Uluslararası 7.

İstatistik Kongresi International 7th Statistics Congress

28 Nisan - 01 Mayıs 2011 Antalya Oturum 4 Applied Statistics 3 Session 4 Applied Statistics 3 28 April - 01 May 2011 Antalya

DEVELOPMENT OF A NONLINEAR ARX MODEL FOR A REACTIVE

PACKED DISTILLATION COLUMN
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Abdulwahab GIWA, İsmail BAYRAM, Süleyman KARACAN

Fit (%)
Ankara University, Faculty of Engineering, Department of Chemical Engineering, 06100 Tandoğan, 57
Ankara, TURKEY
E-mails: agiwa@eng.ankara.edu.tr, smlbyrm@hotmail.com, karacan@eng.ankara.edu.tr
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Abstract 1 6 11 16 21
This estimation of a Nonlinear ARX (NARX) model for ethyl acetate reactive packed distillation Wavelet Network Unit
column using wavelet network was carried out in this work. Two sets of data (one for estimation and
the other for validation) were collected from a pilot plant using feed ratio, reboiler duty and recycle Figure 1. Fits of different units of wavelet network
ratio of 1.25, 560 W and 5 respectively. The top temperaure was recorded as the output. NARX model
based on wavelet network estimator with different units were estimated and their performances The experimental and model results obtained using 11 wavelet network units are as shown in Figure 2.
compared. In conclusion, the NARX model with wavelet network containing 11 units was discovered The good fit between the results indicates that the model is a good representation of the process.
to represent the system very well.
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Top temperature ( C)
1.Introduction

o
Reactive distillation is a process that combines both separation and chemical reaction into one unit. It 70
has a lot of advantages for reactions occurring at temperatures and pressures suitable for the
distillation of the resulting components. The combination of both chemical reaction and separation in a Experimental
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single unit results in the complexity of this process which makes its modeling a very challenging task NARX Model Fit = 73.22%
to chemical engineers.
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Therefore, this work was aimed to develop a NARX model for ethyl acetate reactive packed 0 1000 2000 3000
distillation column (RPDC) using wavelet network as the nonlinearity estimator. Time (s)

2.Experimental Procedure Figure 2. Comparison between experimental and model results

The experiments were carried out in a pilot plant reactive packed distillation column of height 1.5 m
and diameter of 0.05 m. The rectification and stripping sections were packed with rasching rings while
the reaction section was filled with Amberlyst 15 catalyst. The feeds to the column were acetic acid 5. Conclusion
and ethanol. The reaction taking place in the column is given as: The good comparison between the experimental and NARX model results has shown that the model
can be used to estimate the behavior of a reactive packed distillation successfully.

Acknowledgements
Signal transfers to and from the reactive packed distillation column were carried out on-line with the One of the authors, Abdulwahab GIWA, wishes to acknowledge the support received from
aid of MATLAB/Simulink and electronic input-output modules. The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) for his PhD
Programme.
3. Modeling Procedure
A NARX model extends the linear ARX models to the nonlinear case and has the mathematical
structure which is given as: [1] REFERENCES

t  f  y  t  1 ,..., y  t  na  , u  t  nk  ,..., u  t  nk  nb  1 
y  (2) [1] Matlab (2010), System Identification Toolbox 7, The MathWorks, Inc., Apple Hill
Drive, Natick, MA.
[2] Ljung L. (1999), System identification: Theory for the User, 2nd Edition, Prentice Hall,
f is a function that depends on past inputs and outputs, na, nb and nk are the numbers of past output,
Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.
past input and delay terms respectively. The model orders were determined using MDL because it
allows the shortest possible description of the observed data. [2]
Coding the wavelet network as ‘wavenet’, the model parameters were estimated with the aid of Keywords: Reactive Packed Distillation Column (RDPC); Recycle ratio; Nonlinear
MATLAB. AutoRegressive with eXogenous inputs (NARX) Model; Rissanen’s Minimum Description
Length (MDL); Wavelet network.
4. Results and Discussion
The comparison between the different units of wavelet network is shown in Figure 1 below. As can be
seen from the figure, the maxim

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