Introduction to Procon Process control is a branch of control engineering that deals with the operation of plants in industries such

as petrochemicals, food, steel, glass, paper and energy.

The Procon 38 Series system is a complete package dealing with all aspects of Process Control. It will introduce industrial-standard equipment, and cover all aspects of equipment usage (those related to general use, and those specific to process control). Each piece of equipment is investigated individually, so that its use is fully understood and its position in process control is appreciated. When all the hardware has been covered, the different methods of modern process control are explored. These start at the most basic, with On/Off Control, and will lead up to full Proportional, Integral, and Derivative Dual Loop Control. For each type of control, a series of practical experiments will demonstrate its advantages and disadvantages, and discuss situations that it would and would not be suitable for. Control Systems The diagram below shows a general control system. This diagram can be applied to all control situations.

As the assignments proceed this control arrangement will be applied again and again, with each element taking on different forms. For example, the measurement devices will range from yourself deciding if the process is operating as it should be, to a pulse flow sensor and transmitter arrangement automatically measuring rate of flow of fluid.

The controller will be simple logic level switching equipment or a universal microprocessor-based indicator/controller with 300 internal control algorithms. Introduction To The Basic Process Rig The Basic Process Rig (BPR) primarily consists of a low pressure flowing water circuit which is completely self contained. The following components are strategically placed within this circuit :

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Sump Tank Dual Compartment Process Tank Circulating Pump Visual Indication Flow Meter Motorised Flow Gate Valve 3 Solenoid Valves 5 Manual Valves

The following components are additional options for use with the BPR. This Discovery software assumes that these devices are available.

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Level Sensor Pack (38-400) Float Switch Pulse Flow Sensor

A photograph of the Basic Process Rig rig with these components is shown below:

The following assignments contain a number of practicals associated with the BPR, which teach the concepts of process control, from the very basics to complex control scenarios. Introduction To The Temperature Process Rig The Temperature Process Rig (TPR) consists of two flow circuits, primary and secondary. The primary flow circuit is integral to the TPR, while the secondary flow circuit is derived from one of two sources depending upon the laboratory configuration. If you only have the TPR then your secondary flow circuit is supplied by the optional auxiliary valve. Otherwise you have both the TPR and the Basic Process Rig (BPR), with the latter supplying the secondary flow. Temperature Process Rig If your laboratory configuration consists of a Temperature Process Rig only (pictured below), then the secondary flow is supplied from the mains water supply which is controlled by the Optional Auxiliary Valve.

Temperature Preliminary Assignments Before attempting any of the temperature assignments, it is assumed that a basic understanding of the equipment has been maintained from the previous level/flow assignments. If this is not the case it is essential that the following preliminary assignments are carried out before continuing with the temperature practicals. Introduction to Procon Flow/Level Rig Familiarisation Flow/Level Rig Calibration Interface Familiarisation Interface Calibration Controller Familiarisation Controller Calibration Pulse Flow Transmitter Proportional Control PI and PID Flow Control The previous assignments have been developed around the Basic Process Rig, however all the actual flow assignments can be carried out using one of the flow transducers on the TPR. Although it is not possible to carry out all of the previous assignments, it is suggested that the Theory, Background, Practical and Questions are studied, as this will broaden your general understanding of the system and theoretical knowledge of process control principles. The temperature assignments are described using the Basic Process Rig for the secondary flow, however, in your case, simply substitute for this the Auxiliary Control Valve. Level Flow and Temperature Rigs If you have both the Temperature Process Rig and the Basic Process Rig in your laboratory they can be connected together. In this case, the secondary flow for your TPR is being provided by the BPR.

Level Flow and Temperature Preliminary Assignments

Before attempting any temperature assignments it is assumed that a basic understanding of the BPR, Process Controller (PC) and the Process Interface (PI) has been maintained from the previous level/flow assignments. If this is not the case it is essential that the following preliminary assignments are carried out before the temperature assignments are attempted. Introduction to Procon Flow/Level Rig Familiarisation Flow/Level Rig Calibration Interface Familiarisation Interface Calibration Controller Familiarisation Controller Calibration Pulse Flow Transmitter Although it is essential to carry out the above assignments before proceeding onto the temperature assignments, it is suggested that all the level/flow assignments are carried out prior to attempting the temperature assignments, as this will broaden your general understanding of the system and theoretical knowledge of process control principles. Secondary Flow Water Temperature If you are using the Optional Auxiliary Valve to provide the secondary flow, then the water temperature being applied to the input of the Temperature Process Rig will remain relatively constant, somewhere between approximately 8 oC and 25oC. However if you are using the Basic Process Rig to supply the secondary flow, then the very nature of the design will mean that the secondary flow fluid, will, in certain circumstances heat up greater than the specified operating temperature of 20 - 30 oC. Therefore before each practical check the water temperature in the sump (for example use a mercury thermometer). If the water temperature is outside the specified operating range, simply drain off the majority of the sump water and replace with fresh cold water. Introduction to Process Control Process control is not a new discipline. A 'process' is anything from filling a bucket of water from a tap, to monitoring the performance of a car and determining the operating parameters (fuel injected, fuel mix, braking, temperature, oil, etc) which would produce an optimum performance. Although the latter example is obviously a complex and modern one, the former is a very simple problem but it still requires control. The tap must be turned on to fill the bucket, and the flow rate will determine the length of time taken. When the bucket is full the tap must be turned off. Although these two would not be considered very similar, they both require control to operate effectively. Process control as an aid to industry is becoming an ever increasingly important area, as it determines how well a plant is operating. With the right type of control a plant should be operated as efficiently and optimally as circumstances will allow. The early development of process control and another discipline, servo systems, occurred side by side with very little interaction. During the Second World War the greatest advances were made in the field of control engineering, but security prevented open publication and debate on developments. As a result, the terminology used by process control engineers differed from that used by servo designers, despite the fact that both disciplines were striving for roughly similar objectives. Process Control and Servo Systems The one basic difference between a process control system and a servo system is that generally the emphasis in process control is on the performance of the loop as a Regulator, i.e disturbance rejection.

In servo systems the emphasis is on how well the control system can follow changes in the reference or desired input signal.

This does not mean that process control systems are never subject to changes in reference values, or that servo systems never receive disturbances. What is true however is that in a typical process control system the reference value will not change frequently. For instance, the required temperature of a particular product may be constant for days. The terminology in the process industry is influenced by the fact that quantities are often treated non-dimensionally, i.e listed as a percentage figure. For example a valve may be 80% open, a flow is 50% of max, etc. This simplifies the task of keeping track of the huge diversity of variables that have to be controlled, and is possible since everything within the plant is constrained to lie within certain limits. The term Set Point is used to represent the reference input to the process control system. The reference represents a desired constant operating point. The set point can be imposed by turning a knob, typing in a value, or it can be transmitted to a controller from a computer or another controller. The term Measured Value represents the output of the measurement system (transmitter, sensor or transducer). The measurement system produces a signal which is a function of the actual value of the physical process variable being controlled. The signal may be electrical, pneumatic or mechanical. The set point is compared to the measured value to produce the deviation, which is simply the difference between the two. The controller then uses this deviation to make the set point and the measured value as close as possible. Safety considerations are always paramount in process control. Therefore, safeguarding and monitoring systems must be included, to deal with cases of equipment failure. All possible failures must be considered so that the system is prevented from failing or, if failure cannot always be avoided, then that it will fail safely. Instrument Classifications There are generally two kinds of instrument used in process control: Firstly, instruments for monitoring process variables such as temperature or pressure, give an audio or visual indication of the magnitude of the physical quantity measured. An example is a liquid-in-glass thermometer. Secondly, instruments referred to as transmitters in process control engineering are those incorporated in an automatic control system. They are needed to provide (transmit) information about the plant status to the controller, and hence their output must be in a suitable form (electrical, hydraulic, pneumatic) to be accepted by the controller. The primary component of both types of measurement instrument is a transducer, or a sensor that converts the measured physical quantity from one form to another.

Other possible components within the instrument are an amplifier, and an output display. Another classification is between active and passive instruments. If the instrument output is entirely produced by the quantity being measured, the instrument is termed passive. A pressure gauge is a passive instrument since the pressure of the fluid is translated into movement of a pointer against a scale without any external power source. A liquid tank level indicator is an active instrument, since the change in liquid level moves a potentiometer arm, in which case the output signal is a portion of the external voltage applied across the two ends of the potentiometer. Greater control over measurement resolution can be obtained from an active instrument, because of the external power source. However, an active instrument is more expensive than a passive instrument. Thus, balancing the measurement resolution requirements against cost is often required. A further distinction is the null versus deflection instruments.

In a deflection type of instrument the value of the quantity being measured is displayed in proportion to the displacement of a pointer. A dead weight pressure gauge is an example of a null-type instrument. The pressure being measured displaces a piston, and weights are placed on top of this piston until it reaches its zero position again. The value of the weights needed to reach this position represents the pressure measurement. Null-type are more accurate than deflection type instruments because of the calibration accuracy in the former. However, deflection type instruments are generally more user friendly. A final comparison is between analogue and digital instruments.

An analogue instrument gives an output signal that is a continuous function of the input signal being measured. An example of an analogue instrument is the deflection type pressure gauge. A digital instrument however, gives an output that varies in discrete steps. The advantage of using a digital instrument is that it can be directly connected to a computer so that digital control of the process can be carried out. The increasing application of digital computers in automatic process control greatly increases the ease of computer connection. If on the other hand an analogue instrument is used in a digital control system, an analogue-to-digital converter is needed to convert the analogue output signal from the instrument to a digital form, for processing by the computer. This produces cost and time overheads. Note that the extra time involved can be critical in the control of fast processes, and as a result the accuracy may be degraded. Instrument Characteristics Knowledge of the various instrument characteristics provides an indication of the possible degree of measurement errors that can affect the performance of a process control system. The characteristics of an instrument can be classified as either static or dynamic. Examples of static characteristics of an instrument are accuracy, tolerance, precision, range, bias, linearity, sensitivity, drift, hysteresis, and resolution. Accuracy is a measure of the deviation of a reading from the true value, and is usually quoted as a percentage of the full-scale reading of the instrument. Tolerance describes the maximum deviation of a component from a specified value and can be used in place of accuracy. Precision describes the extent to which an instrument is free from random errors, these are errors due to electrical noise, environmental changes etc. A large number of readings of the same quantity taken by a high precision instrument should differ very little. Here, the clear distinction between precision and accuracy must be emphasised, in order to avoid confusion. High precision does not imply anything about measurement accuracy. A high precision instrument may have low accuracy. Low accuracy measurements from a high precision instrument are normally caused by an offset in the instrument and can be corrected with calibration. Range or Span defines the range of values of a quantity that an instrument is designed to measure.

Bias is a constant error that appears in every measurement made by an instrument and is caused by an offset in the device. It can be removed with calibration. Linearity describes an instrument whose output reading is linearly proportional to the quantity being measured, for a large number of measurements. Non-linearity is the maximum percentage deviation of any of the output readings from a straight line of best fit through all output readings, displayed graphically. Sensitivity of Measurement is defined as the ratio of meter deflection to change in input quantity of the instrument. The effect that environmental changes (temperature, pressure, etc) have on instruments is characterised by the 'zero drift' and 'sensitivity drift'. Zero Drift describes the change in the zero reading of an instrument, due to a change in ambient conditions. Sensitivity Drift specifies any change in the 'sensitivity of measurement' caused by a change in the ambient conditions. With reference to the figures below, the following instrument parameters can be illustrated: dead space, hysteresis, and threshold. Dead Space can be seen below.

Dead space is the range of input values for which there is no change in the output. Dead space is also sometimes called Deadband. The Hysteresis Curve is shown below.

It consists of two curves identical in shape. The upward and downward arrows describe the way in which the output reading varies as the input quantity to the instrument increases and decreases respectively. We can see that the instrument has different output characteristics for low-to-high and for high-to-low input changes. Hysteresis is the non-coincidence between these two curves. Threshold is shown below.

Threshold is the minimum input value at which the output begins to change. If the input is less than this threshold value there will be no corresponding output change to the input change.

Another important characteristic of an instrument is its measurement resolution, which is the minimum change in the input measured quantity that will produce an observable change in the instrument output. The resolution is dependent on the subdivision of the output scale. While the static characteristics of an instrument are concerned only with the steady-state reading that the instrument reaches, the dynamic characteristics describe the transient response of the instrument, i.e its time output response to an input signal before the output reaches the steady state. Dynamic parameters are the time constant, static sensitivity, undamped natural frequency, damping ratio, and steady state error. The damping ratio controls the shape of the output response. Difficulties arise in choosing suitable values for the damping factor, since the output response also depends on the type of input signal applied to the instrument. In most cases the physical quantities which instruments are required to measure are in the form of ramps of varying amplitudes and thus a compromise must be reached when choosing a damping factor for a particular input variable. Finally, considerations of cost, durability and maintenance must be made when choosing an instrument for a particular measurement. The Centrifugal Pump The pump of the Basic Process Rig is a submersible, ignition protected pump, fitted at the bottom of the lower tank. The task of the pump is to move the water from the lower tank to the upper tank through the piping network. An electric dc motor drives the pump on or off and no intermediate value can be set. The motor is powered by the Process Interface (PI) from the ac (switched or continuous) power supply outputs on the rear panel of the PI. The rating of the pump is 12V, 4A. The pump used is of the centrifugal type as opposed to the positive displacement type that includes the reciprocating and rotary pumps.

The centrifugal pump accomplishes its pressure boost by imparting kinetic energy to the fluid. A fluid at low pressure enters the pump assembly at the base of the rotor. The fluid flows around the cavity and is drawn up through the pump by the rotor action and the cavity profile. A centrifugal pump is used in cases where high flows and low pressure heads are needed. If flow needs to be cut to zero, the centrifugal pump can be simply valved out by closing the manual valve MV2. Special features of this pump include: i. ii. A non-airlocking mechanism, which is the number one problem of all centrifugal pumps. A water cooled motor, which reduces operating temperatures and so minimises overheating, one of the major causes of pump failure.

In this practical you will put the pump into operation and calculate the rate of flow (in litres per minute) through the interconnected pipes. A typical performance figure of the pump supplied is 300 litres/hour full flow rate. Note however, that the rate of flow will be much lower than the full flow performance of the pump, because of the small dimensions of the pipes, the resistance to flow incurred by the inner surface of the pipes, and the pressure head of the water in the upper tank. To ensure full flow the servo valve should be fully open, therefore turn the Current Source control fully clockwise.

Manual Valves & Flow Meter In this practical you will control manually the flow rate of the water supplied by the pump and the level of the water in the upper tank. You will do this by adjusting the various manual valves.

A manual valve is fully open when its adjusting knob is parallel to the pipe holding it, and fully closed when the knob is perpendicular to the pipe. The size of the valve is variable between these two extremes, making it possible to control the amount (or volume) of water passing through the valve in a given time, i.e the flow rate. This type of control is clearly low in accuracy since it relies on human observation and reaction, but is used to demonstrate a manual control system. In this system, you are the controller, controlling some parameters (e.g level, flow) of the plant (rig), using the control elements i.e the manual valves, and information about the current values of these parameters (plant status), obtained from the measurement elements, and displayed on the flow-gauge and the level indicator. The flow gauge used is a variable-area flowmeter. It provides an indication of the flow, ranging from 0.4 to 4.4 litres/minute, and is only suitable for water. This type of instrument gives a visual indication of flow rate, and so it is of no use in automatic control systems. However, it is reliable, cheap and used extensively throughout industry.

The instrument consists of a tapered glass tube containing a float which takes up a stable position when its submerged weight is balanced by the upthrust of the water. The position of the float is a measure of the flow passage and hence of the flow rate. The accuracy of such instruments varies from +/-3 to +/-0.2 per cent. To ensure full flow, the servo valve should be fully open, therefore turn the Current Source control fully clockwise. The Servo Valve A servo system is a control system, designed such that its output follows a desired input value with the minimum of error. The principle of operation of the servo valve is the same. The servo valve is based on a very simple idea. It uses a gate to block the path of the liquid through the valve and since the gate is in effect lowered down on demand it can take any position between 100% open and 100% closed. The vertical movement of the gate and stem of the valve changes the area of the port that is open. The flow rate of the fluid passing through the port is therefore proportioned or throttled by positioning the valve stem. The stem is in turn positioned by an actuator. This can all be seen in the following diagram. This type of servo valve is also known as a Gate Valve.

The position of the gate is controlled by a 4-20mA signal supplied by the PI current source. At 4mA, the gate is fully lowered, thereby closing off the flow, while a 20mA signal fully opens the valve. The servo valve is almost linear in that the applied current is approximately proportional to the flow rate. Thus, the servo valve can be used in place of the manual valve. It can also be used in an automatic control system, unlike the manual valve. Like any other servo system, a servo valve is characterised by a time constant i.e it exhibits a transient response: a sudden change in the loop current will take a finite time to establish a new flow rate. An important point to bear in mind when switching off the servo valve is that the gate will be in the same position when it is next turned on. Therefore, in order to avoid any contribution of the servo valve in future practicals, always fully open it by setting the current to 20mA, just before disconnecting it or switching off the PI. The Solenoid Valves A solenoid valve, unlike the manual or servo valve, can only be open or closed, i.e on or off. It is suitable for automation as it can be controlled remotely. An electrical solenoid coil is the main element of the valve. The normal state of a solenoid valve is closed and it is opened by passing a current through the coil. Since no intermediate setting is possible, no fine variable control can be accomplished, as with the servo valve, and hence only on/off control can be applied. There are three solenoid valves supplied with the rig. They are labelled SV1, SV2, and SV3 and have hole diameters of 5mm, 5mm, and 3mm respectively. The electrical connections to these valves are on the right hand side of the rig and the power to turn them on is supplied by the Process Interface (PI) 24Vdc outputs, either switched (one on the front panel of the PI), or unswitched (two on the rear panel of the PI). To ensure full flow, the servo valve should be fully open, therefore turn the Current Source control fully clockwise. Process Instrument Calibration In any process control system, measurements at intermediate and final stages of the production line are carried out to monitor quality-related process parameters and to inspect and test the final product. Such measurements ensure that certain quality criteria are maintained. Thus, the accuracy of the measurements must be guaranteed by the proper and regular calibration of the instruments used. Regular calibration is necessary because the characteristics of any instrument change (drift) over a period of time, due to the mechanical wear, ageing of components, environmental changes, dirt, dust, etc. Calibration consists of comparing the output of the process instrument being calibrated against the output of a standard instrument of known accuracy, when the same input (measured quantity) is applied to both instruments. During calibration, the process instrument is tested over its whole range, by repeating the comparison procedure for a range of inputs.

