6.

1 INTRODUCTION

Process control is important in chemical plant that operated under known and specified
conditions. It is important in safety and environmental, in operability so that plant can
achieve desired reaction and in economics to meet market requirement of purity product. A
chemical plant might be thought of as a collection of tanks in which materials are heated,
cooled and reacted, and of pipes through which they flow. Such a system will not, in general,
naturally maintain itself in a state such that precisely the temperature required by a reaction is
achieved, a pressure in excess of the safe limits of all vessels be avoided, or a flow rate just
sufficient to achieve the economically optimum product composition arise.

6.2 TYPES OF CONTROL

There is several control approach that has been applied in the production plant, the basic
concepts of these control are stated below.

6.2.1 Feedback Control

The feedback control system function is to bring the measured quantity to its required value
or set point. The feedback control system uses direct measurements of the controlled
variables to adjust the values of the manipulated variables. The main advantage of the
feedback control is the corrective actions occur as soon as the controlled variable deviates
from the set point regardless of its source and the type of disturbances. Minimal knowledge
of the process is sufficient to set up this type of control. It is also both versatile and robust
which means that if the process condition changes, re-tuning will still give a satisfactory
result. However, this type of control also has certain disadvantages, which are, there is no
corrective action taken until after a deviation in the controlled variable occurs. In addition, it
does not provide a predictive control action to compensate for the effects of known or
measurable disturbances. If the process encounters large and frequent disturbance, the action
of the controller will be such that the process will operate continually in a transient state and
never attain the desired steady state.

6.2.2 Feedforward Control

The basic idea of the feedforward control is to measure the important load variables and take
the corrective actions before they upset the process. However there are disadvantages of this
control technique as the load disturbances must be measured online and in many applications
this is not feasible. For this technique to be effective, we need to have some basic knowledge
about the process to construct a process model. Ideal feedforward control theoretically is
capable of achieving perfect control but in reality it may not be physically realizable. There
are times when the combination of both feedback and feedforward control strategies are
required such as in the level control.

6.2.3 Cascade Control

The cascade control uses a secondary measurement point and a secondary feedback controller
in order to improve its dynamic response to the load changes. The secondary measurement
point is located so that it recognizes the upset conditions sooner than the controlled variable.
The cascade control system utilizes multiple feedback loops in a process. It has two
distinguish features. The first feature is that the output signal of the master controller serves
as the set point of the slave controller. The second feature is that it consists of two nested
feedback control loops with the secondary loop (slave controller) located inside the primary
loop (master controller). The advantages of cascade control are; 1) the control will eliminate
the effect of disturbance entering the secondary loop, 2) the control will reduce the response
time of the element inn the secondary loop, which in turn will affect the primary loop, 3) the
control will make the closedloop less sensitive to model error.

6.3 CONTROLLING SHELL AND TUBE HEAT EXCHANGER

6.3.1 INTRODUCTION

The principle of operation for heat exchanger is simple enough: two fluid of different
temperature are brought into close contact and prevented from mixing by a physical barrier.
But, actually shell and tube heat exchanger are among the most confusing pieces of
equipment for the process control engineers.

The temperature of the 2 fluids will tend to equalize by arranging counter current flow it is
possible for the outlet temperature of each fluids to approach the inlet temperature of the
other. The heat contents are simply exchanged from one fluid to the other and vice versa and
no energy is added or removed.
The heat exchanger it self is not constant and its characteristic change with time. The most
common changes are a reduction of heat transfer rate because of the surface fouling.

The heat exchanger must be controlled to make it operate at the particular rate required by the
process at every moment in time.

6.3.2 CONTROL OBJECTIVE

The purpose of controlling in heat exchanger is to control the temperature from the outlet
stream. Precisely, it is important that the temperature involved in the process must be
maintained because it will influence the temperature in the next stages or equipment and it
must in a certain temperature so that the process can operate smoothly.

