design

 Temperature Control: Heat Exchangers

 Temperature control for an

exchanger is usually by
manipulating the flow
through a bypass
 Only one side of an
TIC
TE TT exchanger can be
temperature controlled

TV

• It is also common to see exchangers with no

temperature control and have temperature control on
the downstream heater and cooler

Chemical Engineering Design

Temperature Control: Air Coolers

M M M M
TV

TO VARIABLE
TIC SPEED MOTOR TIC
TE TT TE TT
CONTROL CIRCUIT

 Ambient air temperature varies, so air coolers are oversized and

controlled by manipulating a bypass
 Alternatively, air cooler can use a variable speed motor, louvers or
variable pitch fans – see lectures on heat exchange equipment

Chemical Engineering Design

 Distillation Control

 Distillation control is a specialized subject in its own right

 In addition to controlling condenser pressure and level in the sump,
a simple distillation column has two degrees of freedom
 Materialbalance (split) and energy balance (heat input or
removed)
 Therefore needs two controllers
 Therefore has the possibility that the controllers will interact
and “fight” each other
 Side streams, intermediate condensers & reboilers, pump-arounds,
etc. all add extra complexity and degrees of freedom
 There are several good books on this subject
 Kister, H.Z., 1989, Distillation Operation, McGraw-Hill
 Luyben, W.L. 2006, Distillation Design and Control Using
Aspen Simulation, Wiley

Chemical Engineering Design

 Distillation: Temperature Pattern Control

 Tray temperature is used to

infer composition
 Composition is used to adjust
reflux rate and reboiler heat
TC input
 Tray locations for temperature
detectors need to be chosen
carefully
 Controllers can fight each other
LC
TC
– not a good scheme
 Material balance control
schemes are more robust
Steam

Chemical Engineering Design

 Distillation: Material Balance Control
PC

 Direct control of
LC distillate composition
by using tray
temperature to infer
composition and
TC control distillate flow
rate
 Flow control on
(constant) boil-up
LC
rate could be set in
FC ratio to feed if feed
flow rate was highly
variable

Chemical Engineering Design

 Distillation: Material Balance Control
PC

 Indirect control of
distillate composition
LC

by using tray
temperature to infer
TC
composition and
control reflux rate
 Flow control on
LC
(constant) boil-up
FC
rate could be set in
ratio to feed if feed
flow rate varies

Chemical Engineering Design

 Distillation: Material Balance Control
PC

 Direct control of
LC
bottoms composition by
FC
using tray temperature
to infer composition
and control bottoms
flow rate
TC
 Flow control on
LC
(constant) reflux rate
could be set in ratio to
feed if feed flow rate
varies

Chemical Engineering Design

 Distillation: Material Balance Control

Indirect control of
PC

LC
bottoms composition
FC by using tray
temperature to infer
composition and
control boil-up rate
 Flow control on
TC

(constant) reflux rate

LC
could be set in ratio
to feed if feed flow
rate varies

Chemical Engineering Design

 Batch Distillation

FV

FT
FIC
TE

FIC TT FY

FT FV

Intermittent
Steam drain
Intermittent Trap
charge

 Reflux flow control adjusted based on temperature (used to infer

composition)

Chemical Engineering Design

 Reactor Control
 Control of flow is usually carried out on cold reactor feeds
 Flows are often ratio controlled to get close to desired
stoichiometry or maintain desired excess of one feed
 Pressure control is on reactor vapor outlet or on vent space
 Level control maintains inventory for liquid phase reactors
 Temperature control can be
 On feeds
 On heating or cooling jacket
 On recirculation through external heaters or cooler
 By controlling flow of quench/reheat streams

Chemical Engineering Design

Typical Stirred Tank Reactor Control Scheme
PIC
PT

To vent
system
M
FIC
FV FT

Feed A
FIC TT
TIC FIC
FV FT
LAH LIC
LT
TE LA
FV L
FT
Feed B

Coolant

 Temperature cascade
Product
control of coolant flow
 Independent flow control
of feeds

Chemical Engineering Design

 Exercise: Gas Recycle Process
Make-up
gas Purge

Feed
Reactor
Product
 Remember the simple flowsheet introduced in the lecture on
simulation?
 Liquid feed is mixed with recycle gas, heat exchanged against reactor
effluent, heated to reactor temperature then passed over fixed bed of
catalyst. Product is cooled and liquid product is recovered.
Unconverted gas is recycled with purge to prevent accumulation of
inerts

Chemical Engineering Design

 Exercise: Gas Recycle Process
Make-up
gas Purge

Feed
Reactor
Product
 What controllers would you use?
 Where would you place them?