Calibration guarantees that the accuracy of the output reading in a calibrated instrument will be at a certain acceptable level, when the instrument is used under the environmental conditions (e.g. temperature, humidity, pressure) present during the calibration process. Outside those conditions, the characteristics of the measuring instrument may change, and hence the accuracy of the instrument will vary to a greater or a lesser extent according to its susceptibility to the modifying inputs inherent in the new environmental conditions. However, in most measurement situations it is usually impossible to control the environmental conditions to be at the levels specified for calibration, and so correction of the measuring instrument output reading is necessary. Process Instrument Calibration (2) Precautions must be taken to preserve the accuracy of the equipment used for calibration, by handling them carefully and using them only for calibration purposes. Also, calibration equipment is often chosen to be of a much greater accuracy than the process instruments. The calibration equipment should form part of a calibration chain, in which they are calibrated against still more accurate standards. This practice should be carried out so that the accuracy of all process instruments and the 'standard' equipment used to calibrate them, can be traced back to the fundamental standards set up and maintained by a national organisation (The National Physical Laboratory in the United Kingdom). When the process instrument is calibrated against a standard instrument, its accuracy will be found to be either inside, or outside that required by the application measurement accuracy limits. In the former case, the calibration results are recorded in the instrument's record sheet. If however, the instrument's accuracy is found to be outside the acceptable measurement limits, then its characteristics should be adjusted by turning the adjustment screws (zero and span) provided, until the characteristics of the instrument are within the specified measurement limits. However, there are cases where no adjustment is possible, or the range of possible adjustment is insufficient to bring the accuracy of the instrument back within measurement limits. In such cases, the instrument should be either repaired, or scrapped. Bear in mind that all calibration and measurement procedures should be documented, so that a record of the calibration history of the instrument will always be available. Processes involving the flow of liquids through connected pipes and vessels are common examples of industrial processes and are often employed to demonstrate the different methods of operation. Therefore, everything that has been said above is applied to the Basic Process Rig and all associated equipment. As a consequence, before every experiment is attempted, proper calibration of ALL the measurement instruments used, should be carried out. Measurement Errors Measurement is important in process control. It can significantly affect the quality of the final product. In the case of a nuclear power station, for example, it can also be a critical safety issue. Thus, all process parameters must be measured to known standards of accuracy. The main aim is to reduce the errors in instrument output readings as much as possible, and to quantify the remaining error, since it is not always possible or at least cost-effective to remove all measurement errors. When there are known errors present, appropriate signal processing of the measurement signals can be carried out to improve the quality of the measurement data. This is described in the next theory section. In order to reduce errors to a minimum, the sources of measurement error must be considered, which is the purpose of this theory section. There are two types of measurement error: Random and Systematic. Random errors are small differences in the output readings of an instrument when the same quantity is measured a number of times. The magnitude and sign of the error is random, so that for a large number of samples, the positive errors approximately balance the negative errors and the net error is zero.

A typical example of a possible random error is when measurements are made by human observation of an analogue meter reading. Other sources of random error are electrical noise, environmental changes (temperature, pressure), dust, friction, vibration etc. As stated above, random errors can be avoided if the same measurement is repeated a large number of times and an average is taken. However, this will only be so if the errors are truly random. That is, in the case of the analogue meter readings taken by a human, if the human observer is persistently reading the meter from one side only, then the error induced is not random but systematic and averaging over any number of readings will not eliminate it. Similarly, errors due to temperature fluctuations will not be random, if instead of both positive and negative temperature variations about a constant value, there is a net change in the temperature during the period of time that the readings are taken. Systematic errors are errors in the output readings of a measurement instrument that are unlikely to be revealed by repeated readings, and therefore cause greater problems. Apart from the random and systematic errors there are errors inherent with every instrument and are quoted by the instrument manufacturer as accuracy figures. Examples of these are bias and sensitivity. Systematic Errors The two main sources of systematic errors are system disturbance due to measurement and the effect of modifying inputs. Other sources of systematic error include the use of uncalibrated or improperly calibrated instruments, problematic wiring, and the generation of thermal e.m.f.'s. System Disturbance due to Measurement In nearly every measurement situation, the process of measurement disturbs the system and affects the values of the physical quantities being measured. As an example, consider the process of measuring car tyre pressures with a common pressure gauge. Measurement is carried out by pushing one end of the pressure gauge onto the tyre valve and reading a needle deflection against a scale.

During this process, a small amount of air flows from the tyre into the gauge. This air does not return to the tyre after measurement, so the tyre has been disturbed and the air pressure inside it has been permanently reduced. An electrical example is a common voltmeter. When applied to measure the voltage across the terminals of a circuit, it draws current, thus loading the circuit and corrupting all measurements to a degree. In all cases better instrument design (to compensate for or prevent system disturbance) is required to minimise this kind of error. In the example above, a very high impedance voltmeter will draw a negligible current and the effect will be insignificant. However, bear in mind that with passive instruments, the improvement of one performance parameter deteriorates another. This is why active instruments such as digital voltmeters are preferred, where the inclusion of a power unit improves performance considerably. Modifying Inputs The static and dynamic characteristics of measuring instruments are defined in the first theory section for specified working environmental conditions. These conditions should be reproduced as closely as possible during the calibration procedures, if the measuring instruments are required to perform according to the specifications. Any variation of the specified environmental conditions is described as a modifying input or disturbance to the measuring system. This is because an environmental change has the same effect on the system output as a change in the measured quantity. In any measurement situation it is either impractical or impossible to control the environmental conditions surrounding a measuring system. Since it is very difficult to avoid modifying inputs, the susceptibility of the measuring instruments is restricted, or alternatively the effect of modifying inputs is quantified (in terms of sensitivity drift and zero drift) and corrected in the output reading. Appropriate instruments, called secondary transducers, must be chosen to measure the relevant environmental parameters so that suitable corrections can be made to the measurements obtained from the primary measuring instruments.

Careful instrument design is crucial in making an instrument insensitive to modifying inputs as much as possible. The method of opposing inputs compensates for the effect of a modifying input in a measurement system by introducing an equal and opposite input which will cancel any modification out. High gain negative feedback is also used to compensate for the effect of a disturbance in the system. The effect of a periodic noise is minimised by appropriate filtering of the output signal. Cabling measurement instruments to equipment is another source of error. These errors are caused by ignoring the resistance and temperature coefficient of the connecting leads. Adequate screening of the cables can minimise induced noise and interference. Often proper routing of the cables can also help to reduce noise. Another source of measurement error is thermal e.m.f. A thermal e.m.f voltage is generated across the ends of a joint connecting two different metals due to a difference in temperature of the two metals. Thus errors will occur in voltage measurements whenever thermal e.m.fs are not taken into consideration. Signal Processing of Measurement Data In most cases it is neither possible nor cost-effective to remove all measurement errors. Signal processing techniques are used to improve the quality of the signal at the output of the measurement system. Operations such as amplification, attenuation, linearisation, bias removal, and filtering are common methods of processing measurement signals. The specific processing depends on the nature of the raw output signals from the measurement transducers. For example, signal amplification is carried out when the signal output level of a measurement transducer is very low. Signal linearisation may be required in cases where a measurement transducer has an output which is a non-linear function of the measured input quantity. Signal filtering is used to remove a particular band of frequencies within a signal. For example, low pass filtering may be required to remove the high frequency noise component in a signal. Signal processing can be either analogue or digital. However, some analogue signal conditioning is often necessary prior to digital signal processing. The choice between analogue and digital signal processing is mainly determined by the degree of accuracy required. Digital signal processing has a much higher degree of accuracy than analogue processing, but the cost of the processing equipment involved is much greater and the processing time is also longer, which can be a critical factor when controlling fast processes. In cases where a physical quantity is measured by an inaccurate transducer, it is sufficient to use analogue processing. When digital signal processing is chosen, it will be carried out by a digital processor, implemented either in software or in hardware. Since the output signal of most measurement transducers is in analogue form and a digital computer accepts only digital signals, an analogue-to-digital (A/D) converter is required at the interface between analogue transducers and the digital computer. Level - Volume correspondence Volume measurement is required in its own right as well as a necessary component in some techniques for the measurement and calibration of other quantities such as flow rate and viscosity. In a dimension measurement, various human-induced errors can be introduced. Checks on the way that the human operator is using equipment are just as important as calibration checks on the instruments themselves. The upper tank is of a regular shape, with a rectangular cross-section. This enables the volume of the tank to be calculated easily from its dimensions. The golden rule in dimension measurement is that the line of measurement and the line of dimension being measured should be coincident. In the case of steel rules and tapes, the greatest potential source of user-induced error is failure to position the rule squarely across the dimension being measured. Parallax error is also possible if the user does not position the rule and read it from directly above. For a given volume of water in the tank, the depth (or level) can be obtained simply from a scale fitted up the front from the bottom to the top of the tank. The other two dimensions, length and width, can be measured with a properly calibrated instrument such a 'Vernier Caliper' for instance.

Once the length and width of the tank have been measured, the cross section of the tank is given by: Area = (length) (width) Then, the volume of the water occupying the tank at a specified depth (level) is given by: Volume = (Area) (depth)

This produces a linear relationship between volume and depth, which can be graphically represented by a straight line. In order to plot a straight line, only two points are needed and therefore only two measurements of depth need be carried out. Visual Flow Meter Calibration The simplest piece of equipment available for calibrating instruments measuring liquid flow rates is the calibrated tank. The process rig is equipped with a rectangular calibrated (upper) tank. The graduated scale fitted from top to bottom allows the volume of the water to be measured quickly, which you have carried out in the previous practical. Flow rate calibration is performed by measuring the time taken, starting from an empty tank, for a given volume of water to flow into the tank. Because the calibration procedure starts and ends in zero flow conditions, it is not suitable for calibrating instruments which are affected by flow acceleration and deceleration characteristics. The technique is further limited to the calibration of low viscosity liquid flows, although lining the tank with an epoxy coating can allow the system to cope with higher viscosities. If liquids of high viscosities are used, the limiting factors to calibration are the drainage characteristics of the tank, which must be such that the residue liquid left after draining has an insufficient volume to affect the accuracy of the next calibration. In this practical you will measure the 'fill' times for various volumes of water, calculate in each case the flow rate in litres/min and take the average of all these flow rate values. Finally, you will compare this average flow rate value with the value indicated by the visual flow meter.

Note however that the resolution of the flow meter is 0.2 l/min, its range is 0.4 l/min to 4.0 l/min, and water should be used as the liquid.
Servo Valve Calibration In the Familiarisation assignment you have familiarised yourself with the operation of the servo valve. In this practical, the characteristics of the servo valve will be investigated to provide a means of calibrating the valve.

The servo valve characteristic to be investigated is the relationship between the flow rate and the supplied current. The flow rate value for a particular current is obtained from the visual flow meter, while the value of current is obtained from the Digital Display Module (DDM) connected in series with the servo valve. The DDM is a simple milliammeter which will be used a great deal in later assignments. The aperture of the gate valve enclosed in the servo valve metal box, is controlled by the magnitude of the current supplied by the process interface 4 - 20mA dc current source.

This gate aperture defines the amount of water that will pass through the valve in a given time, i.e the flow rate. The graph plotted between current and flow provides the characteristics of the servo valve. Ideally, for a linear servo valve, this graph should be a straight line. Solenoid Valve Calibration In this practical you will switch on the solenoid valves and find their size coefficients C v by knowing only the level and flow rate. The following gives you an outline of the calculation: The equation governing the flow of fluid through a restriction such as a valve may be derived from the laws of fluid mechanics. For a control valve, the flow rate of a liquid is assumed to be given by: f = k a [2g (h1 - h2) ]1/2 where: f = flow rate, lt/sec k = a flow coefficient a = area of control valve port, m2 g = acceleration due to gravity, m/sec2 h1 - h2 = difference between upstream and downstream water levels The flow coefficient k and port area a, are different for every style and size of control valve. Consequently, it is standard practice to combine certain terms of the above equation into a single number C v, termed the size coefficient: Cv = k a The size coefficient Cv is defined as the flow rate of water in litres per minute, provided by a pressure differential of 1kg per m 2 through a fully open control valve. The size of the control valve is important, because it affects the operation of the automatic controller. If the control valve is oversize, for example, the valve must operate at low lift (position of the gate) and the minimum controllable flow is large. Alternatively, if the control valve is undersize, the maximum flow required for operation of a process may not be provided. Circuit Breakers A circuit breaker, part of a power supply unit, is a protection device that is often used in place of a fuse. One difference between it and a fuse is that the fuse breaks permanently, whilst the circuit breaker breaks temporarily and can provide more comprehensive protection. Another difference is that the circuit breaker section performs the functions of switching and isolation, protection against overload currents and protection against short-circuit currents, whilst fuses are electrical safety devices that protect equipment and components only from damage caused by overloaded circuits.

These functions of the circuit breaker are accomplished by means of thermal and electro-magnetic protection devices. The earth fault detection section energises a trip coil when an earth fault occurs, causing the circuit breaker to open. Circuit breakers are produced in various sizes and specifications, depending on the intended application. The circuit breaker protects the circuit against overload currents by automatically switching off the supply. When only a slight overload occurs, however, the opening action of the circuit breaker must be delayed. This is to guard against the effects of voltage surges and spikes, which can cause unnecessary tripping of the device, as well as surges caused by switching on of motor, lighting and inductive circuits. In contrast, short circuit currents must be interrupted as quickly as possible. In order to accomplish protection for both overload and short-circuit currents, the circuit breaker has a bi-metallic strip and an electromagnetic unit. The bi-metallic strip provides the thermal tripping characteristics. When an overload current occurs, the strip is heated to a temperature that is dependent on the size and duration of the overload current.

This heating will bend the strip until after a certain time, the device is switched off. The electromagnetic section contains a coil and a moving latch. When a short circuit current flows through the coil, a magnetic field is created that causes the latch to be attracted to the coil.

This effect is immediate and the circuit breaker will trip instantly. Another device, also part of the circuit breaker, protects against earth fault currents. The main function of the device is to detect any difference between the currents that flow in the live and neutral lines. If a discrepancy is detected, the live and the neutral contacts are opened by an electromechanical device. The tripping system used in the device is a drop out system that is rated as fail safe. This system contains a magnetic circuit, which links to an adjacent coil core when an earth fault has been detected. When not in operation, the system is kept on standby by a permanent magnet, that ensures that the striker pin is held in position. If an earth fault occurs, it is detected by the electronic section of the device. A capacitor is then discharged and a pulse is given to the coil of the tripping system. As a result of the coil being energised, the coil core becomes part of the magnetic circuit. In this situation, magnetic flux no longer exists in the striker pin, which is released, discharging a spring and so providing the energy to operate the tripping mechanism. The test circuit includes a white test button, marked 'T', which covers a contact spring and resistor. The resistor is connected to the phase voltage and, when the test button is pressed, is also connected to the neutral conductor situated outside the core.

By pressing the test button, an earth fault is simulated and the circuit breaker will trip. Current Loops in Process Control Signalling is necessary in controlled installations. Consider for example that a controller is situated in a control room, and its transmitter and control valve are mounted locally to a tank. In order for the controller to get information from the transmitter, and also to be able to affect the position of the control valve (to alter the flow rate or the level in the tank for example), it is necessary for the units to be able to communicate with each other. Signalling may either be done pneumatically (compressed air signalling), or electrically (current signalling). A great advantage with signalling is that standard signals can be used, which means that instruments can be bought from different suppliers and still remain compatible. Electrical signals in a control system are usually DC (Direct Current) signals, and can be divided into current and voltage signals. Current signals are used for signalling over long distances, and voltage signalling is used for shorter distances. Nowadays, computers are increasingly taking over control room instrumentation, and there has been a corresponding drop in the use of voltage signalling. Current signalling is very often used between transmitters, controllers and signal transducers.

This shows a simple signalling arrangement between a control room and its transmitter. Current Loops in Process Control From an electrical point of view, a transmitter can be regarded as a current generator, which in our case is powered by the Process Interface (PI), situated in a remote control room. This means that it is the transmitter that determines the current, independently of the line resistance. However, Ohm's law still applies: Imax = E/R where E is the voltage supplied by the PI (in the control room) and R is the line resistance. Industry standard current signals are 4-20 mA and 0-20 mA.

A transmitter for a 4-20 mA signalling loop works as follows: The transmitter draws about 3 mA in order to work itself. The voltage required at the transmitter's terminals is usually of the order of 12-15 V. This diagram shows a typical transmitter arrangement.

The sensing device is converting a physical quantity (e.g level, flow rate, pressure, etc.) into a current signal. This is compared by the current sensor, with the outgoing current, the difference is amplified and is used to alter the setting of the current generator. The current signal changes in proportion to the signal from the sensing device. Signalling between the transmitter and a number of instruments sited in the control room often requires a current-to-voltage conversion, that takes place in the instruments by passing the current through their resistors. This multiple instrument signalling is shown below.

The voltage levels obtained are then used internally within the instruments which are based on analogue electronics. Voltage signals also occur in computer equipment, where analogue signals are processed firstly using current-to-voltage conversion, and then Analogue-to-Digital (A/D) conversion. The most common signal range is 0-10 V, but 1-5 V and 2-10 V are also used. Voltage signalling is uncommon between transmitters and controllers within the process industries. There are exceptions however, particularly in rotational speed control motors, where the output signal from the tacho-generator is a DC voltage. The most commonly used current signals are 4-20 mA and 0-20 mA. For signalling using a 0-20 mA loop, the following advantages and disadvantages may be listed: Advantages

o o

20 mA resolution Current signal is independent of lead resistance, however, Imax = E/R still applies

Disadvantages

o o o

The transmitter must be provided with separate supply. This adds to the installation cost. It is not possible to provide a transmitter fail-safe system. It is difficult to calibrate the zero.

Similarly, for signalling using a 4-20 mA loop: Advantages

o o

2-wire connection system, i.e signalling and power supply in the same leads may be used. The floating zero point (4 mA) means : Simple to calibrate zero point because the lowest current can be reduced below 0%. Simple to provide transmitter fail-safe system. Current signal is independent of line resistance, however, Imax = E/R still applies.

Disadvantages

o o

Resolution of only 16 mA. Considering the above points, the 4-20 mA current loop is used in the experiments you will be doing in this package.

Circuit Breaker, Current Loop and Connections In this practical you will become familiar with the power, current source and process connections on the front panel of the Process Interface (PI). You will also see how the Digital Display Module (DDM) is used to display the loop current representing the process variable being measured.

The power section in the top left corner of the front panel includes a V40H multi9 30mA circuit breaker by Merlin Gerin, capable of providing protection against overcurrent and earth fault currents (earth leakage). The V40H 30mA device protects the circuit against overload currents by automatically switching off the supply in times of fault. Also, the circuit breaker protects against earth fault currents, by detecting any difference between the currents that flow in the live and neutral lines. If a discrepancy is detected, the live and neutral contacts are opened by an electromechanical device. The above two actions of the circuit breaker are the two different tripping characteristics of the device. To test the operation of the V40H, press the test button on the front of the device. The V40H should trip every time. Failure to do so indicates either no supply to the V40H, or a faulty device. Note that all electrical equipment protected by the V40H must be effectively earthed and the measured value of the earth loop impedance in Ohms, must be such that the product of this value and the operating current of the V4OH should not exceed 16A. The maximum permissible earth fault loop impedance for the V40H is 8000 Ohms. A V40H 30mA device is not used as the sole means of protection against direct contact, but it is used to reduce the risk associated with direct contact. Proceeding with the description of the various sections on the front panel of the PI, the current source is considered next.