6.3.3 HOW TO MAINTAIN THE TEMPERATURE

a) Thermocouple is used to determine any changes in temperature, especially in the outlet the
transmitter, which will convert the signal to the electrical signal, detects stream and then the
changes. b) Temperature controller is used to interpret the electrical signal and will send an
output to the transducer. The function of the transducer is to

convert the electrical signal into air pressure. These are because the air pressure is used to
open and closed the valve in order to maintain the temperature. c) Here, the controller will
correct the increased in temperature in the outlet stream by using the valve of the inlet stream.
When this happen the heat transfer will reduced in spite of reduce in temperature.
6.3.4 CONTROL SYSTEM FOR HEAT EXCHANGER

6.1.4.1 FEEDBACK CONTROL OF HEAT EXCHANGE

T1 = Temperature of inlet fluid

T = Transducer

T2 = Temperature of outlet fluid

Tset = Temperature set

TT = Temperature Transmitter

F = Fluid flowrate

6.3.4.3 TYPES OF CONTROLLING

The controller used is feedback control, which have lots of advantages. These types of
controller can detect any changes of temperature in the outlet stream and corrective action
then occurred as soon as the controlled variables deviates from the set point, regardless of the
source and types of disturbance. Besides, it also required minimum knowledge about the
process to be controlled.

Manipulated variable

A steam flow rate, F

Process variable/control variable

Temperature of the outlet liquid (Tout), T2

Load/disturbance

Temperature and flow rate of liquid in temperature outlet. Tout = f (Ti,Fi)

6.4 FIXED BED REACTOR CONTROL

6.4.1 INTRODUCTION

The schemes used for reactor, if a reliable on line analyzer is available, and the reactor
dynamics are suitable, the product composition can be monitored continuously and the
reactor conditions are feed flows controlled automatically to maintain the desired product
composition and yield. Reactor temperature will normally be controlled by regulating the
flow of the heating or cooling medium. Pressure is usually held constant. Material balance
control will be necessary to maintain the correct flow of reactants to the reactor and the flow
of product and unreacted materials from the reactor

6.4.2 CONTROL OBJECTIVE

i. To overcome the temperature increase of inlet cooling water that may cause unsatisfactory
performance by adjusting the control valve on inlet stream. ii. To maintain the temperature of
exit liquid at the desired value.
6.4.3 CASCADE CONTROL

The cooling water is passed through the reactor jacket to regulate the reactor temperature.
The reactor temperature is affected by changes in disturbances variables such as reactant feed
temperature or composition. The control strategy to handle such disturbances is by adjusting
a control valve on the cooling water inlet stream. By adding cascade control on the feedback
controller will overcome the increase of the inlet cooling water temperature that may cause
unsatisfactory performance. Cascade control measures the jacket temperature, compares to it
set point, and uses the resulting error as the input to a controller for the cooling water
makeup, thus maintaining the heat removal rate from the reactor at constant level. The
controller set point and both measurements are used to adjust a single manipulated variable,
the cooling water makeup.

6.4.4 ADVANTAGE OF CASCADE CONTROL

i. The output signal of the master controller serves as the set point for the slave controller.

ii. The two feedback control loops are nested, with the secondary control loop (for the slave
controller) located inside the primary control loop (for the master controller)
6.5 DISTILLATION COLUMN CONTROL

Figure 6.2: Distillation Column control

6.5.1 INTRODUCTION

The final, overall objective of any process control application should always be to maximize
the profitability of the process under control. This is normally achieved via a rationalization
of the value added by the process with the energy that is consumed by the process. In the
distillation column, increasing the internal vapor and liquid flows nearly always increase the
separation of key component and therefore, increase either the product yield or its value.
However, the increase in internal flow rates in only achieved at the expense of additional
energy consumption in both the condenser and reboiler. With most reactors and many other
unit operations, this principle often manifests itself with respect to the heating or cooling
requirement, or the recycle rate. An effective control application adjusts the process operation
towards an optimum where the incremental value added is just less than the incremental cost
of the energy and raw materials.
6.5.3 OPEN-LOOP CONTROL

The most basic distillation control system consider only the column inventory and relies on
the process operator to counteract disturbances to the process by adjusting (when required) on
the manipulated variables which are not being used for inventory control. The effectiveness
of this approach depends on the variable pairings (i.e. the control configuration). It is
convenient to adopt a nomenclature to concisely describe the variable pairings or control
configuration. The most widely accepted method of describing control configuration employs
two letter designations that correspond to the variables which are not used for inventory
control.