Chemical Engineering Design

Process Instrumentation & Control
 Basics of process control
 Process instrumentation
 Reading a P&ID
 Control of unit operations
 Process safety instrumentation
 Plant-wide control and optimization

Chemical Engineering Design

Role of Controls in Process Safety
 Control system is involved in
three levels of process safety
 Keeping plant operation
steady
 Sounding alarms to notify Emergency Response
in Community
operator when variables are Emergency Response
in Process Unit
out of limits Pressure Relief System

 Automaticallyshutting the Automatic

AutomaticSafety
SafetyShutdowns
Shutdowns
plant down when necessary
Critical Alarms & Operator Intervention

Basic Process Control

Plant Design (Inherent Safety)

Chemical Engineering Design

Process Control, Alarms and Shutdowns
Variable
AH
Set point
AL time
Shutdown

 Controlled parameters naturally fluctuate around set point

 If the measured variable exceeds a preset limit an alarm should alert the
operator to take appropriate action
 Alarm limits should be set far enough from normal process variation to avoid
nuisance alarms
 If the measured variable exceeds a safe operating limit then an
automatic plant shutdown may be necessary
 Shutdown limit should be set far enough from alarm limit that the operator has a
chance to respond to the alarm
 But not so far that no time is left to safely shut the plant down

Chemical Engineering Design

 Standards for Safety Instrumentation
 ISA S84.01 Safety Instrumented Systems
 U.S. standard for emergency shutdown systems
 Primary goal is to protect people, not plant or profits
 ISA S84.01 = IEC 61511

 IEC 61508 & 61511

 IEC = International Electrotechnical Commission
 International standards for safety instrumented systems

 Standards define requirements for sensors, solvers (logic), and

final elements (valves, switches)
 Consult most recent version of standards for current best practices
 Other standards also recommend best practices for alarm levels,
vessel sizing to allow adequate control, etc.

Chemical Engineering Design

Safety Integrity Levels
 ISA S84.01 defines three levels of safety integrity
depending on the availability of the SIS
 Availability = time the system is available / total time
 Safety Integrity Levels
SIL Availability System redudancy
 SIL 1 90 – 99% Non-redundant
 SIL 2 99 – 99.9% Partially redundant
 SIL 3 99.9 – 99.99% Totally redundant
 Redundant system means instrumentation is duplicated

Chemical Engineering Design

 Safety Integrity Level
 SIL should be determined during a process
hazard analysis (see Ch10 and lectures on
process safety)
 SIL required depends on risk of operator
exposure and injury
 Can be calculated using fault trees
 See Ch10 and later lecture
 SIL determines the type of instrumentation that
should be used

Chemical Engineering Design

 Process Alarms and Shutdown Trips

LIC LIC
LT LT
LAL LAL

TRIP
LSL LAL

UC
A
UC
A

 Software alarms can be set on instruments and controllers through

the digital control system and show up on shared displays
 Separate alarm and shutdown instrumentation can also be used,
for higher redundancy

Chemical Engineering Design

Caution on Software Alarms
 There is a temptation to put lots of software alarms in digital
control systems
 If there are too many alarms then they can become a
distraction to the operators
 Increasing the chance of human error
 Increasing the chance that the operator will ignore the
alarm, switch it off, or acknowledge it without taking action
 Increased chance of an “alarm flood”
 Alarms should be carefully placed and calibrated to make sure
that they serve the purpose of the designer
 Operators should be trained to understand the importance of
every alarm on the plant

Chemical Engineering Design

Process Instrumentation & Control
 Basics of process control
 Process instrumentation
 Reading a P&ID
 Control of unit operations
 Process safety instrumentation
 Plant-wide control and optimization

Chemical Engineering Design

 Plant-Wide Control
(Advanced Process Control, APC)

All new plants and most older plants have the instruments and
controllers connected to a plant-wide digital control system (DCS).
Using the DCS:can update individual controller set points via shared
 Operators
displays
 Plant information systems can log data
 Feedforward and multivariable predictive control can be
implemented more easily
 Plant real-time optimization can be implemented through the
control system

Most controllers now have microprocessors built into them, so the

computational capacity that is needed is not necessarily located in
the control room

Chemical Engineering Design

 Plant-Wide Control Issues
 Where do we control inventories?
 All vessels that have a liquid level
 Do we need extra surge volume to keep operations steady?
 Where is the best place to control pressure?
 Single PC setting plant back-pressure?
 Need for different pressure levels?
 Where is best place to control material balance?
 Can only control flow in one place per feed stream
 Control after removing contaminants?
 Ratio control?
 What about recycles?