Circuit Breaker, Current Loop and Connections The internal circuitry of the current source is of no concern here. A voltage applied at the input of the current source gives a current at the + and - output terminals, proportional to the input voltage. The output current can be varied between 4-20mA, using the black knob. The controls labelled span and zero will be used in the Controller Familiarisation assignment to calibrate the device. There are four general purpose process connections on the front panel of the PI. The fifth process connection is reserved for the servo valve. Each process connection consists of a 7-pin DIN socket and a pair of + and - terminals. These can be either input or output terminals, depending on the circuit configuration. Note that the + and - terminals of the current source are input to the servo only. The associated 7-pin DIN lead carries the power supply and current signals to the auxiliary devices (transmitters, DDM) that can be attached magnetically to the process rig. The current signal alone, representing the process variable being measured by an auxiliary device, can be obtained from the + and terminals of the process connection and subsequently distributed to the I-V converters or to the controller. The Digital Display Module (DDM), when included in the current loop, indicates the value of current in the loop in mA or as a percentage (%) of the maximum current. Thus, 4mA corresponds to 0% and 20mA to 100%.

In this practical, a current loop incorporating the current source, two process connections and the DDM is set up to illustrate the above. Servo Valve In this practical you will connect a current loop using the current source, the Digital Display Module (DDM) and the servo valve. As described in the Flow/Level Rig Familiarisation assignment, the servo valve opening and hence the flow rate are set by the current in the circuit, which can be varied using the black knob in the current source section on the front panel of the PI. A 4mA setting implies a fully closed servo valve, whilst the valve is fully open when the current is at 20mA. To operate the valve, you should connect the + and - current source output terminals to the respective + and - servo valve input terminals, and the servo valve process connection 7-pin DIN socket on the PI to the servo valve socket on the BPR using the appropriate leads. This is all shown in Patching Diagram 2. The block diagram for the current loop is shown below.

The current from the current source enters the + and - input terminals of the servo valve connection and exits through the corresponding 7pin DIN socket to the process rig servo valve socket. The Digital Display Module (DDM) is connected in the loop to display the value of current in mA or as a percentage (%).

As shown previously, the flow rate is controlled by the servo valve which is set by the loop current. The servo valve opening is directly proportional to the loop current. This enables the DDM to be set to %, and the value that it reads can be considered the state of the servo valve, e.g. the servo valve is k% open. It is very common to describe process variables in control as percentages rather than absolute values. The main reason for adopting this approach is the huge diversity of variables that have to be controlled, even in a small plant. It is very difficult for operators to remember every absolute pressure, flow, temperature, and so on, but by using a non-dimensional representation of quantities, the task of keeping track of operation is greatly simplified Another reason is that everything in the plant is constrained to lie within certain limits. For example, a valve can only operate from fully closed to fully open, a temperature sensor is designed to give correct readings over a certain range. This makes it very simple to express quantities as percentages. Current-Voltage Converters In this practical you will incorporate the current source, process connections 1 and 2, and the Digital Display Module (DDM) in a loop, similar to the previous practicals. The new feature is the current-to-voltage (I-V) converter.

There are two I-V converters in the PI, labelled I 1->V1 and I2->V2 on the front panel of the PI. These are used to convert the current in the loop to a voltage across R, a 100 Ohm resistors. The voltages obtained can be used as inputs to the comparator or logic inputs in the on-off section on the front panel of the PI (this section will be described in the Controller Familiarisation Assignment) or as inputs to the various relays of the process controller. In this way, different modes of control can be obtained. The voltages produced across the terminals G and 0V, or H and 0V, are referenced with respect to 0V, whilst the voltages across the corresponding + and - input terminals of the converters, are not. This ensures that all the voltages are commonly referenced to 0 Volts. You will use converter 1, i.e I1->V1, to convert the current around the loop using the 100 Ohms resistor to a voltage across the terminals G and 0V. You will repeat this for a number of different values of current and plot the graph of voltage against current. This graph should approximate to a straight line with the gradient approximately equal to 100 Ohms. Process Instrument Calibration In any process control system, measurements at the intermediate and final stages of a production line are carried out to monitor qualityrelated process parameters, and to inspect and test the final product. This is to ensure that the quality of the product is maintained. For this to be successful the accuracy of these measurements must be monitored and corrected if necessary by proper calibration of the instruments used. Regular calibration is necessary because instrument characteristics change (drift) over a period of time, due to mechanical wear, ageing of components, environmental changes, dirt, dust, etc. When calibrating an instrument, its output is compared to the output of a standard instrument of known accuracy, when the same input (measured quantity) is applied to both instruments. During the calibration process, the process instrument is tested over its whole range, by repeating the comparison procedure for a range of inputs.

Calibration ensures that the accuracy of a calibrated instrument will be at a certain acceptable level, when used under the environmental conditions present during the calibration process. Outside those conditions, the characteristics of the measuring instrument change, and its accuracy can no longer be relied upon. However, in most situations it is usually impossible or impractical to control environmental conditions,and correction of the measuring instrument reading is necessary. Calibrated equipment should form part of a calibration chain, in which each link in the chain is calibrated against still more accurate equipment, ensuring reliability and accuracy. When a process instrument is calibrated against a standard instrument, its accuracy will be found to be either inside, or outside that required by the application measurement accuracy limits. In the former case, the calibration results are taken down in the instrument's record sheet. If however, the instrument's accuracy is found to be outside the acceptable measurement limits, its characteristics should be corrected until they lie within the specified measurement limits. If adjustment is not possible the instrument should be either repaired, or scrapped. Processes involving the flow of liquids through connected pipes and vessels are common examples of industrial processes and are often employed to demonstrate the operation of many different kinds of processes. As a consequence, before every experiment is attempted, proper calibration of ALL the measurement instruments used, should be carried out. Comparators Comparator circuits are nonlinear circuits which are based on operational amplifiers, and usually produce two discrete outputs, each of which is dependent on the input level. Comparators are widely employed in applications involving the selection of a finite number of possible circuit conditions. Comparators are used as key elements of A/D and D/A conversion systems and also in oscillator and waveform generator applications. Circuits in which one or more conditions of operation occur at a saturation level are referred to as saturating circuits. Saturating comparator circuits are relatively slow in operation and thus are limited in application. By various clamping techniques, it is possible to establish reference levels well below saturation, and hence increase the switching speed significantly. Such circuits are referred to as nonsaturating circuits. Comparators may also be classified as either non-inverting or inverting, according to the following: If the output is high when the input is above a certain minimum transition level, the circuit is considered as non-inverting. Conversely, if the output is low when the input is above a certain minimum transition level, the circuit is considered as inverting. Open-Loop Comparators The simplest comparator circuits are those that operate with no feedback at all. Such comparators are referred to as open-loop comparators. The simplest open-loop comparator is the non-inverting saturating comparator.

The input signal is applied to the non-inverting input Vin, and the inverting input Vref is grounded. If V in > 0, the differential input voltage and the output voltage are both positive. Because of the very large typical open-loop voltage gain A d, a positive voltage in the microvolt range will drive the output to positive saturation. For example, if Vsat = 13 V and Ad = 200,000, a positive voltage as small as V in = 65 microvolts will cause the output to reach saturation. If Vin < 0, the differential input voltage and the output voltage are both negative. Therefore, the operation of the non-inverting saturating comparator can be described by the two expressions: Vout = Vsat for Vin > 0, and Vout = -Vsat for Vin < 0 An inverting saturating comparator circuit is formed by grounding the non-inverting input and applying the signal to the inverting input.

In this case the mathematical operation can be expressed as : Vout = Vsat for Vin < 0, and Vout = -Vsat for Vin > 0 The two open-loop comparator circuits considered above both have transition points at zero volts, established by the voltage level of the input Vref. By applying a dc bias voltage to either of the op-amp (operational amplifier) inputs, the transition level may be established at some arbitrary voltage level. Schmitt Triggers Comparators employing positive feedback are widely known as Schmitt Trigger circuits. The addition of positive feedback produces an effect called hysteresis. Hysteresis, as introduced in the Familiarisation assignment is the non-coincedence of the transition curves of the output when the input changes from high-to-low state and from low-to-high state. The response curve to input state changes is direction-sensitive. The advantages of the Schmitt trigger circuit are:

o o

The possibility of undesirable state changes due to spurious noise pickup is minimised by employing hysteresis. The change in input must be of a certain magnitude before it triggers a state change, with the 'certain magnitude' controlled by the level of hysteresis. Also the switching process is emphasised, or exaggerated, by the hysteresis effect, and this effect can be advantageous in certain waveform generators.

Consider the inverting Schmitt trigger circuit below.

The divider network consisting of R 1 and R2 establishes a voltage at the non-inverting input terminal proportional to the output voltage. The magnitude of the voltage across R 2 is defined as the threshold voltage, V t. This voltage is : Vt = R2V out/(R1 + R2). Note that : Vref = Vt when Vout = Vsat and Vref = -Vt when V out = -Vsat With reference to the input-output characteristic curve shown, assume initially that the circuit is in a state corresponding to the position A.

At A, Vout = Vsat, Vref = +Vt, and Vin is negative. Since Vref = +Vt, the input voltage Vin must slightly exceed Vt to force the op-amp differential input voltage to change sign. V in must travel along line AC. When Vin reaches and slightly exceeds Vt (at point C), the op-amp output starts to drop. The voltage at the non-inverting input, which is always a constant fraction of the output voltage, will follow the output. This increases the differential voltage and accentuates the transition process. The output is travelling down line CD. The op-amp output has now changed from +V sat to -Vsat in a short time interval, limited primarily by the maximum rate of change (the slew rate). Any further increase in Vin causes the input to move along line DE, but the output remains at -V sat. While Vout = -Vsat, Vref = -Vt. To return to the initial state, V in must decrease along line EF until it is less than -V t. At which point the switching is triggered again and the output will travel up line FB until Vout = +Vsat. Observe how the switching level is a function of the direction of change. By choosing an appropriate value of V t, the effects of noise at the transition points can be minimised. However, if V t is too large, the accuracy of the crossover point may be degraded, so the threshold must be carefully selected. The rectangle on the input-output characteristic curve is called a hysteresis loop. Note that it is necessary to label a hysteresis loop with arrows in order to identify the proper direction. With the feedback loop connected to the non-inverting input, the input signal V{in} is always connected to the inverting input of the Schmitt trigger. This means that a Schmitt trigger is an inverting device. When its input becomes more positive than V{t}, the output switches to low (normally negative). When its input becomes more negative than -V{t}, the output switches to high (normally positive). This must always be remembered when using one of these devices. Current Source Calibration In this practical you will calibrate the current source of the PI. You will setup a current loop, so that the Digital Display Module (DDM) can be included in the loop, and indicate the value of the current source output. You will then calibrate the current source against the DDM. In order to do that, two adjustments must be made: i. ii. Calibrate for zero: You will adjust, using an appropriate screwdriver, the zero control, located in the current source section on the front panel of the PI, so that exactly 4 mA or 0% is shown on the DDM. Calibrate for span: You will use an appropriate screwdriver to adjust the span control, located in the current source section on the front panel of the PI, so that the DDM displays exactly 20 mA or 100%.

In this practical you are only required to perform and understand the calibration process. The accuracy of your calibration is limited by the accuracy of the instruments used in the calibration process. To perform calibrations of a very high accuracy, instruments must be used that have been calibrated themselves to a very high level of accuracy. The more often an instrument is calibrated, the more its readings can be relied upon. This calibration should be carried out before every practical to ensure the output of the current source is accurate. To rely on the last use of the current source not to have changed the calibration is very bad practice, and every effort should be made to ensure its reliability. This does not apply only to the current source. You will be shown how to calibrate other instruments in the following assignments, and once you have become familiar with each procedure it should form part of a pre-practical setup routine. By calibrating each instrument you can then be satisfied that any results produced will be up to a certain level of accuracy. A measurement is only as accurate as the least accurate instrument involved in a practical. Control Systems A control system consists of a controller and a plant. A plant is the machine, vehicle, or process that is being controlled. The controller is the system that is required to produce satisfactory results from the plant. A manual control system is one where the controller is a person. The alternative to this is an automatic control system, where the controller is a device, usually implemented electronically, either using analogue circuits or a digital computer (microprocessor). Pneumatic and hydraulic controllers can also be found in industry, these are still legitimate automatic control systems. The interface between the plant and the controller requires actuators (control elements) to provide the control action. Actuators are commonly electric, pneumatic, or hydraulic, depending on the application and power level required. In addition, detectors, sensors (measurement elements) and instrumentation are needed to provide information about the plant status to the controller. Control Systems The diagram below shows the basic elements of a control system. The flow of information between these elements can be seen.

The information that is passed between the controller and the plant is in the form of signals. These signals can be very diverse, for example electrical, pneumatic, mechanical, etc. The term transmitter is used to describe the action of the measurement element when it sends signals to the controller, which represent the measured values of the system. A control system can be open-loop or closed-loop. An open-loop control system utilises a controller or control actuator in order to obtain the desired response, without incorporating feedback. The input-output relationship of the system is only the cause and effect relationship of the output from the controller and the plant.

In contrast to an open-loop control system, a closed-loop control system utilises an additional measure of the actual output. This is then compared to the desired output response, or reference input signal. The measure of the output is called the 'feedback signal'. A feedback control system often uses a prescribed function between the output and reference input to control the process. Often the difference between the output of the process under control and the reference input is amplified and used to control the process, so that the difference is continually reduced The notion of feedback exists in everyday life. For instance we use visual feedback to walk. Feedback not only gives verification of our actions, it allows us to cope with a changing environment by adjusting our actions in the presence of unforseen events and changing conditions. Feedback has similar advantages when applied to automatic control. Feedback gives an automatic control system the ability to deal with unexpected disturbances and changes in the plant behaviour. A manually controlled closed-loop system for regulating the level of fluid in a tank uses negative feedback. The input is a reference level of fluid that the operator is instructed to maintain. This reference is memorised by the operator. The operator views the level of fluid through a port in the side of the tank. The power amplifier is the operator and the sensor is visual. The operator compares the actual level with the desired level and opens or closes the valve (actuator) to adjust the flow and hence maintain the desired level. Automatic Control Systems The control of an industrial process by automatic rather than human means is called automation. In its modern usage, automation can be defined as a technology that uses programmed commands to operate a given process, combined with feedback of information to determine that the commands have been properly executed. This kind of automation is provided by the digital PID process controller COMMANDER 300. Modern control systems are self-organising, adaptive, robust, able to learn about a process, and can optimise control. Automation is often used for processes that were previously operated by humans. When automated, the process can operate without human assistance or interference. In fact, most automated systems are cabable of performing their functions with greater accuracy and precision, and in less time, than humans are able to do. However, semi-automated (hybrid, or human-robot) processes that incorporate human workers and robots (computer controlled machines) and manually controlled systems, still exist, since some tasks are best carried out by humans. Control systems are sometimes divided into two classes. If the object of the control system is to maintain the physical variable at some constant value in the presence of disturbances, the system is called a regulator. One example of a regulator control system is the speed-control system on the ac generators of power utility companies. The purpose of this control system is to maintain the speed of the generators at the constant value that results in the generated voltage having a frequency of 50 Hz in the presence of varying electrical power loads. Another example of a regulating process control system is the biological system that maintains the temperature of the human body at approximately 36}o{C in an environment that usually has a different temperature. The second class of control systems is the servomechanism (sometimes called a Kinetic control system). Although this term was originally applied to a system that controlled a mechanical position or motion, it is now often used to describe a control system in which a physical variable is required to follow, or track, some desired time function. An example of this type of system is an automatic landing system, in which the aircraft follows a 'ramp' trajectory to the desired touchdown point. A second example is the control systems of a robot, in which the robot 'hand' is made to follow some desired path in space. Control Types Different types of control can be carried out by the Process Controller (38-300), depending on the requirements of the process and the desired output. All types are covered thoroughly in their own assignments, but an introduction to each is given in this theory. Each type is shown by applying it to a simple level control problem, and by doing this you will gain an insight into the types of control that are available. A tank is holding liquid to feed a process. The process being supplied requires a constant head of liquid and so a control system is required to keep the tank level constant. A valve is located in the tank inlet to vary the flow rate.

The diagram below illustrates the situation.

Open-loop Operation The simplest strategy is to calibrate the inlet valve. By experimentation, a relationship between tank level and position of the handwheel can be obtained. If the outflow is constant, a position of the handwheel can be found that keeps the level constant. If the valve is opened a little more, so that more water is coming into the tank than is going out, then the level will rise. Conversely if the valve is closed a little, so that more water is going out than is coming in, then the level will fall. Now, if a different level is required, the handwheel can be changed to increase or decrease the flow until the new level is reached. This method is Open-Loop Operation. It is simple and will work well, provided there is no change in the outflow of the liquid, and all other parameters affecting the level in the tank remain constant. There is no electrical or mechanical feedback path, so the system is open loop, but feedback is being provided through the user. He/she is deciding if the actual level is above or below the desired level, and adjusting the actuator accordingly. Feedforward/Feedback Control Feedforward Control The major cause of disturbances affecting the tank level is likely to be changes in the tank outflow rate. An increased outflow will cause the tank level to drop. Therefore, a more reasonable approach is to produce calibration curves for a number of outflow rates. By monitoring the outflow rate, the correct position of the handwheel can be determined by examining the calibration curve for the new flow. The handwheel is then adjusted to keep the tank at the required level. This technique is Feedforward Control, and requires a measurement of the outflow rate in order to calculate the change in the position of the inlet valve. Although feedforward control is an improvement over open-loop operation, it does have disadvantages that restrict its usefulness. One of these disadvantages is the calibration curves between the handwheel position, outflow and level. These must be accurate for the process to function correctly. Another is that the process may vary with time, or disturbances occur that are not included in the calibration curves or are not monitored. Under these circumstances, feedforward control will not be successful. Feedforward/Feedback Control Feedback Control We could carry out more measurements to compensate for the errors that can occur in feedforward control. However, the obvious solution to keep the level in the tank constant, is to monitor the level itself. If it deviates from the desired value, the inlet valve is adjusted by an amount dependent on the difference between the actual level and the desired level. This control strategy is called Feedback Control. Feedback control is error driven in that the control effort is a function of the difference between the desired and the actual levels. The relationship between the error and the control effort is called the control law.

Feedback level control does require a more elaborate level measurement technique, and an accurate valve actuator. It also requires a signal related to the actual level (i.e a level transmitter). In addition, the valve actuator must be able to hold the valve in any position, and to also change its position gradually and smoothly. The diagram below illustrates how this may be implemented for the situation described earlier.

The important characteristic of feedback control is that it is capable of providing a range of control effort, that is, it can produce small as well as large corrections. An appropriate control law must be designed or selected to produce a satisfactory performance. The control law represents the action of the controller. Common control law types are the P-type (proportional), I-type (integral) and D-type (derivative), or a combination of these, i.e PI, PID. Examples of feedback control systems can be found in nature, one of which is the temperature-control of the human body. This control system attempts to maintain the body temperature at a constant value. Generally, the environment tends to vary the body temperature. The body responds to a difference in temperature by perspiring, by increasing or decreasing blood flow, by shivering, and so on. This control system has one characteristic that control systems designed by humans do not often have : it normally operates in a satisfactory manner for seventy years or more. Another characteristic of this system, and one that is usually present in control systems that we design, is that if the magnitude of the error becomes too large, the system fails. On/Off Feedback Control A simplification of the general feedback control type is On/Off Feedback Control. The level in our example would now only have two states; either above the desired level or below it. Monitoring can now be carried out by a float switch, mounted at the desired level. The switch produces a binary (on/off) signal that indicates whether the level is above or below the desired value. The signal can then be used to operate the inlet valve directly. When the level is above the reference value, the inlet valve is closed, and when below, it is opened. The control law in on/off control is kept simple, it switches the control effort between two extremes, depending on the sign of the error. The diagram below illustrates the control method in the context of the equipment set-up.

Whatever the cause of the change in level, provided the deviation is large enough to activate the switch, then control action will be applied to correct the situation. By using on/off control our equipment requirements have been simplified. However, there are several problems associated with on/off control. One problem concerns the abrupt fluctuations in flow as the valve switches between fully open and fully closed. Another problem is that the precision of on/off control depends heavily on delays associated with the switch, the inlet valve and the rate of change of flow. With lengthy delays, overflow could occur if the valve is not shut as soon as the desired level is reached. The answer is not just to make the switch quick and sensitive as this can lead to unnecessary switching caused by waves or ripples. The type of control chosen for a particular situation will depend on the accuracy required, cost of equipment, maintenance (the simpler the system, the easier it will be to maintain), disturbances expected and the degree of disturbance rejection expected, degree of human intervention required, health and safety (how dangerous is an overflow of the process in question?), and so on. Serial Communication Practical 1 will take you through the steps that must be carried out before you can attempt any practical that uses the Process Controller (38-300) and a personal computer together. It is vital that these steps are completed successfully to allow the 38-300 to communicate with your personal computer.

Steps 1 and 2 concern the physical link between the 38-300 and your personal computer. They ensure that the cable supplied to link the two devices is connected to the correct ports, and that the 38-300 is terminated correctly. It is possible to use more than one 38-300 if a practical demands it, and in such a case the controllers form a chain from the computer. This is when the termination of the serial lines is important. Step 3 deals with the parameters that must be set up in the 38-300 to allow it to communicate with your personal computer. The parameters are the speed of communication (or Baud rate), the identity of the 38-300 (to allow more than one to be used), the type of parity checking and the block check character enable (the last two are both error checking facilities). These four amount to the 'language' that is being spoken, if they are set up incorrectly the 38-300 will not understand the messages being sent by your personal computer.
Practical 2 considers the 38-300 in much greater detail, and explains the control panel and how it functions, but this practical must be completed first. Although you may not fully understand all of the steps yet they will become clear in the next practical. It is sufficient just to follow them for now. The reason for keeping this in a separate practical is that it can now be referenced at any time very easily. Linking the 38-300 to a computer is accomplished by completing this practical. Navigating The Controller The following diagram shows the configuration of the front control panel of the ABB Commander 300 controller.

There are six tactile membrane switches. Each switch enables a certain function, or a list of functions to be carried out. The switches are outlined below:

The Page Advance key is used to move forward through the program pages.

Note : The various possible programming functions are divided up into groups, called program pages. Each program page consists of a number of parameters that can be set up by the operator, to achieve a particular function or mode of operation.
The Parameter Advance switch is used to advance to the next parameter within a program page. The Enter switch is used for storing the programmed parameters and values into the instrument's non-volatile memory. The same switch is also used in some parameters to toggle between, or step through, a selection of displays/ parameters.

Note : A flashing decimal point on the upper display indicates a change to the value/parameter in the lower display. The change can be stored in memory by pressing the Enter switch, and the flashing decimal point will disappear showing that the change has been stored. If the Enter key is not pressed before advancing to the next parameter or page, the changed parameter will not be stored and it will revert to its original value.
The Raise switch is used to increase a parameter value, or step up through a selection of parameters. The Lower switch is used to decrease a parameter value or step down through a selection of parameters.

Note : Continued pressure on the Raise and Lower keys, causes the rate of change of the displayed variable to increase. To make small adjustments, press the keys momentarily.
The Auto/Manual switch is used for selecting automatic or manual mode. In manual mode, the displays automatically revert to control output (bottom display) and the process variable values (top display), and the Raise and Lower keys can be used to alter the control output. When in auto mode this facility is disabled. To return to the operating page (the first page) from any other page or parameter, press Page Advance once and then Enter once Controller Displays When a parameter within a program page is being viewed, the upper display shows the name of that parameter and the lower display shows the value or setting for that parameter. An 11 segment bar graph display indicates the deviation of the measured value from the set-point. The LED indications are as follows : A1 is associated with the states of alarms 'A' to 'E'; A2 is associated with the states of alarms 'F' to 'K'; More specifically, if: the LED is flashing, the relative alarm is active, but not acknowledged; the LED is on, all active alarms are acknowledged; the LED is off, all alarms are inactive; L is on, when the local set point is being used; R is on, when the remote set point is being used; L&R are both off, when the dual set point or dual fixed set points are used; ST is on while the self-tune procedure is being performed; ST flashes when the procedure is complete; M is on when the controller is in manual control mode. Computer Initialisation A personal computer can be used to initialise the 38-300 for an experiment, saving you a lot of time. The Commander 300 contains some 200 parameters and for these to be set up by hand for every experiment is extremely time consuming. But help is available from the computer, as it can send a file of parameters to the 38-300 which will set up all necessary values and settings. By completing Practical 1 you will enable the 38-300 and your computer to talk to each other, so that this file can be downloaded. Computer initialisation shall be used a great deal in the following practicals and assignments. Another advantage with initialising the 38-300 before starting a practical is that it is then placed in a known (and safe) state, no matter what it was last used for. Controller Documentation The following manufacturers documentation is supplied with the controller :

o o o

Operating Instructions Quick Reference Guide Serial Data Communication Supplement

It would be useful to reference these manuals when carrying out practicals involving the controller. For example the Quick Reference Guide contains a comprehensive parameter map, which can be used for quickly finding your way around the many controller menus. Using The Controller In this practical you shall make use of some of the facilities of the Process Controller (38-300) that are available for different modes of control. This shall be kept simple as it is also a good way of becoming familiar with the 38-300, and introducing aspects of practical controllers that can be seen in the 38-300. As the assignments develop, so too will the use of the 38-300 and more of its full capacity shall be seen. Manual Control Initially you will control the output of the 38-300 using the Raise and Lower keys on the control panel. The 38-300 will take the place of the current source on the Process Interface (PI), and the Raise/Lower keys will carry out the same function as the current source control knob on the PI. You will be the operator of the process, manually controlling its operation, and it is a very simple matter to set the level of the tank. The manual control example.

Here the manual control effort, Um, is you, changing the output at will. The actuator is the servo valve, and the measurement section is also you watching the level in the tank. Disturbance is normally included in this sort of situation to account for any fluctuations that are out of your control (environmental changes can affect the flow for example). Bumpless Transfer between Automatic and Manual Control When switching control modes (manual-auto or auto-manual) a problem can arise when the automatic set-point and the measured operating point are not equal. Normally a controller will start in manual mode, where the automatic set-point is adjusted until it is equal to the required operating point. The controller output will then be adjusted until the deviation between set-point and actual operating point is zero, and the controller switched to auto mode. This ensures that the plant is operating steadily at the desired operating point at the instant of switching. If the actual operating point is changed (using the manual controls) but the set-point is not, when the plant has reached steady state and is switched to auto there will be a deviation (because the measured operating point is not equal to the set-point), and the automatic controller will attempt to correct this. This will cause a bump and will drive the plant away from the operating point set manually by the operator. The same effect can occur when switching from auto to manual, if the manual output control is not equal to the actual automatic controller output. The way to avoid this is to employ automatic bumpless transfer, which is a facility most modern controllers include. When using the 38-300, if there is a deviation between the desired operating point (as set by the manual controls) and the automatic set-point at the time of switching from manual to auto, the plant will continue at its desired operating point (with no bump). This is slightly anomalous as there will be a (possibly large) deviation and an incorrect set-point, but it has prevented bumps. Although bumpless transfer is available on modern controllers, it is good engineering practice to ensure no deviation in operating points (automatic setpoint and actual measured operating point) before switching modes, rather than rely on this facility. Alarms The 38-300, like other industry process controllers, is capable of triggering alarms should certain predefined conditions be met. There are 10 alarms available (A to K except I) and each can be programmed separately. There is an alarm priority, with A being the highest and K being the lowest.

On the control panel of the 38-300, LED A1 is assigned to alarms A to E, and LED A2 is assigned to alarms F to K. These LEDs will flash to show that they have been triggered but not acknowledged, and will remain on when they have been acknowledged. The display will also flash to signal the triggering of an alarm. Each alarm can be assigned a Type, a Trip Level and a Hysteresis setting. The alarm Type describes the situation that the alarm is watching for and it can be one of the following; High or Low Process High or Low Output High or Low Deviation Fast or Slow Rate of Change of Process Variable a Programmed Event Mode Alarm This last item is triggered by switching to a particular mode, such as manual, auto, all set-point types or even a failure of some sort. The trip level is the level of the selected type that should trigger the alarm. For example, alarm A can have the type 'HOUT' which is High OUTput and a trip level of 80%. If the output of the 38-300 is increased to 80% or above, A will be triggered and LED A1 will flash to show this. The hysteresis setting is another way of checking process parameters. The hysteresis setting is operational when an alarm is active, and it is specified as a percentage or in engineering units. It is best shown with the above example; alarm A has been triggered by the output of the 38-300 increasing above 80%, and the hysteresis setting is 5%. The output is lowered, but it must decrease below 75% (80% trip level - 5% hysteresis setting) before the alarm is turned off. The output must move into the safe region by an amount equal to the hysteresis setting. When you are carrying out Practical 3, after the alarms have been set up, all of the above can be seen on the Setup Alarms page (SEtUP ALAr_S). Use Page Advance to find this page and then Parameter Avance to pass through Type, Trip Level, Hysteresis Setting, and also the relay setup parameters which are covered in the next assignment. Practical Controllers The task of a controller is to maintain the desired system performance despite any disturbances in the system. Controllers are usually implemented electronically, either using analogue circuits, or a digital computer (microprocessor). However pneumatic and hydraulic controllers are still in use. In process control, it is unusual to design a specific controller for a particular plant, because the dynamics of the plant are uncertain and often very dependent on operating conditions. Therefore, a general purpose controller is normally implemented, which has a number of variable parameters that can be set to meet the static and dynamic requirements of the control system. The static characteristics of a system are independent of time and the response of the system depends only on the inputs. The dynamic characteristics of a system depend on both time and inputs. Various types of general purpose controllers exist, and each can be characterised by its actions and methods of controlling a system. General Process Controllers A block diagram of a General Process Control System is shown below:

This shows the plant, and some means of measuring a process variable. This measured variable is fed back to the controller to determine how well the system is operating. With the addition of the feedback loop it has now become a closed loop system. The controller will compare the measured output and the desired output (the Set Point) to determine the control effort. U m is the manual input, and the manual/auto switch can also be seen. With the switch in the manual position the control law has been disconnected from the process plant and the system is controlled by the operator only (a manual control system, the type of control we have been implementing so far). With the switch in the automatic position the control law is added to the manual input and this will determine the behaviour of the process. The process can now be controlled automatically, provided it is given desired operating levels. An automatic controller cannot determine how to control a process, it can only carry out desired control, determined by a third party, you. We shall be carrying out various types of feedback control in later assignments. Digital Control Systems The use of digital computers for the control and monitoring of processes is becoming increasingly important. Digital computers offer improved performance, better management of a process, reliability, flexibility, reduced cost and can perform complex calculations that could not be done by other analogue means. Powerful software development tools (programming languages for instance) which can be run on digital computers, result in reduced development costs for computer-based control systems. A number of digital single loop controllers can be used (an example of one of these controllers being the 38-300), each carrying out the feedback control of a single variable in a multi-variable process. These controllers are called the slave controllers and are co-ordinated by a digital controller called the master . A master controller sends set point information to the slave controllers and receives back information on the measured variables. This type of control is called set point control and a major benefit of this type of control is that even in the event of a master controller failure, the individual slave controllers will continue to operate, and with these operating the process should continue to run. The other type of computer control is called Direct Digital Control (DDC). DDC as the name implies, uses digital controllers to determine the actual control effort applied to the process or plant. The digital controllers are microprocessor-based single loop or multi-loop controllers that control a single- or multi-variable plant, in place of the old analogue, mechanical or pneumatic controllers. Digital Control Law The digital control law of a process that determines the control effort can be obtained from two completely different design techniques. The simple method is to approximate the analogue control law with a discrete time control law. In essence we implement the existing analogue controller with a digital controller. This method has the advantage of familiarity with the analogue concepts and terminology. However, a major disadvantage is to restrict the vast capabilities of digital computers due to the digital approximation of the analogue controllers having limited capabilities.

The other method for the design of digital controllers is to design directly in discrete time. The drawback of this method is that during discrete time (i.e. during the sample times) very good control may be achieved, but between samples the controlled variable is effectively in the open loop condition and may oscillate. Design techniques must be must be accurate and thorough to encompass such eventualities. The two block diagrams show the analogue and digital discrete time controllers and how they differ. The control law in the discrete time example is implemented digitally, but the plant is a continuous analogue system. A digital to analogue converter (DAC) must be included between the controller output and the plant input, and a corresponding analogue to digital converter (ADC) between the plant output and the comparator in the feedback path. The sampling rate fs of the DAC and ADC will determine how the controller copes with oscillation and fluctuations. Consequently it must be much faster than the process dynamics, so that the digital approximation will produce similar results to the conventional analogue controller. The controller you are provided with is a single loop, digital controller. The DAC and ADC are integral parts of the controller, and as such they will not concern you through your practicals. Chart Recorders In this assignment you a chart recorder will be seen for the first time. The chart recorder is used to display a representation of changing analogue signals that are presented to the controller. This provides several facilities for you to monitor process variables in conjunction with the controller. As well as displaying variables in real time the chart recorder has the facility to record a curve. The recorded files can then be selected and replayed using the playback practical.

Playback When the playback menu item is selected, two options will be displayed, Playback and Comparison Playback.

Playback allows you to load and replay a process recording that has previously been made. The Comparison Playback is used to show two recordings side by side to compare them. On the control, there are several features: Load allows the loading of recorded data from disk:

Pause will halt the chart recorder:

Clear will clear the current curve from a recorder:

Ghost will display a faint frozen curve from the instant that the button was clicked on.

The scrollbar can be used for moving forwards and backwards through the replayed trace. The speed of the playback of the recorded trace can also be changed using a drop-down box. The speed can be altered as the playback occurs. Playback When the playback menu item is selected, two options will be displayed, Playback and Comparison Playback. Playback allows you to load and replay a process recording that has previously been made. The Comparison Playback is used to show two recordings side by side to compare them. On the control, there are several features: Load allows the loading of recorded data from disk:

Pause will halt the chart recorder:

Clear will clear the current curve from a recorder:

Ghost will display a faint frozen curve from the instant that the button was clicked on.

The scrollbar can be used for moving forwards and backwards through the replayed trace. The speed of the playback of the recorded trace can also be changed using a drop-down box. The speed can be altered as the playback occurs. 38-300 Calibration With reference to the 38-300, measurements are carried out to monitor process parameters and to determine the control effort that should be applied when controlling a process. Such measurements ensure the correct operation of the process system. Because of this, the accuracy of these measurements must be guaranteed by proper calibration of the controller used.

Calibration consists of comparing the measured value or level of a parameter, as shown by the controller being calibrated, with the known value or level of the parameter, as measured by a standard instrument of known accuracy. Calibration guarantees that the accuracy of the input or output reading in a calibrated controller will be at a certain acceptable level, when used under the environmental conditions (e.g temperature, humidity, pressure) present during the calibration process. Outside those conditions, characteristics may change, and so the accuracy of the instrument will vary to a greater or lesser extent according to its susceptibility to the modifying inputs inherent in the new environmental conditions. When a process controller is calibrated against a standard instrument, its accuracy will be either inside, or outside that required by the application measurement accuracy limits. If the controller's accuracy is outside the acceptable measurement limits, then its characteristics should be adjusted by the zero and span parameters provided, until they are within the specified measurement limits. Bear in mind that all calibration and measurement procedures should be documented, so that a record of the calibration history of any instrument will always be available. Calibration Check of the Process Controller In this practical you will be shown how to check the calibration of the process variable and remote setpoint inputs of the 38-300. There is no need to actually calibrate the controller in this practical, not because it does not need to be accurate, but because the 38-300 has been calibrated to a level of accuracy much greater than most meters readily available to you. It has, stored in its memory, settings for the span and zero parameters of its inputs, and you shall reset these to ensure the 38-300 is accurately calibrated. As mentioned in the Interface Calibration Assignment this calibration should now be carried out before every practical that uses the 38-300. The more often it is carried out the more familiar you will become with the importance of calibration and the need to carry it out before every practical. Before beginning this practical, make sure that your process interface is switched on so that the 38-300 controller is powered up. 38-300 Relays The remaining two practicals in this assignment introduce other aspects of the 38-300 that are available and made use of in later assignments. The alarms that the 38-300 offers will have already been met in a previous assignment, but there is a further facility that is tied in with these alarms; namely Relays. A Relay is essentially a voltage-controlled switch, whose state is determined electronically. The action of a relay can be one of two types; if it is normally open (n.o.) the relay has no connection (an open circuit), and will 'close' (short circuit) when triggered by the input voltage. A normally closed (n.c.) relay is a short circuit until it is triggered, when the relay will break its connection and create an 'open' circuit. Relays are also described by the 38-300 as Positive Action or Negative Action. Positive action is where a relay follows its n.o. or n.c. label; i.e. a positive action, n.o. relay will be open until triggered, when it will close, whereas a negative action, n.o. relay will be closed until it is triggered, when it will open (so a negative action n.o. relay is actually behaving like a positive action n.c. relay). Relays and Alarms In the 38-300 an alarm can be associated to a relay. When an alarm is triggered by its condition being met (High/Low Output, High/Low Process, High/Low Deviation, etc.) the relay assigned to that alarm will register this. A relay will be triggered by its trip condition being met, and will remain in its triggered state until that condition is no longer true. In the case of the 38-300, when a relay has been assigned to an alarm, it will be triggered when the trip level of the alarm has been passed. The alarms allow a hysteresis level to be set, which determines when the alarm is no longer active. This will apply to the relay assigned to an alarm with a hysteresis level; the relay also has a hysteresis curve, showing that it is voltage direction dependent (its switch ON is at a different voltage to its switch OFF).