Chemical Engineering Design

Plant-Wide Control Issues
 Where is best place to control temperatures?
 Heaters and coolers only?
 Control of heat exchanger networks?
 How do we meet product specifications?
 Use of on-line analytical instruments?
 Inference through bubble point?
 Sampling of product storage tank?
 How do we optimize the process?
 Maximize throughput and product yield while staying on
spec?
 Minimize cost of production?
 Maximize time on stream between shutdowns?

Chemical Engineering Design

 Multivariable Predictive Control
 What if we have three manipulated variables that
interact with each other through non-linear
equations?
Measured variable 1

Measured variable 2

Measured variable 3

Control Valve 1

Control Valve 2

Control Valve 3

• Single Input Single Output (SISO) controllers will

have a hard time responding and will tend to have
strong interactions with each other (tendency to
fight)
Chemical Engineering Design
 Multivariable Predictive Control
 In this situation, instead of SISO controllers we need
a Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) controller
 The controller algorithm is a model that captures the
non-linear interaction between the manipulated
variables
 Does not have to be a “fundamental” model
 Does have to capture dynamic response
 Can be tuned from plant operation
 Hence another name for multivariable predictive
control is model-based predictive control
 With MIMO devices, there is no longer a direct pairing
of measured and manipulated variables as in the
earlier unit operations examples

Chemical Engineering Design

MIMO Example: Gas Mass Flow Controller
FY FIC

FV
FT PT TT

 Gas mass flow cannot be measured or controlled

directly
 By measuring volume flow, temperature and pressure
we can compute mass flow as long as composition is
known and steady
 This is actually MISO, not MIMO, but the FY could talk
to another device such as a ratio controller

Chemical Engineering Design

Device Communication Standards
 Now that individual controllers (and even
instruments) contain microprocessors, the
computational power of the DCS is distributed
 To make best use of this distributed
computation power, the devices need to be
able to communicate with each other
 Communication standards are set by ISA, IEC
and the controller manufacturers and are
currently evolving rapidly

Chemical Engineering Design

Evolution of Controller Communication Standards

Manual Control

Pneumatic Analog

Electronic Analog

Digital

Fieldbus (ISA SP50)

Wireless (ISA SP100)

?!?!?!?
Source: UOP

Chemical Engineering Design

 Fieldbus (ISA SP50)
 Digital device
communication protocol
that allows “plug and
play” connection of
devices
 Requires less wiring and
gives greater reliability
through redundancy
 Different control
companies have variations
on the standard, so system
compatibility and
interoperability are issues

Source: UOP

Chemical Engineering Design

Wireless Communication (SP100)
Advantages Problems
 No cable runs  Interference from
 Quicker and cheaper other wireless
to set up devices
 Portable control
 Signal blocking due
room to steelwork
 Improved safety
 Signal loss creates
need for greater
(electric cables are
easily damaged by redundancy
fires)

The controls companies are currently putting a lot of effort into developing the devices and
standards for implementing wireless control

Chemical Engineering Design

Real Time Optimization
 A DCS can be programmed to carry out
optimization of plant performance by Optimizer
updating controller set points and MPC
Targets for KPIs
algorithms
 The optimizer is usually a higher level DCS
program that runs less frequently and
is used to adjust set points Set points
periodically by computing target
values for key performance indicators Controllers
(KPIs)
Adjust
 The optimizers used for RTO are often manipulated
not very sophisticated – typically LP, variables
MILP or simple NLP models Plant

Chemical Engineering Design

 Types of Real-time Optimization

Optimizer

User User

Plant DCS

Off-line Optimization

 Users take plant data and run the optimizer then send instructions to the
plant operators to update the DCS settings
 Labor intensive and difficult to update more than daily

Chemical Engineering Design

Types of Real-time Optimization

Optimizer Optimizer

User User User

User

Plant DCS Plant DCS

Off-line Optimization Open Loop On-line Optimization

 Users provide input to optimizer, DCS updates
optimizer directly with plant settings and user
updates DCS with new targets

Chemical Engineering Design

 Types of Real-time Optimization

Optimizer Optimizer

User User User User

Plant DCS Plant DCS

Off-line Optimization Open Loop On-line Optimization

Optimizer  Users only provide input to the

optimizer and the DCS is
updated directly by the
User optimizer
Plant DCS
Closed Loop On-line Optimization
Chemical Engineering Design
Real Time Optimization Models

 Models and algorithms for RTO have very tough requirements

 Must be robust, i.e., always find a solution
 Must solve quickly
 Must converge to same solution whatever the starting point
 Must allow for model error
 Must reconcile data and filter out bad data
 Must capture plant constraints
 Must give reasonably good description of plant performance
 Hence frequent use of simple LP models
 Controls companies spend a lot of time setting up and tuning models

Chemical Engineering Design

Questions ?

Chemical Engineering Design