The above graph illustrates a characteristic curve for a relay with hysteresis action (inherited from an alarm). The combination of relays and alarms in the 38-300 allow us to operate On/Off control. Devices can be turned on and off when specific conditions are met. For now, only the operation of the relays will be demonstrated, the On/Off control of a process that these offer will be investigated in a later assignment. In this practical you shall vary the output of the 38-300 manually with the Raise and Lower keys, which will control the flow through the servo valve. An alarm will be assigned an output trip level, and one of the relays will control a solenoid valve. The process will now cut off flow when an output level is reached, and open it again when the output has been decreased to a sufficiently low level. Reading The Controller In the Controller Familiarisation assignment you were introduced to the concept of computer initialisation of the 38-300, via the serial link. This was discussed primarily in terms of one-way communication, but it is in fact two-way. When your personal computer sends a command to the 38-300 containing information about a particular parameter, the 38-300 will acknowledge the reception of this data by sending a signal back to the computer. The computer uses this returned signal as the cue to send the next command to the 38-300. The message from your computer will contain a parameter name, and the desired value of that parameter. The reply from the 38-300 will repeat the parameter name and value, and also attach a message acknowledged character. Your computer will check to see that the message was acknowledged, and if it was, will continue with the next parameter command. The reason for checking for the acknowledge character is that the 38-300 can also attach a message not acknowledged, meaning there was a mistake in the message received by the 38-300, either in transmission or in original message construction. Rather than tell the 38-300 what a particular parameter should be, your computer can also ask what it currently is, and the 38-300 will return a value. The message sent by your computer will not contain a parameter value, only the parameter name to be read. In this way, variables being monitored by the 38-300 can be displayed by your computer. This practical will demonstrate the read facility so that you will be familiar with it for later practicals, to record and chart process variables automatically. This practical will take the output from the current source on the PI and use it as a process variable input to the 38-300 controller. Your personal computer will monitor this process variable continuously, and display its value on the virtual chart recorder. This enables you to immediately get a graph of input to the 38-300. You will be able to watch the virtual chart recorder display the value of the current as you vary it by hand. As the assignments develop and the need to monitor variables increases, the computer, with its virtual instrumentation, will play a greater and greater part. As well as the chart recorder displaying a parameter graphically, there is also a virtual control bar facility. This enables you to change a parameter value by varying the position of a bar with your mouse. The value you set on the control bar is displayed in the small upper window, and this value is sent to the 38-300. The parameter will then be read back by your computer to check its value and this result is displayed in the small lower window. The slight delay between the number appearing in the upper and lower windows is the delay while serial communication is carried out. Both of these display facilities are shown in the practical. Having completed it, you will then be familiar with a personal computer as a control tool in a process system. The computer offers the following to the user; it can initialise the 38-300 by writing a value to all of its parameters, read any of its parameters (to be displayed in a number of ways, depending on requirements), and finally allow the user to directly alter parameters from the terminal

and observe their effect, either as a confirmation of that change and then directly observing the process or by monitoring the process variables with virtual instrumentation. Feedback Control The idea of feedback was introduced in the Controller Calibration Assignment, but it was not explored theoretically or applied experimentally. In this assignment, and the Pulse Flow Transmitter Assignment, the subject of feedback is considered fully, so that you are familiar with it for the assignments that consider different control strategies and process control examples. The control law, which was first considered in Controller Familarisation, is the relationship between the measured and desired values of a process parameter. The addition of a feedback loop to a process allows the control law to be implemented automatically; now the control action is dependent on the measured value. A system which employs feedback control has become error-driven. It is able to deal with unexpected disturbances.

The above diagram shows the general feedback control system. This diagram applies to all systems incorporating a feedback loop. The diagrams met in the previous assignment (general process control system, digital and analogue control systems) were all based on this general form. It shows the forward path, encompassing the plant, represented by G. This function includes any controller dynamics. The feedback path is represented by H, and this includes the measurement system. A system can be modelled so that its behaviour can be assessed before it is physically implemented. By using a block diagram of a Feedback system, the modelling of a system can be explained. The output, C, can be described as a function of input, R, and measured value, Cm, and the transfer function G: C = (R - Cm) G But, Cm = C H So, C = (R - C H) G or C (1 + H) = R G By rearranging this, a function of output over input can be produced:

this is the transfer function of the whole system, and shows how output and input are related. The control law represents the action of the controller. Common control law types are the P-type (proportional), I-type (integral) or D-type (derivative), or a combination of these, i.e PI, PID. Each of these shall be met in turn in later assignments.

An example of a regulatory biological feedback control system is the temperature-control of the human body. This control system attempts to maintain the body temperature at a constant value. Generally, the environment tends to vary the body temperature from the desired value. The body responds to an error in temperature by perspiring, by increasing or decreasing blood flow, by shivering, and so on. This control system has one characteristic that control systems designed by humans do not usually have : it usually operates in a satisfactory manner for more than seventy years. Another characteristic of this system, and usually present in control systems that we design, is that if the magnitude of the error becomes too large, the system fails. Control System Dynamics Systems will invariably have dynamic characteristics. Behaviour which is time dependent is inevitable, as the response of any system to an input is not instantaneous. The greater the distance a telephone call is over, the more the dynamic behaviour becomes apparent; the time lag between transmission and reception increases. Computers are becoming quicker and quicker, but there will always be an 'access time' to retrieve data from its hard disk. Modelling of dynamic systems is concerned with the cause and effect relationship between input and output. Models of dynamic behaviour for a system can be obtained by two methods. The basic equations of physics and mechanics can be applied to a system where the underlying principles are clear and it is sufficiently simple, or can be broken down into simple subsystems. This is a first principle approach. The second approach is to observe normal behaviour or introduce test signals. A model produced from this method is based on observation and input/output behaviour. Both of these methods will produce differential equations which describe the dynamic characteristics of the system. Differential equations involve time as a variable, normally in the form of derivatives and integrals with respect to time. But solving these by hand is difficult and time consuming, so a range of numerical methods have been developed which can be implemented on digital computers. Models can be used to make predictions about a system, or they can be rearranged to enable the design of a system to meet a required performance. A model cannot explicitly determine output at a particular time, but it gives the input/output/time relationship so that for a given input, the output can be found. Float Level Transmitter The Float Level Transmitter (FLT) is a device which takes level information from the Float Level Sensor in the tank and transmits it to the Process Interface.

The sensor is a potentiometer (pot) connected across a low voltage supply, which is turned by a floating disk. As the level of water in the tank changes, the disk turns the potentiometer which changes the voltage across it, and this voltage is passed to the Transmitter. The FLT will then convert this to a current signal of the 4-20mA format, and transmit it to the PI. By converting to the 4-20mA signal format, communication is no longer restricted to very short distances, a concern when dealing with large process plants whose control rooms are situated away from the measurement devices. Also by converting to the 4-20mA signal format, the signals from the sensor are compatible with all other devices. The equipment has become standardised and the set up of the hardware is more flexible. The sensor is the first device to actually produce information on the state of the process, which can then be used to determine the future operation of that process. This, and similar devices (the Pulse Flow Transmitter which is covered in the next assignment), enable feedback control to be used. Calibrating the FLT

When using the float level sensor and transmitter combination, measurements are carried out to monitor a process parameter, namely tank fluid level. This measurement is monitored and used to determine the control effort that should be applied to control the process correctly. Such measurements help to maintain the correct operation of the process system. Because of this, the accuracy of these measurements must be guaranteed by proper calibration of the instruments. The importance of calibration cannot be stressed enough. Full calibration consists of comparing the measured value or level of a parameter, as shown by the instrument being calibrated, with the known value or level of the parameter, as measured by a standard instrument of known accuracy. Calibration guarantees that the accuracy of the input or output reading in a calibrated instrument will be at a certain acceptable level, when used under the environmental conditions (e.g temperature, humidity, pressure) present during the calibration process. Outside those conditions, characteristics may change, and so the accuracy of the instrument will vary to a greater or lesser extent according to its susceptibility to the modifying inputs inherent in the new environmental conditions. Calibration of the Float Level Sensor and Transmitter In this practical you will be shown how to calibrate the output of the two devices supplied with the float level pack. The calibration is done in two halves, with an empty tank and with a full tank, and the method is described below. In this practical the FLT will be calibrated to zero ('zero' being the lowest reading, i.e. 4mA) without the sensor connected. The sensor is then connected with the level in the tank at the zero indicator, and its screw adjusted until the DDM reads 4mA again. The zero reading of the sensor and transmitter has now been calibrated against an empty tank. The tank is now filled until the level is at the 100 (full) indicator, this is the highest level that will be reached in the tank. At this level the signal output should be maximum, 20mA. The span of the transmitter is adjusted so that the DDM does read 20mA at the top of the tank. It can obviously be seen that 0 and 100 on the tank scale are not absolute values. This type of arrangement is common in industry and is known as allowing the plant to have breathing space in the event of an emergency. For example if needed, for what ever reason, you can take the process slightly above 100 % and slightly bellow 0 %. However, in theory the header tank should never reach absolute zero, except for maintenance, ie. when the plant is shut down. This process has calibrated the level sensor and transmitter against the upper tank, so that the 4-20mA signals necessary for control of this process will be produced between empty and full. This simple procedure should now be carried out before every practical that uses the float level sensor and transmitter. Demonstration of Fluid Level Control This practical is intended only to give you a glimpse of the sort of control that will be applied in later assignments. It is a fully functioning proportional control system, monitoring actual water level in the upper tank, comparing this to a desired level (the set point), and altering the position of the servo valve with the aim of achieving the set point. It is not necessary for you to understand exactly what proportional control is, and how it is being implemented at this stage. This practical is only intended to demonstrate the fact that there is now sufficient equipment to apply feedback control to a real process control situation. Also in this practical you will be able to observe another feature available when using a computer in a process control situation; that of the mimic diagram. This is a graphical representation of the whole system, showing the flow loop and all parts of the system.

You will be able to alter the set point and see how the controller applies a controlling action to reach that set point. The actual tank level is shown and also the state of the servo valve. It will give you a qualitative 'feel' for the system, rather than the quantitative information that the chart recorder provides. This method of display is widely used in industry as it enables the whole system to be observed, particulary when the control room is situated a long distance from the plant. The next assignment introduces the last two devices that will be used extensively when applying different control methods, the Pulse Flow Transmitter and Pulse Flow Sensor. Once you have become familiar with all the equipment, the different functions that each can carry out, and the exact nature of each control method available, shall be explored. System Model Theory The differential equations met in the last assignment are the basis for analysis and design of control systems. A simple water tank example shall be used to illustrate this. A water tank of fixed cross section area A is filling with a flow q. The flow rate of q is equal to the rate of change of volume, so initially the system is; q = dv / dt but, where h is the level. v=Ah So now the model becomes; q = A dh / dt This is a time dependent model of the tank, where the input is inflow q(t) and output is level h(t). This model can be used to discover the behaviour of the system for a particular input. When analysing a system, assumptions will be made to simplify the mathematics. Rather than produce an exhaustive solution for a very specific input, a general idea of behaviour is more useful, although it may not be exact. The pump is switched on. The servo is fully open initially, but is gradually shut over 30 seconds until fully closed. Maximum flow is 1 litre / second (0.001m3 / s). Three assumptions will be made; tank level is zero before the pump is switched on, no fluid is leaving the tank, and when the pump is switched on, maximum flow is achieved instantaneously. The flow rate is now; q = 0.001 (1 - t / 30) m3 / s This is substituted into the model to give; A dh / dt = 0.001 (1 - t / 30) m3 / s

Now integrating with respect to time and rearranging gives; h(t) = 0.001 (t - t2 / 60) / A m This describes the behaviour of the level of the tank for that particular input. Transfer Operators Differential equations are not an ideal way of representing dynamic systems because the system input, output and their derivatives are spread throughout the equation. This makes the cause and effect relationship difficult to recognise. A way of simplifying these is to use Transfer Operators, mathematical operators which represent the process of differentiation with respect to time. They can be manipulated in differential equations to simplify the system representation, but since they are mathematical operations they do not have a value, and so cannot be multiplied explicitly. The transfer operator is D, and it represents; dx / dt -> Dx This enables differential equations to be reduced in the following way. The flow rate q is given by; q = A dh / dt as was seen in the last theory section. Using the D operator this becomes; q = A Dh and this can be rearranged to give; h = q / (A D) As mentioned earlier this could not be multiplied out explicitly since D has no value. Used on its own, the D operator does offer some simplification, but a better way of handling differential equations is through the use of the Laplace Transform. This method of solving differential equations represents functions of time, t, as functions of s, a new variable. This is covered in the next theory section. Laplace Transforms The Laplace Transform is a mathematical transformation that allows functions in the time domain, t, to be represented in the s domain, where s is a new variable. The Laplace transform is given by;

This is applied to all time domain equations to produce their s domain equivalents. A simple example of a time domain function is;

....the exponential function. Its transformation is as follows;

The equation has been substituted into the standard form of the Laplace transform and the integration carried out. Although the mathematics looks involved, the result is;

....which is rather straightforward. Another example is the Laplace transformation of the derivative of a function of time;

Substituting this into the standard form as before.... ....and carrying out the integration, the transformation is as follows;

x(0) is the value of x(t) at t = 0, the initial condition. Provided this is zero.... the transform reduces to the following;

....which is also rather straightforward. From this a general result can be extracted; differentiating a function of time is equivalent to multiplying the Laplace transform by s, provided the initial conditions are zero. By applying the Laplace transform to some general equations, a table of common transformations can be produced....

This can be used directly for simple problems, and adapted for others. There is an equivalence between the D operator and the Laplace operator, s, but this is only true while initial conditions are zero.

Also it must be recalled that D is an operator but s is a variable, so this equivalence must never be extended to equality. The reason for using Laplace transforms is to simplify solving differential equations. The standard methods were to substitute an assumed solution or to use D operators, but both of these are tedious, as a general solution is first found, with the arbitrary constants evaluated by insertion of the initial conditions. When using the Laplace transform, the solution is found largely by algebraic means, with the initial conditions involved from an early stage. This shortens the determination of a particular solution. As different control methods are explored in the following assignments, Laplace transforms will be covered again with practical examples. This is meant as a theoretical introduction to the subject only. Pulse Flow Transmitter The Pulse Flow Transmitter is a device which takes rate of flow information from the Pulse Flow Sensor in the pipe network and transmits it to the Process Interface.

The sensor is a small water wheel inside a pipe, which is turned by the flow of fluid through the pipe. The speed of the wheel is proportional to the rate of fluid through it; the faster the fluid, the faster the wheel. There is an infra-red sensor across the wheel detecting its movement. When the wheel turns, its blades will break the beam reducing the output. With the wheel spinning this produces a pulse waveform, whose frequency is proportional to rate of rotation (and so rate of flow). This pulse train will be passed to the transmitter where it is converted into a 4-20mA current signal, whose magnitude is dependent on the waveform frequency. This current signal is then transmitted to the PI. By converting to the 4-20mA signal format, communication is no longer restricted to very short distances, a concern when dealing with large process plants whose control rooms are situated away from the measurement devices.

Also by converting to the 4-20mA signal format, the signals from the pulse flow sensor are compatible with all other devices. The equipment has become standardised and the set up of the hardware is more flexible. The pulse flow sensor is the second device to produce information on the state of the process, which can then be used to determine the future operation of that process. This, in a similar way to the Float Level Sensor and Transmitter met in the previous assignment, enables feedback control to be used. Calibrating the PFT When using the pulse flow sensor and transmitter combination, measurements are carried out to monitor a process parameter, namely rate of flow of fluid. This measurement is monitored and used to determine the control effort that should be applied to control the process correctly. Such measurements help to maintain the correct operation of the process system. Because of this, the accuracy of these measurements must be guaranteed by proper calibration of the instruments. The importance of calibration cannot be stressed enough. Full calibration consists of comparing the measured value or level of a parameter, as shown by the instrument being calibrated, with the known value or level of the parameter, as measured by a standard instrument of known accuracy. Calibration guarantees that the accuracy of the input or output reading in a calibrated instrument will be at a certain acceptable level, when used under the environmental conditions (e.g temperature, humidity, pressure) present during the calibration process. Outside those conditions, characteristics may change, and so the accuracy of the instrument will vary to a greater or lesser extent according to its susceptibility to the modifying inputs inherent in the new environmental conditions. Calibration of the Pulse Flow Sensor and Transmitter In this practical you will be shown how to calibrate the output of the two devices that together make up the pulse flow pack. The calibration is carried out in two halves, with zero flow and with full flow, and the method shall be described below. In this practical the PFT will be calibrated to zero ('zero' being the lowest reading, i.e. 4mA) without the pump switched on. This is the minimum level of flow; zero, so this should be signalled by 4mA. The pump is then switched on, and all the manual valves are fully opened, this is now the greatest flow that will occur. At this flow rate the signal output from the transmitter should be maximum, 20mA. The span of the transmitter is adjusted so that the DDM does read 20mA at maximum flow rate. This process has calibrated the flow sensor and transmitter, so that the 4-20mA signals necessary for control of this process will be produced, and they will accurately reflect the rate of flow through the pipe network. This should now form part of your calibration procedure before each practical. Without calibration, no weight can be placed on any measurements taken in a practical. Demonstration of Rate of Flow Control This practical is intended only to give you a glimpse of the sort of control that will be applied in later assignments. It is a fully functioning proportional control system, monitoring actual flow rate through the pipe network, comparing this to a desired flow rate (the set point), and altering the position of the servo valve with the aim of achieving the set point. It is not necessary for you to understand exactly what proportional control is, and how it is being implemented at this stage. Only to appreciate that you have now been introduced to sufficient equipment to apply feedback control to a real process control situation. When proportional control was met earlier in the previous assignment, with the Float Level Sensor and Transmitter, you were introduced to a plant mimic diagram. In this practical you shall again be using a mimic diagram to observe the operation of the plant as a whole. In later assignments you shall be concerned with particular variables and the chart recorder is ideal, but for this demonstration the mimic is much more suitable. The system dynamics and time responses of a fluid flow process are much quicker than those of the equivalent fluid level process, and this practical can exhibit considerable oscillation around the set point. It is this type of behaviour that shall be investigated in the later assignments, and methods of avoiding it will be explored. On the controller you may notice the alarm LED's (A1 & A2) flash. This is because the alarms are being used to trigger the relays which in turn allows us to switch devices on the Procon rigs. In this case we are switching the solenoid valve SV1. Control Types The simplest control strategy is Open Loop Operation, which has no feedback. This is not strictly a type of control, since no 'control' of the process can be carried out. Although manual control is an open loop arrangement, it cannot be termed Open Loop Control because this implies no feedback, and there is feedback from the user.

The problem with open loop operation is that a process using this is inherently unstable. Without any fluctuations the process should operate quite happily, but fluctuations will occur. They will go unchecked and will not be suppressed in any way, simply because the controller is unaware of their presence. Using a feedback controller without feedback will also lead to failure, as the controller is attempting to make the measured variable equal to the set point. Without feedback, the controller will continue to apply a control effort unaware of the measured value. This situation occurring with the Procon rig will lead to overflow or an empty tank (the two extremes), but considering process systems generally a failure of some kind will be reached, which could be very serious if the plant is an office heating system, an elevator motor drive or a nuclear reactor for example. On/Off Feedback Control It is obvious then, that some sort of feedback is required for a system to operate under automatic control successfully. In the last two assignments instruments were introduced that made feedback a viable option (these being the Float Level Transmitter/Sensor and the Pulse Flow Transmitter/Sensor). Now, investigation of the different types of feedback control available can begin. The first type of control is actually a simplification of the general feedback control arrangement, and this is On/Off Feedback Control. It requires much simpler equipment when implemented in a control situation. When deciding which control strategy to implement in a plant situation, characteristics of each type will normally be weighed against each other. In the case of on/off control the major opposing features are the general simplicity against its inherent binary nature. When using on/off control, all devices are either fully on or fully off, 100% open or 100% closed. There is no middleground possible, so oscillation is often a feature of on/off control systems, as the control law is switching between extremes, driving the output between states. Whatever the cause of the change in the measured value, if the deviation is large enough to activate the switch, then control action will be applied to correct the situation. This means that on/off control is often subject to unnecessary switching caused by disturbances. One such situation is illustrated below. The level of water in the header tank must be kept at a certain level in order to allow the process to run correctly. The flow of water into the tank is controlled by a servo valve placed somewhere in the inflow pipe. The opening and closing of this valve is, in this case, to be controlled by the float switch.

The disturbances caused by the fluid inflow are sufficient to raise and lower the float above and below the on/off switching points. This results in the inflow valve being driven open and closed unnecessarily. The on/off method of control is obviously unsuitable in this situation. On/off control is suited to situations where it is only necessary to keep a process variable between two limits. For continuous processes, where the variable is required to be at a particular level it becomes impractical. The Process Interface (PI) Comparator Hysteresis was first introduced in the Rig Familiarisation assignment, and comparators were discussed in the Interface Calibration assignment. Now these ideas will be applied directly, and their relevance to this assignment will be made clear. The comparator in the PI has two inputs; one non-inverting (marked with a +), and one inverting (marked with a -). The inputs to the comparator must be voltage signals, so when using this the current/voltage converters must be incorporated. They will take the current signals (reference or measured values) and convert them to voltage signals suitable for the comparator. This comparator feeds its output to a Schmitt Trigger (which is a comparator with positive feedback connected to its non-inverting input).

This arrangement is shown below.

The current source is providing the reference input to the comparator. A measured process variable is the other input, and the difference between these is the deviation. The size of this deviation will control the logic output C of the Schmitt trigger, which is either 0V or 5V. Although the measured signal is shown connected to the positive (non-inverting) input, in practice it can be connected to either depending which action is desired. These actions will be explored in the practicals. The logic output C from the Schmitt trigger is used to control the switched supplies (and so the devices they are supplying). Process Interface Comparator and Hysteresis Recall the hysteresis loop curve:

This shows the two state-change paths that are followed, depending on direction of change of the deviation. It also shows the two voltage levels + & - Vt which are the actual switching levels. Initially the deviation shall be defined as large and negative, so that the operation can be explained. The output will be high (5V) as shown on the hysteresis curve. As the measured value and the reference value become closer together, the deviation will become less negative, at some point be zero and then become positive. When the deviation has become more positive than V t, the output will switch to its low state (0V). This is shown on the hysteresis curve. This is the control effort which will drive the measured value in the other direction. Deviation will decrease, until at some point it will be more negative than -Vt. This will switch output back to its original state (high, 5V). The hysteresis control determines the value of the threshold voltage V t, and so this will control the difference between high-to-low and low-tohigh switching levels. This is controlling disturbance rejection, since deviation must change considerably to cause a state change if V t is large. As you will discover with on/off control, the measured value cannot remain constant at the reference value level, but it will lie between two limits either side of the reference, determined by the amount of hysteresis. The greater the hysteresis, the further apart the two limits will be. Thus, the on/off control technique is not used where precise control is required, but where a variable is required to lie between two values. It is often only appropriate in certain applications, e.g to control the temperature in a room. On/Off Pump Control In this and the next practical you will become familiar with the use of the on-off control section of the Process Interface (PI). On/off control will be used to control the water level in the tank, by automatically turning on and off the centrifugal pump (and so cutting the flow on and off).

The on-off control section of the PI includes a comparator and Schmitt trigger arrangement with variable hysteresis control, and logic inputs to control the switched power supplies (one ac, supplying the pump, and one 24V dc, both on the front panel). The output from the Schmitt Trigger, which will be in one of two states depending on the deviation of the measured signal from the reference signal, is controlling the supply to the centrifugal pump by providing a logic signal to input D. The current source will supply the reference signal to the on/off control apparatus and will be connected to input B on the front of the PI. This reference signal will provide a desired tank water level. The measured value from the FLT will be connected to input A. The pump should be on while the tank water level is less than the desired level, and should switch off when the measured level has passed the desired level by an amount set by the hysteresis value. Once the measured level has dropped enough to trigger the Schmitt trigger, the pump should switch on again. The reference signal is connected to the inverting input of the comparator, so that while the measured level is less than the desired level the deviation is negative. When the measured value has passed the desired level, the deviation becomes positive. Considering the hysteresis curve of a Schmitt trigger, this is an inverted action, since the output will switch from positive to negative as the deviation is moving from negative to positive. Care should be taken when setting manual valve MV3, connected to the upper tank. This should be open enough for the level in the upper tank to increase when the pump is on and decrease when the pump is off. This valve is controlling the times taken to rise and to fall between the two limits set by the hysteresis level. On/Off Solenoid Control In the last practical the pump was repeatedly switched on and off, to control the tank water level. This is not good practice as it will shorten the pump's working life; this is not how a pump is designed to be used. A better way of controlling the tank level is to use a different 2-state device; a solenoid valve. The solenoid valve is designed with repeated switching in mind and is much more suitable for on/off control. This shall be investigated now. Solenoid valve SV1 could replace the pump as the device that cuts the flow on and off. The action would be the same as that for the pump; inverting. The valve must be open when the tank level is below desired level, and closed when above desired level. But there is another way of controlling level which exhibits a non-inverting action. This is to use solenoid valve SV2, connected to the upper tank. It lets water flow from the upper to the sump tank. Now when the actual tank level is above the desired level the valve should switch on, open, so that more water can flow out, and when the actual level is below the desired level it should switch off, close, so the water level can rise. To accomplish this the reference signal from the current source is fed into input A (which is the non-inverting input to the comparator), and the measured signal from the FLT is fed into input B. Now while the measured level is less than the desired level the deviation is positive, and will become negative when the measured level is greater than desired. This is the reverse of the last practical. Translating this to the action of the comparator and Schmitt trigger together, the output should switch from negative to positive as the deviation changes from negative to positive. This is a non-inverting action. Since the solenoid valve is to be controlled, the output of the Schmitt trigger will now feed the logic input E of the switched 24Vdc output to SV2. As before care must be taken when setting the position of manual valve MV3. For the operation of this on/off control example to be as expected, the level in the tank should go up when SV2 is closed and down when it is open. It may take a little trial and error to get this right. The Float Switch The float switch is a simple two-state device which is used to determine if the fluid in the tank is above or below a particular level. Its operation is shown below.

The stem of the switch contains a reed relay, which is normally open. The barrel of the switch, which moves up and down, contains a magnet. The magnet can open and close the relay by moving up and down the stem. With the barrel at the bottom of the stem, the relay is open and no current will flow through the switch. This state is converted to a 4mA signal by the transmitter. When the barrel is at the top of the stem, the relay will be closed and a current will flow through the float switch. This state is converted to a 20mA signal by the transmitter. There is no other position of the reed relay, it is either open or closed. The barrel floats, so that when the water is high enough the barrel is carried up the stem. The barrel can only move a short distance vertically up or down because the stem is only short, but the stem can be positioned anywhere in the tank. This can then be set up to signal if the level in the tank is above (20mA signal from the transmitter) or below (4mA signal from the transmitter) the level of the switch. The float switch is binary in operation, open or closed. It can give no clue to how much over or under the desired level the water in the tank is. This makes it a device suitable for on/off control only. It will take the place of the float level sensor, which produced a current signal proportional to the actual tank level. The solenoid SV1 shall be used to switch flow on and off. This exhibits the same action (inverted) as the pump, from the point of view of the Schmitt trigger, and its use was discussed in the background in the previous practical. The float switch uses the FLT to convert its signal into the 4-20mA format. The FLT, then, must be recalibrated for this new device. The calibration for the float switch is very simple and should be carried out as follows before beginning the practical. The float switch is connected to the FLT with the barrel in its lowest position (this means that the reed relay is open), and the zero screw on the FLT adjusted to read 4mA on the DDM. The barrel is then held in its highest position (this will close the relay), and the span screw on the FLT adjusted to read 20mA on the DDM. 38-300 On/Off Control In this practical, the 38-300 shall switch devices on and off to control level. In the previous practicals it was the PI that determined the control effort, with the comparator and Schmitt Trigger arrangement providing the control law. Now the 38-300 shall take the measured value from the FLT as the process variable input, and use its relays to drive the process plant. The 38-300 alarms were introduced in the Controller Familiarisation Assignment, and the relays introduced in the Controller Calibration Assignment. This practical will be using these facilities for full on/off control. The alarms allow process variable trip levels to be defined so that certain actions can be triggered at a particular level. These alarms are used to trigger the relays, which provide the binary state signals. The alarm trip level and hysteresis value will act in a similar way to the comparator and Schmitt trigger arrangement. The difference is that when using the PI, a reference level was defined and the hysteresis set up trip levels either side of this reference. When using the 38-300, the alarm trip level is equivalent to one of the hysteresis-set trip levels and the alarm hysteresis sets the other a distance away. This is shown in the diagram below.

The solenoid SV2, which allows water to flow from the upper to lower tank, shall be used to control level, with its logic input from the 38-300. An alarm shall be set up whose trip level will act as the desired tank level, and this will control the relay which is producing the logic signal by opening and closing a 5V line. The trip level and hysteresis value of the alarm will be changeable, each with an onscreen control bar, which you can vary. This makes the use of the 38-300 very similar to the PI in the previous practicals. A facility which is available from the 38-300, that the PI could not offer, is a failure alarm. This will be set up to trip when the tank is approaching overflow, as a safety feature of the system. It will switch off the pump when the water has reached this high level. To be able to do this without the 38-300, a second PI would be required, whose reference level was the overflow limit. This is obviously much more inconvenient, and the multiple alarms and relays of the 38-300 allow great flexibility. Proportional Control The task of a controller is to maintain a desired system performance, coping with any system disturbances. A simple controller is the proportional controller. The control effort is directly proportional to the deviation between the measured value and the set point (desired value). The following diagram shows a general proportional control system. It is similar to the general process control diagram met in the Controller Calibration assignment.

It shows the manual input, Um, with the manual/auto switch. The output, C, is fedback along the loop, and the deviation between it and r, the set point, is found. This error, e, is passed to the control law, where a control effort is produced which is proportional to this error. This control effort will then determine how the process reacts in the next time period. By considering automatic proportional control, the following can be written; U = Ke This shows that the control effort, U, is directly proportional to error, e, where K is the gain or sensitivity of the controller. This is the most basic equation describing this type of control, but it produces a problem; without an error, there would be no input to the system. This is not strictly true, if there was no error the input would in practice be at a base or quiescent level. Applying this to the above equation gives; U = Ke + Um where Um is the quiescent point.

Applying this to a practical control situation, the quiescent point, Um, would be the manual effort or input, and Ke the automatic control effort, Uc, from the controller. In this process control example (Procon), the total flow into the tank is U, the error, e, is the difference between set point and measured value, the gain, K, represents how much the servo is open, and the output, C, is the tank level. The total inflow can also be split up in the following way; Um is the water input needed to overcome any outflow, and Uc, the change of inflow produced by a change in servo position (to counteract any deviation). Now total inflow can be described as; U = Uc + Um Uc is the outcome of the control law, and for proportional control this is simply; Uc = Ke To establish a desired operating point, the set point is adjusted until it is the desired value, and the quiescent (manual) output of the controller is changed to reduce the deviation to zero. At this point U, the total output, is equal to Um, the manual output, and the controller can be switched to automatic mode of operation. Since there is no deviation, the controller will apply no control effort, and a bumpless transfer has been achieved. Without reducing deviation to zero, the controller would attempt to correct the output with a control effort, and this would be seen as a bump when switching modes. The process would actually be driven away from the desired operating point back. Proportional Band It is usual in industrial controllers to consider gain in terms of a proportional band (PB) or %PB. The proportional band represents the change in measured value (normally fractional change) that will generate 100% change in control effort. It can also be represented as the deviation that will generate 100% change in control effort.

But this can be reduced.... Deviation is the error e divided by the measurement span, and the fractional change in control effort is the change in control effort divided by the output span of the controller. Now PB is;

Controller gain, K, is just Uc, the control effort, divided by error, and this reduces the equation to;

The above equation shows the relationship between proportional band and controller gain, which is inverse proportionality. A figure for gain alone is meaningless since it will be dependent on the units used. Expressing PB as a percentage does have meaning, even if nothing is known about the process plant. Proportional control alone is not normally used in process control, because a steady state error must always exist for any control effort to be exerted. Proportional control is a form of deviation correction, but without some deviation, no corrective action will be produced. Increasing gain will reduce this deviation, but a large gain increases the chance of oscillation. On/Off Verses Proportional Control From the previous assignment, you will now appreciate the binary nature of on/off control. An upper limit and a lower limit are assigned for the measured variable, and the controller will produce a control effort to keep the measured variable within these limits. There is no middle ground, the controller will not know if the measured variable is 'near' the desired value (so a small control effort would be more appropriate), or 'far' (so a large control effort is needed).

Oscillation will invariably be a feature of on/off control, as the measured variable swings between its two limits. These limits can be made very close to reduce the swing, but they will always be distinct, and to keep the measured variable within very close limits the actuator and sensor must be fast acting. Proportional control on the other hand, produces a control effort that has a direct relation to the size of the error it is correcting. The smaller the error, the smaller the control effort to correct that error. There are no measured variable limits to keep within, only a desired value that the controller attempts to reach. The disadvantage with proportional control, as explained in the previous theory section, is that to correct an error with a control effort, the error is needed to produce the control effort. This leads to the conclusion that some error will always be present. It can be reduced by increasing gain, but oscillation can then become a problem. Simulation of Proportional Control This practical aims to introduce the concepts of proportional control in a simulated environment before moving on to the Process Rig. The practical is carried out by use of a mimic diagram. The concept of these representations will become more familiar as further assignments are carried out. The mimic diagram for this practical represents the Basic Process Rig when set-up to demonstrate the proportional control of fluid level. The servo valve is automatically opened and closed in order to keep the level of fluid in the tank as close as possible to the set-point. The set point can be altered on-screen at any time, as can the state of the solenoid valves and main pump. The Proportional Band of this control system is also an important consideration. Altering the size of this band is equivalent to altering the gain of the controlling device. That is, the size of the control reaction induced by a deviation from the set-point. The relationship between proportional band size and controller gain is one of inverse proportionality. A small proportional band will lead to a large controller gain and large control reactions for small deviations. A large proportional band will lead to small control reactions even to the largest of set-point deviations. The control bars can be used to alter the proportional band and set-point. In this way a good initial understanding of the behaviour and parameters can be gained. Any ideas formulated can tested in the next practical using the process hardware. P-Control of Level This practical shows a fully functioning Proportional Control System, monitoring actual water level in the upper tank, comparing this to a desired level (the set point), and altering the position of the servo valve with the aim of achieving the set point. Now that proportional control has been introduced, it is hoped that the operation of this system will be better understood. The float level sensor is producing a current proportional to the water level in the upper tank, which is converted to the 4-20mA signal format by the FLT. This is fed to the 38-300 as the process variable input, it is the measured value of the system. The 38-300 is operating proportional control, and controlling the position of the servo valve with a 4-20mA current output signal. The exact size of this output signal is in direct proportion to the deviation of process variable input and set point. The solenoid valve SV2 is used to ensure constant outflow, this enables comparisons to be made between results obtained from different practicals. P-Control and Offset As explained in the theory sections, an offset will always be present when a controller applies correcting action to a process. This is because the control effort is directly proportional to the error only, and for there to be any control effort there must be some error. This is the major drawback of proportional control, and it shall be shown in this practical. The control bar for the set point has been restricted to 0-20% so that the chart recorder can zoom in on this area. Now you will see in greater detail how the measured variable approaches the set point. By allowing the process plenty of time to settle down, the behaviour can be considered to approach its limiting steady state operation. This is the state when no more changes are made to the inputs, and the plant is allowed to reach equilibrium. Proportional Band As explained in the theory, an offset will always occur when using proportional control because an error must be present for any control effort to be produced.

This offset was considered in the previous practical, by examining closely the region around the set point, and how the measured value approaches it. Also explained in the theory was the relationship between the proportional band and the gain of a process; this was inverse proportionality. If the proportional band is increased, the gain is decreased. The offset can be reduced by increasing the gain of the system, but if the gain is too high, oscillation will occur. When designing a control system the possibility of oscillation must be weighed against an acceptable level of offset. In this practical the proportional band will be varied, and its effect on the offset observed. Oscillation can be induced, and by exploring different values of proportional band, the region in which it starts can be found. Oscillation and Gain As discussed in the previous Assignment, proportional control applies a very simple control law; the control effort is directly proportional to the deviation between the measured value and the set point (desired value). Also met in the practical was the idea of discussing gain in terms of proportional band. As you will recall, gain and proportional band are inversely related, so that increasing gain will decrease proportional band. Recalling the expressions for proportional control you can see that the greater the system gain, K, is, the greater the control effort, Uc, will be. Uc = Ke where e is the error or deviation between measured value and desired value. This system gain will determine how the process reacts to error, and its ability to reject disturbance. If the gain is large, the controller will apply a large control effort to correct an error. By greatly reducing the proportional band in the previous assignment, the controller was forced to produce a large control effort. If a large control effort is able to produce a considerable change in the measured value, it is very likely that the measured value will be driven beyond the set point which will invert the error. This in turn will produce a large and opposite control effort, forcing the measured value back again. This is the oscillatory behaviour that can be exhibited. In the Proportional Band practical of the previous assignment, the proportional band had to be very small (in the vicinity of <4%) to produce oscillation, but when dealing with flow control oscillation occurs for a much higher value of proportional band. Proportional Band For normal operation with an acceptable (meaning not extreme) level of gain, increasing the tank inflow will increase the tank level, but only by a small amount since the tank is large (a large tank will of course only rise by a small amount for a unit of water, whereas a small tank will rise much more). This means that the gain must be very large to produce a control effort that changes the inflow enough to push the measured value beyond the set point, and so kick-start oscillation. This does suggest that it would require a much smaller system gain value to produce oscillation if the tank were much smaller (whilst the rest of the plant was unchanged). This is true, if the tank were a long tube, say, it would be much easier to swing the tank level beyond the set point because a unit of water would greatly increase level. Changing flow by varying servo position will change the flow rate to a much greater extent than it will change the tank level. This means that it takes a much smaller control effort to force the measured value of flow beyond its set point. For a given system gain producing a control effort, the percentage change to flow will be greater than the percentage change to level. This can be demonstrated with a few simple calculations. Control Action Calculation A tank, whose cross-sectional area is 40cm x 20cm (800cm 2), holds 15 litres of water. The inflow and outflow are equal, both are 3 l/min. Since the volume of 1 litre of water is 10cm x 10cm x 10cm (1000cm 3), 15 litres will have a volume of 150cm x 10cm x 10cm (15000cm3). The depth of the water in the tank will be the ratio of volume of water to tank cross-sectional area; 15000cm 3 / 800cm 2 = 18.75cm deep Inflow is increased by 1 l/min, and there is no change to outflow. After one minute there will be an extra litre of water, and this will have increased the tank level by;

1 litre = 10cm x 10cm x 10cm =1000cm 3 1000cm 3 / 800cm2 = 1.25cm (this is depth of 1 litre) Tank level will have increased by 1.25cm, to 20cm. This is an increase of; 100 x (1.25 / 18.75) = 13.3% But flow has increased from 3 l/min to 4 l/min in a minute. As a percentage increase this is; 100 x (1 / 3) = 33.3% For a given control effort (and so a given system gain value) tank level increased by only 13.3%, but flow increased by 33.3%. This means that oscillation will occur much more readily when measuring and controlling flow. Of course in a single loop process situation either flow or level would be used as the control variable, it would not be possible to measure both. The above was used to show the differences between the two, and the factors that must be considered when deciding which to use. When measuring and controlling flow, the system gain must be much smaller (and so proportional band must be much greater). Although this theory section has been discussing how gain level causes oscillation, and at what level it occurs, it must be appreciated that in a process control situation it is the objective to avoid oscillation. The operation of the system must be understood so that proportional band is never made small enough to cause oscillation. Servo P-Control This practical shows a fully functioning proportional control system, monitoring actual rate of flow through the pipe network, comparing this to a desired flow rate (the set point), and altering the position of the servo valve with the aim of achieving the set point. Again, having introduced you properly to proportional control, this practical should now be better understood. The pulse flow sensor is producing a pulse train, whose frequency is proportional to the rate of flow of water spinning the wheel inside the sensor. This pulse train is converted to the 4-20mA signal format by the PFT, and is fed to the 38-300 as the process variable input. This signal is the measured value from the system. The 38-300 is operating proportional control, and controlling the position of the servo valve with a 4-20mA current output signal. The exact size of this output signal is in direct proportion to the deviation of the measured process variable input from the set point. When running the practical, you will be able to vary the set point of the 38-300 with an onscreen control bar, and observe its effect on the process. The chart recorder facility will again be used to display measured value and set point, and so indirectly also show error. When carrying out the practical keep in mind the following simple expressions; PB = A (1 / K) where PB is proportional band, K is system gain, and A is the constant of proportionality, and Uc = K e where Uc is the control effort and e is the error. The constant of proportionality is a constant associated with the dynamics of the system as it is incorrect to state that the proportional band is simply the reciprocal of the gain. P-Control Offset As explained in the theory section, the relationship between the proportional band and the system gain of a process is inverse proportionality. If the proportional band is increased, the gain is decreased. You will have seen from the previous practical that proportional control with a large fixed gain (small proportional band) was not suitable for controlling the process. Therefore in this practical the initial gain value is very small (large proportional band), hence no oscillation, but a large offset. It will be possible to find an optimum level whereby you have the smallest offset without oscillation occurring, this will be the objective of the practical.

In the last assignment it was shown how the offset can be reduced by increasing the system gain (by reducing proportional band), but if increased too much, oscillation could occur. Now the system is stable, but a large offset is present. Therefore by reducing the proportional band (increasing gain) the offset is reduced, but oscillation is introduced. These two characteristics are in opposition as far as a process control system designer is concerned. When applying proportional control only, it must be decided if a large offset is acceptable so that oscillation is unlikely, or offset must be a minimum although this increases the chance of oscillation. In this practical the proportional band will be reduced (or varied), and its effect on the process (offset and oscillation) observed. This is the main part of the practical, and it is intended for you to have a very good grasp of proportional band, gain and control effort by the end of it. Proportional plus Integral (PI) Control The major problem with proportional control, as explored in the two previous assignments, is the inherent offset produced by the controller. The control effort needed to correct an error is directly proportional to that error, and so the minimum error possible is finite. The way to remove this error is to use a control action that will produce a control effort for zero error. This is done by introducing an extra component into the control effort which is the integral of the error. This will continue to change until the error is zero, which should remove the error entirely. Controllers that employ integral action are described as automatic reset controllers. They will exhibit a proportional action and an integral action (the integral action is often termed the reset action). Integral Control The amount of integral action is controlled by a constant, Tr, which is the reset time. The control effort to the process is now described by; Uc = U p + U r where Up is the proportional term, and Ur is the reset (integral) term. From the previous assignments, you will already have met the expression for the proportional term; Up = K e The reset term, Ur, is described by;

which shows the position of the reset time constant, Tr. so that the control effort can now be determined by the following expression;

This describes the action of an automatic reset controller.

The diagram above is the previous proportional control example, where;

Uc = K e The diagram below shows the new control effort arrangement to produce PI control. Now you can see the two distinct elements of U c; Ur is the reset term and Up is the proportional term.

The reset time constant, Tr, is a very important variable as it controls the contribution of the integral action to the control effort over a given length of time. If an integrator is given a step input of fixed duration, its response is a ramp. The slope of the ramp is controlled by T r; the smaller Tr is, the steeper the ramp. With a steep ramp, the contribution of the integral term will be large in a given time, and the time taken to reduce the error present will be short. Unfortunately it is not possible to keep reducing Tr, increasing the integral action, to remove all error. As with the proportional band, there will be a minimum level of reset time constant that makes the system unstable, and this should be avoided. At this minimum level, the integral action will be too large for the system and oscillation (our old friend) will result. A problem that can occur when using normal (i.e. not extreme) values of Tr is Reset Windup. This is when an increase in control effort does not reduce error. This can be caused by a fault in the control system, such as a control valve stuck fully open. If this was to happen, the control effort would build up due to the control action attempting to reduce the error, but without success. When the fault is cleared, the error will drop rapidly because of the very high control effort. The output of the controller, on the other hand, is not able to drop because of the long persistent reset action that was being exerted. This will remain until the measured value has been driven beyond the set point, producing the opposite error, for a sufficiently long time to cancel out this control effort windup. The net result of this action is that there will be a large overshoot of the measured value, and a significant delay before the system is under complete control again. Anti-reset windup is a technique incorporated in modern controllers, including the 38-300 that you are using, that limits the integrating action as soon as the controller output saturates. This will prevent windup of the control effort, which will reduce (hopefully remove) overshoot and restore control sooner. Integral or reset action is covered again in the next assignment, so do not worry if you have not completely grasped the subject yet. The three practicals in this assignment will introduce PI and PID (Proportional plus Integral plus Derivative control), and the next assignment will develop these ideas. The theory behind each type of control is covered again, and PI/PID control are applied to a process whose measured value is flow. Derivative Action and Proportional plus Integral (PID) control Proportional control on its own reacts immediately to any deviation but it is insensitive to the rate of change of deviation. By adding an integral action, the control law now removes long term errors (offset). But if the error was increasing very rapidly a very large control effort would be desired (much larger than simple direct proportionality can provide) to halt this. PID control adds a derivative term which is proportional to the rate of change of error. Considering the control effort in a similar way to the theory on Integral action, it can be split up into the following terms; Uc = Up + Ur +Ud where Up is the proportional term, Ur is the reset term, and Ud is the derivative term. The proportional and integral terms have already been met;

The derivative term is described by the following expression; Ud = K Td (de / dt) where Td is the derivative time. This derivative time, Td, is very similar to the reset time, Tr, of the integral term. It controls the contribution of the derivative term to the overall control effort. The control effort produced by a PID controller is as follows;

The time constant of the derivative term appears in the numerator, but the time constant of the integrating term appears in the denominator. This means that a derivative time of zero will remove any derivative action, but an infinite reset time is needed to remove all reset action. As briefly mentioned, the derivative contribution is directly proportional to the rate of change of deviation between measured value and set point. As a result, the derivative term will be positive whilst the deviation is increasing, and negative whilst the deviation is decreasing. Considering the action of the controller, while the error is increasing, the derivative term will increase the control effort, with the size of the increase determined by the rate of change of the error. When the error is decreasing, the derivative term will reduce the control effort as the rate of change of the error decreases. Coupled with the proportional action, this produces a braking effect as the measured value approaches the set point. The overall effect of the derivative term is to increase the speed of response, to improve damping of oscillation, and to reduce the size of the overshoot. Derivative action will play no part in removing the offset present in proportional control. This offset is a steady state error, it has no rate of change since it is not time dependent, and the derivative of this will be zero. Unfortunately derivative action cannot be applied to every control situation, as it is not suitable for systems with noisy environments. Noisy signals contain high frequency components, which are amplified by the derivative action. These amplified high frequency components will appear at the controller output, and will cause large changes in the position of the actuator. While these may not affect the plant to a large extent (since plant dynamics will usually act as a filter to high frequencies), the rapid changes will almost certainly shorten the life of the actuator. The high frequencies may also cause fluctuations in the power supply. Also, it must be understood that derivative action is most successfully employed in systems with fast changing variables. The reaction speed of the level and flow variables in this system are not sufficiently fast to show-off the potential of derivative action. This fact will be demonstrated later during the controller self-tune. The controller decides upon the most appropriate levels of proportional band, integral and derivative to control the process connected to it. The level of derivative action required will be seen to be extremely small. The servo valve does not allow the flow rate to change fast enough to require much of the characteristic braking action of the derivative component. However, there are certain situations where the derivative term is of great use. A servo motor is designed to respond to input signals relating to speed to direction almost immediately. A square-wave input to a servo motor exercises the reactions of the motor to the full. If a servo motor were being driven by a square wave of large amplitude the response of the motor would be similar to the graph below. It can be seen that there is a large degree of overshoot at the direction changes.

The second graph below illustrates the difference the addition of derivative action could make to the response of such a servo system. There is still a certain degree of overshoot, but the braking effect reduces this to a minimum.

It can be seen that the derivative action is reducing the response overshoot considerably. Proportional plus Integral plus Derivative (PID) Control The control effort of a PID controller is made up of three terms. Each term plays its own specific part in controlling a process, and each requires careful thought to operate as well as possible. All three terms have been introduced; proportional control in the previous two assignments, integral and derivative in this assignment. During the next three practicals, and also the following assignment, the application of these control methods to real processes will be explored. In this theory section, the aim is to consider three different types of error. For each type, all three control terms will be considered, to determine what effect each is having on the control effort produced to remove that error. To simplify the following examples, several assumptions will be made; both PB and reset time are sufficiently high to avoid oscillation, and the derivative time is sufficiently low to avoid oscillation. The diagram below shows the cases of error that will be considered;

The curves show the pattern of each type of error, how each would continue if it could do so uncorrected. This would not strictly happen since any controller would take some course of action to remove the error, whether this is the correct action to be taken or not. Case a), a constant error (offset): The proportional term would not be able to remove this error since it relies on the existence of error to produce any control effort. The reset (integral) action would be present, reducing the error. As the error reduced, so too would the reset action.

The derivative action would only be present when the reset action had started to reduce the error (since derivative is the rate of change of error). This would reduce the control effort, braking the approach of the measured value to the setpoint and smoothing any overshoot that may occur. Case b), an increasing error (gradient A): The proportional term would be attempting to remove this, but its action would only be dependent on the size of the error, not the rate of change. For an increasing error, the reset action would be increasing exponentially, but since the other terms will be decreasing the error this will soon become an increase whose gradient was decreasing. The derivative action will be the important term since it is proportional to the rate of change of the error. The combination of these terms will force the control effort to slow down the error, until it finally changes direction, and the measured value approaches the set point. The closer it gets to the set point, the slower it will approach, since the proportional action is decreasing, reducing the control effort and so the rate of change of error, and so the derivative action. Case c), an increasing error (gradient B, B >> A): This is a very similar case to the previous, but since the rate of change of error is greater, the derivative action will be much greater, increasing the control effort, and correcting the process much quicker than if there were no derivative action. PI Control of Level The practical will begin with reset action turned off. This will leave the process in the proportional control situation, which you have met before. By doing this you can familiarise yourself with proportional control again before adding the reset action. As mentioned in the theory section, reset action approaches zero as the reset time increases towards infinity. In terms of the 38-300 controller, when Tr is set to 7201 seconds the reset action is OFF. When the practical begins, your computer will set this. There will be a control bar onscreen to change Tr and next to this there will be an ON/OFF button. By clicking on the button the control bar will be enabled and you can introduce a reset action. When enabled, the range of Tr will be 0 to 100 seconds, this will be sufficient to explore reset action. The full range of T r, from 0 to 7200 seconds, is of course available through the manual keys on the front of the controller. As for several of the practicals in previous assignments, only part of the full range will be displayed by the chart recorder (0 - 50% rather than 0 - 100%), so that a 'close up' of that area can be observed. This does mean that the range of the set point is effectively restricted, but if the full range were to be shown, the level of offset could not be appreciated (this is the important difference between P and PI control). You will be able to vary the following with onscreen control bars; the set point, the proportional band (PB), and the reset or integral time (T r). You should already have a good understanding of PB from your previous work, but now you will be able to investigate the effect of varying T r, and also how the two parameters tie in. In terms of its dynamic characteristics, the level control system is slow. When changing parameters to observe their effect, you must allow plenty of time for behaviour to become apparent. It may take one or two minutes for the process to reach steady state, so you must allow for this before considering any offsets etc. Limitations of PI Control This practical will be used to demonstrate the shortfalls of Proportional plus Integral Control. Unlike the previous PI Control of Level practical, the 38-300 will be initialised to begin PI control immediately, and by changing the available parameters, the drawbacks will be encountered. As explained in the theory, the integral or reset action is used to remove constant errors or offsets. The exact contribution from the reset term is controlled by the reset time parameter, Tr. If this is set incorrectly the control effort including the reset action can be too large, and oscillation will result. This was observed in the previous practical. This practical will investigate the rate of change of error, and response of the system to that error. It is this lack of reaction to the rate of change of error by a PI controller that has produced the need for a further control method; PID control. You will force the error to change very quickly, and observe the effect on the control effort and the response of the system, comparing it to the response seen in the first practical. While the error is changing relatively slowly (usually, if one of the dynamics of a system is slow, then all are slow), PI control is adequate at maintaining predefined operating conditions. With a fast rate of change of error, the controller is unable to take extra action to account for this. Using the record and playback functions will enable you to very easily compare traces from different control algorithms, during this practical and also between this and other practicals. You should also attempt to produce instability/oscillation, so the level at which it occurs can be found. In an industrial application this should be well known, so that it can be avoided.

When this practical begins, PB will be set to 50, which is higher than in previous practicals. This enables the effect of the integral action to be seen more clearly as Tr will have a greater influence on response. With a large PB, system gain is smaller and so the level of offset from the proportional action is large. To remove this offset, the integral action must be large, and so T r will be small (since Tr and amount of integral component are inversely proportional). Because of this, the control bar for Tr will only go between 1% and 60%. You will of course be able to use values outside this range with the 38-300's manual keys. PID Control of Level This practical will demonstrate to you full three term, PID control as applied to the control of fluid level in the upper tank. You will be able to vary Proportional Band (changing the gain which changes the contribution of the proportional action term), Integral Action Time (or Reset Time, determining the contribution of the reset action term), and Derivative Action Time (determining the contribution of the derivative action term). This is your first introduction to full PID control, and it is a straightforward example of this type of control. In the following assignment this algorithm will be applied to a different process, allowing the ideas met here to be built upon and expanded. The derivative component of the control effort enables a controller to recognise a rapidly changing error and take extra action to account for it. By applying a control effort that is not simply directly proportional to the error, the response of the plant has been improved. There is now an element of the control action that is proportional to the rate of change of error. This new element is a very important one in some situations. A massive increase of the inflow to a tank, caused by a failure elsewhere in a plant for example, could result in overflow. By applying a very large control effort, the time taken to reverse the direction of the system (towards failure) has been reduced. It is producing an overcompensation for the extra error to halt its progress. But it is not only overcompensation that a derivative action offers to a system. As the measured value of a system approaches its set point, the rate of change of error will decrease as the proportional action reduces. This reducing error rate will produce a negative control contribution from the derivative term, reducing the control effort further. This applies a breaking effect to the control effort, and reduces the chance of overshoot. The derivative action will pull a system away from failure by producing an overly large control effort, and slow down its approach to the set point with the aim of preventing overshoot. The Reset Action of PI Control This theory section carries on from the previous assignment, and considers the reset action and control effort produced by theoretical deviation curves graphically. It will expand on your knowledge of the reset action, and enable you to have some idea of control effort for various forms of deviation produced in practical situations. PID control will also be considered in the same manner by the following theory section. Graphical representations of each element of a control effort will increase your practical understanding of the different forms of control to a much greater extent than purely theoretical and mathematical discussion. It may also eventually enable you to make intuitive suggestions to the shape of each element of a practical control example very quickly. It is hoped that the link between control law block diagrams and physical response characteristics will become clearer as the practicals progress. The following diagram shows the control law of a PI controller. This is the same as the one seen in the theory section on PI control in the previous assignment.

It also shows the response to a theoretical step input deviation. The reset time constant, T r, is the variable that is controlling the contribution of the integral action to the control effort over a given length of time.

If an integrator is given a step input of fixed duration, its response is a ramp. The slope of the ramp is controlled by T r; the smaller Tr is, the steeper the ramp. With a steep ramp, the contribution of the integral term will be large in a given time, and the time taken to reduce the error present will be short.

The diagram above shows the responses for two different Tr values. Here Tr1 > Tr2. The diagram shows that before time t i deviation is zero, and the corresponding control effort, U, is at the quiescent point, U m (this is usually a manual control effort term). At time t i the deviation becomes a positive value, e, and the control effort increases to Ke, which is a result of the proportional control term (Up as introduced previously). The control effort is then a rising slope of gradient K / Tr, due to the reset action term, Ur. The integral of a curve is a measure of the area under that curve, so the area under a step input is increasing at a constant rate. With a small value of T r the slope is steep, and so the contribution of the reset action to the control effort is large. At time t i+j the deviation, e, becomes zero again, and this removes the proportional term from the control effort (since U p = Ke), and so the control effort drops by an amount Ke. The integral term has become a constant, since the area under the curve is no longer increasing. By considering the terms present during each time period, the following expressions describing control effort can be produced; Before time t i, control effort: U = Um At the instant of t i: From t i to t i+j: After t i+j: U = Um + Up U = U m + U p + Ur U = Um + Ur

It must be remembered that the diagram only shows the deviation, and the corresponding control effort. It is, in effect, an open loop system, since the effect of the control effort on the deviation present is not being considered. In a real application, the deviation would not be step input since the control effort that it produced would change it (hopefully reducing it). The Three Components of PID Control In a similar way to the previous theory section on the Reset Action, PID will be considered graphically, splitting up a control effort into its constituent parts. By breaking down a control effort into the terms that it contains, it becomes easier to understand how the final control effort is created. The diagram below shows the control law of a process carrying out PID control.

The enhancement and braking effects of the derivative action on the control effort are clearly visible. The level and flow variables of interest to the following assignments do not provide a perfect example of the uses of derivative action. The derivative method is suited best to processes whose variables change swiftly and frequently. It is in such processes that the braking effect of the derivative component can be observed. As before, the control law cannot be built in isolation as it is shown in the diagram above. It must always be an element of a complete feedback loop since its input is the deviation between the measured value and set point of a system. By producing a control effort it will change the profile of the deviation providing the input, but this is not being considered. The control law shows the three terms of PID control, including the expressions describing the behaviour of each. The upper curve is a fictional deviation profile which has two obvious regions, the first increasing with a constant rate, and the second decreasing with a constant rate. The lower curve is the corresponding control effort produced by the deviation. The diagram below shows the three terms of the control effort, with the deviation curve at the top.

From this you can see the two definite regions of deviation, and the corresponding regions of each control component. The important point that can be made from the control effort profile (which is the combination of all three components) is the enhancement and braking effects caused by the derivative action. While the error is increasing, the derivative component has greatly increased the control effort, beyond mere proportionality, to halt the progress of the deviation as quickly as possible. While the deviation is decreasing (measured value is approaching the set point), the derivative action reduces the control effort so that the rate of approach of measured value decreases, and the possibility of overshoot/oscillation is less. This is seen in the control effort by the 'spike' as deviation increases, and the downward drop as deviation decreases. P + I Control of Flow In this practical you will attempt to control flow with the Proportional plus Integral algorithm, which you have already met in the PI Control of Level practical within the previous assignment. It will not be as straight forward in this practical to avoid oscillation, because level and flow have very different behaviour.

As discussed previously, the dynamic characteristics of flow are much quicker than those for level, and the control parameters must be set up accordingly. Recalling the control law for proportional plus integral control from your previous work;

Uc = Up + Ur = K [ e + (1 / Tr)

e]

...you will know that system gain K is controlling the size of the control effort applied, and that a large gain value will produce extreme control efforts, resulting in oscillation if the error or deviation is swinging. This is to some extent a 'runaway' situation, a small error will produce a control effort to drive the process in the opposite direction, but with a large gain there will invariably be overshoot causing opposite deviation, producing a larger control effort and driving the process back again. This is the oscillatory behaviour that can easily occur. System gain is inversely proportional to PB (Proportional Band), so when controlling flow (a process variable whose deviation is quick and often alternating) PB must be large (and so gain will be small) to prevent extreme control action and so oscillation. In practical systems there are other factors which need to be considered, such as noise. In reality no transducer is perfect, which is also true of the flow sensor transducer. Any noise supplied by the transducer is passed on to the controller. If the noise is considerable and the controller has a small PB (large gain) oscillation would be the result. From this practical you can observe, on the chart recorder, the noise level on the signal, therefore to account for this the PB has to be slightly larger (smaller gain) than if the signal from the transducer was totally clean. This practical will emphasise the above case; PB will initially be 100, large compared to previous practicals, and you will vary the reset time, Tr, to reduce the offset present. As you should recall, offset will be very large if PB is very large, so initially when the integral action is not switched on the deviation between measured variable and set point will be excessive. As the reset component is introduced, the offset will decrease at a rate controlled by the reset time value, T r. If Tr is chosen to be too low, the integral component is too great and oscillation will be induced, but this 'too low' figure is also determined by PB. The aim of this practical is to further your knowledge of integral action by changing all relevant parameters and observing their effect. There will be control bars onscreen to change the set point and Tr, with the range for Tr 0-60 seconds. There is no need to apply integral action with Tr any greater than 60 seconds because its effect will be negligible with PB so high. Although there is not a control bar onscreen for PB, you are still able to change its value using the manual keys on the front of the 38-300 (PB is found on the 'ContrL PAGE'). P + I + D Control of Flow During this practical, you will attempt to control flow using full three term PID control, as introduced in the previous assignment. Unlike the PI Control of Level practical, this will be an example of the problems associated with PID control, and will aim to show you how the choice of control method is very much situation-dependent. You will know from earlier work how the dynamics of level and of flow are very different to each other, and so the same control system cannot be applied to both without parameter alterations. A small change in the control effort will alter the position of the servo valve only slightly, but this will affect flow rate quite considerably. It can be said that the process plant has a very high gain; a small change to the input (control effort to servo position) produces a large change in the output (flow rate). If the deviation between measured value and set point is changing rapidly, this will produce a large derivative action in the control effort. This makes the system very susceptible to instability, and so great care must be taken when selecting parameter values. The expression below is that met previously for PID control law. Uc = U p + U r + U d

= k [ e + ( 1 / Tr)

e dt + Td (de / dt) ]

The greater PB is (so the smaller the system gain, K), the smaller the overall control effort will be for a measured deviation. This allows for a greater range of derivative contribution to the control effort before it produces oscillation. In this practical the PID values have been set such that the best performance is achieved out of the system. You can observe the system performance with respect to set point changes, noting the system response on the chart recorder. In the second part of the practical you can investigate the effect of the derivative action on the overall system. You will be able to change T d from 0 to 5 seconds, in 1 second divisions. Although this sounds very small, it will be enough of a variation to observe all consequences of derivative action in the control effort, both good and bad. You will be able to switch derivative action on and off, as you did with integral action earlier.

By providing the same deviation (changing the set point is the most convenient way of doing this) to PI and PID algorithms, you will be able to observe the differences between them. There will be control bars onscreen to change the set point, Tr and Td . You will not need to apply Td greater than 5 seconds as there will already be instability at this level. Although there is not a control bar onscreen for PB again, you are still able to change it using the manual keys on the front of the 38-300. Tuning Process Controllers Tuning process controllers is a procedure to select control effort parameters that will produce a desired system performance. The ideal solution is simulation as this will produce values before the system is operational, so that from start up it will be running with tuned parameters. Unfortunately this is not always possible, so practical methods must be available. The desired performance of a system is entirely dependent on that system, but there are criteria for system performance that can be applied to all systems. For example, the aim of tuning could be to reduce the overshoot of the process variable to a minimum whilst maintaining a fast response A common desired performance criteria for tuning controllers, is that the tuned settings produce 'a transient response with a decay ratio of 1/4'. The transient response of a system is its reaction to a change in input over a period of time, normally the time between two steady states. This is shown in the diagram below.

The decay ratio is the ratio between the size of successive overshoots, and this is also shown in the diagram. The decay ratio is: OS3 / OS1 = 1/4 (for a tuned system) During this assignment, three methods of tuning will be considered; Continuous Cycling, Reaction Curve, and Self Tuning carried out by the controller automatically. The first two methods will be discussed theoretically and Continuous Cycling and Self Tuning will be implemented practically. As mentioned before it is not necessary to understand the theory before attempting the practicals. The Continuous Cycling Method of Tuning The first method of tuning that will be discussed, and one which is widely used in industry, is the Continuous Cycling method or ZeiglerNichols tuning. This method is based on an article published by Zeigler and Nichols in 1942 establishing a set of empirical rules for tuning controllers. The aim of continuous cycling is to experimentally find the value of gain (or the value of PB to be precise) which produces marginal stability. Stability and Damping are two important characteristics of a system and they are shown in the following diagram:

Curve A shows a system whose controller gain is such that its oscillations decay. This system is over-damped and so it is stable - it will reach a steady state. Curve B shows a system whose oscillations are sustained, neither growing nor decaying, and this is considered marginally stable. Its gain is such that it is critically damped. Curve C shows a system that is unstable. Its oscillations are increasing and the gain is such that it is under-damped. The system gains, Ki, are as follows;

Ka < Kb < Kc The aim is to find the value of proportional band that produces marginal stability, and the practical method is as follows; 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Place the controller in Manual control mode, and achieve steady state with the system in its normal operating condition. The measured value will be equal to the set point. Remove all control actions except proportional. As you should recall, reset action is removed when T r = maximum (7201 in this case), and derivative action is removed when Td = 0. Select a wide proportional band, so that controller gain is small. Switch the controller into Automatic control, this should produce no control effort (this is a bumpless transfer). Introduce a small set point change in the region of 5%-10%. Observe the response of the system to this change. Switch the controller back to Manual operation, and restore the system back to the original stable operating condition, with measured value equal to the set point. Reduce the proportional band and repeat steps 4, 5, 6 and 7 until the system exhibits sustained oscillations. At this point the system is marginally stable.

At the point of marginal stability, the value of proportional band is recorded, this is the ultimate proportional band, PB u. Also the period of oscillation is recorded, this is the ultimate period, Tu. Continuous Cycling Zeigler-Nicholls Tuning Control Algorithm P PI PID Controller PB 2PBu 2.2PBu 1.7PBu Tr T u/1.2 T u/2

Td T u/8

Using PBu, Tu and the above table of Zeigler-Nichols recommended settings, the control action contributions are calculated for each type of control algorithm. The Reaction Curve Tuning Method This is derived from the same source as the Continuous Cycle Tuning method but it uses an open-loop test to determine the tuned parameters. It is more suited to slow-reacting processes, where oscillation gives rise to uncontrollable operation. Reaction Curve tuning is very simple to carry out, and the basic method is described below: 1. 2. With the controller in Manual mode, place the process system in a stable operating condition with the measured variable and set point equal. Apply a small step change to the controller output, and record the response of the system.

This is called the Reaction Curve method because it uses the response, or reaction, curve of the system to determine the tuned parameter values. An example reaction curve is shown below. This is a very typical response curve, 'S' shaped and showing the delays that occur with a dynamically slow process.

The first step is to find the maximum slope of the reaction curve, N, and to draw the tangent of this point. Next the effective delay, D, is found. This is the delay between applying the step change and the point at which the tangent of slope N crosses the line of initial controller output value. Both of these can be seen on the diagram. The fractional change in controller output is calculated, and using effective delay, D, maximum slope, N, and the table of Zeigler-Nichols recommended values the tuned parameters are calculated.

Control Algorithm P PI PID

Controller PB

Tr -

Td N D u - fractional o/p change - maximum slope of response - effective delay

For both of the Zeigler-Nichols methods discussed, there are expressions for calculating all control parameters for all three control algorithms, P, PI, and PID. By considering the differences between these algorithms it becomes clearer how the level of constants in the expressions are determined. Changing from P to PI, the controller gain must be reduced (PB increased) because the reset action is increasing the risk of oscillation of the system. Changing from PI to PID, the controller gain can be increased because the derivative action is opposing changes in the measured variable, reducing the chance of oscillation. Zeigler-Nichols Tuning This is a widely used method of controller tuning throughout industry, and it is reliable. You shall apply this tuning algorithm to the 38-300 to determine parameter values whose decay ratio is 1/4. This method uses results from a closed-loop test to calculate the parameters. The method has been explained thoroughly in the theory section, but the practical steps are as follows; 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Using manual control, settle the plant into its normal operating condition. Remove all actions except proportional, and select a wide proportional band. Switch to auto and introduce a small set point change (5%-10%). Observe the response. Switch the controller back to manual mode, restore set point back to its original setting and operating conditions back to normal. Reduce the proportional band and repeat steps 3, 4, and 5.

When the plant exhibits sustained oscillations, neither growing nor decaying, record the value of PB, and also the period of oscillation of the plant. These are called the ultimate proportional band, PBu, and ultimate period, Tu. From these can be calculated all parameter values so that the controller can be tuned, using the following table; Continuous Cycling Zeigler-Nicholls Tuning Control Algorithm P PI PID Controller PB 2PBu 2.2PBu 1.7PBu Tr T u/1.2 T u/2

Td T u/8

Using the two ultimate parameters, all control action components can be calculated and the controller tuned accordingly. Reaction Curve Tuning This method of tuning is also derived from the same source as the Continuous Cycling Tuning method but this uses an open-loop test to calculate the parameter values. You shall apply this tuning algorithm to the 38-300 to determine parameter values whose decay ratio is 1/4. As before in Practical 1, this method has already been explained thoroughly in the Theory Section, but the practical steps are as follows; 1. 2. Using manual control, settle the plant into its normal operating condition (adjust the 38-300 output so that there is no deviation). Apply a small step change to the controller output and record the response.

The open loop response of the plant is called the Reaction Curve, and it is the response to a step change in the controller output. From it can be found the maximum slope and delay needed to calculate the tuned control action parameters. The exact quantities to be measured were described in the theory corresponding to this method, and you may need to refer back when you calculate parameters in the questions for this practical. Before recording the reaction curve, carry out the steps above several times to practice. Once you are happy with the 'S' shaped curve produced, record the chart so that you can examine it at your leisure with the playback facility, and take all the measurements necessary.

Self Tuning The 38-300 Controller The 38-300 controller contains a facility to automatically tune the control action parameters for all three control algorithms, with two types of constraints on the tuned parameters. You shall set up the controller manually to carry out self tuning, and then observe the response of the system using the tuned parameters with the chart recorder. The Self Tune page contains the following parameters: St-tYP : self tune type, either at start-up (StrtUP self tune will be applied from the initial start up or when there is a large change in set point) or at set point (AtSPt self tune will begin when the process is close to the set point). StEP : Output step size, is a percentage of the control output range, and is the amount the output will change by while self tuning. HYSt : hysteresis value, used by the At Set Point cycle, determining when to change the output value. St-HI : self tune high limit, used by the At Set Point cycle, self tuning will stop if the measured (process) variable exceeds this. St-LO : self tune low limit, used by the At Set Point cycle, self tuning will stop if the measured (process) variable drops below this. tEr_S : control terms, P, PI, or PID. tYPE : type of control, used by At Start-Up cycle, type A is the quickest response with a damping ratio of 1/4, type B is the quickest response with the minimum overshoot. S-tunE : on or off, while the controller is self tuning, the L.E.D. marked ST will be on, when it is complete this L.E.D. will flash. If self tuning fails the L.E.D. will go out and an error message will be displayed at the start of the parameter page. When self tuning is complete it will have produced parameters for the type of control action selected. These can be seen after S-tunE as the following parameters: AdU.P, AdU.I, AdU.d; advisory PB, advisory integral action time and advisory derivative action time respectively. The next parameter will offer the chance to accept these values, if accepted they will change the ContrL PAGE accordingly. The advisory values should be used to control the process. The performance of the tuned P,I and D terms should be noted. If experimental time allows, you should alter the characteristics of the process in some way and then repeat the self-tune procedure. Perhaps remove the orange bung to increase the tank capacity, or increase the rate of outflow from the tank. Observe how the advisory P, I and D values alter with a change in the process characteristics. Profile Programming A profile is a curve over a period of time, which is normally rising, falling, changing. Up until now the profile of your set point has been only steps, as you change it with the onscreen control bars. The controller contains a facility for producing profiles containing ramps, which allows you to create many different types of profiles, including saw tooth wave forms. The ability of the process plant to follow a changing set point curve can now be considered.

The controller enables you to enter a program to produce the profile of your choice, by providing nine groups of up to 31 segments, each group being an empty program. You can decide the shape of each program by defining the number of segments, the starting level of each segment and the length of time each segment lasts. You can then select how many times to repeat each program, and select up to four programs to be replayed in any order. The profile programming facility also has a Hold feature which will pause the program when one of three conditions are met; n-HLd manual hold - switching the controller to manual mode will hold the program,

OPErAt operator - pressing 'Enter' or a logic input signal 1 (if assigned on the setup control page) will hold the program, H-bACK hold back - the program will hold if the process variable deviates by more than the hysteresis value assigned in the Profile Programming page and will resume when it returns within the hysteresis limit. Programming a Profile There are two pages that must be used when programming, and a third which monitors the program when it is running. The first page is the Profile Programming Page ('PrOFLE PrOGr_'), and its parameters are as follows; 'PrOFLE' (profile enable) - this enables the profile programming feature, and should be ON. PrOGr_ (program select) - the program number that is to be programmed (1-9) PG-bEG (program begin) - the starting segment (0-29) PG-End (program end) - the finishing segment (1-30) LEU.L x (segment x start level) - this is the set point level that the first segment is to start at, x is the number of the starting segment (any value, 0% to 100%) the following two parameters are set for each segment of the program (for example 'PG-bEG' = 1 and 'PG-End' = 10, so this will cycle through until level and time for each segment has been set). tI_E x (segment x time period) - the length of tie segment x will last for (any value, 0.0 to 999.9 secs) LEU.L xx (segment xx start level) - this is the set point level that the current segment (x) will finish at and the next segment (xx) will begin at. When all segments are programmed, the parameter page will continue. rEPEAt (program repeat) - The number of times this program is repeated (1-99 times) HYSt (program hysteresis) - If the process variable deviates beyond this value the program will hold until it returns within this limit (any value, 0%-100%). Once the Profile Programming page is set up, the 'PrOFLE StAtES', Profile States page is programmed, as follows; PrOGr_ (program select) - here the program numbers to be run are selected. Up to four programs can be run in one session, in any order. In the Lower display of the controller, the program number is selected and entered. If less than four programs are to be played, the terminator character is entered (this is three horizontal lines). t_-dLY (time delay) - the countdown delay before the profile begins (any value, 0.0 to 999.9 mins). StArt (start profile run) - this initiates the profile. Once the profile has begun, the hold parameter is available, showing the state of the hold. If there is no hold, this will be OFF. There is also the option to reset the current profile and also skip the current segment. These are both available while the profile is running. Also while the profile is running there is a Profile Operating Page, 'P-StAt'. This contains the following parameters; P-StAt (profile status) - shows the current status of the profile. This can be any of the following; StOP - waiting for operator action, SOAK - the set point is constant through the current segment, rA_P - (ramp) the set point is rising or falling though the current segment, C-dO - (countdown) there is a time delay before beginning, Hb-HLd, OP-HLd, _n-HLd - one of the hold features has been triggered, End - the current profile has finished.

t-Strt (countdown time) - the time delay before starting, if one was set in the Profile States Page. PrG - SEG - - current program and segment. t-SEG - the time remaining before the current segment finishes. rPt-Ct - program repeat count is the number of outstanding repeats for the current program. Remote Set Point This practical will introduce the Remote Set Point facility of the controller by allowing you to vary the process set point using the PI current source. The controller will be self tuned so that it is applying what it considers to be the best control action possible, and it will follow the set point as best it can. Using the current source as the set point is not really the normal practical use of the remote set point, but it is enough to demonstrate its use. The remote set point is used when two processes are not connected but the operating point of one is dependent on the operating conditions of the other. There is an example of this in the following diagram:

There are two unconnected flows, the primary and the secondary. The secondary is controlled by the position of a servo valve which is determined by the controller. The flow through the primary is monitored with a flow sensor. The primary flow is used to remove a quantity of heat from the secondary flow. The signal from the primary flow sensor is providing the Remote Set Point (RSP) for the secondary. MV is Measured Variable and OP is the process controller Output. This arrangement allows for the following; if the flow in the primary drops, the set point for the secondary will drop and the controller will apply a control action to drop the secondary flow, ensuring that the same quantity of heat is always removed for any value of primary flow. Profile Programming During this practical you will set up a profile for the set point to follow, made up of programs and segments, and will initiate the profile to observe how the system follows a changing set point. You will self tune the controller so that it can follow the set point as well as can be expected, and then manually enter a profile for the controller to follow. The profile programming facility offers great scope for different profiles, and it will be up to you to decide the exact shape of your profile. The theory section on Profile Programming discusses the construction of a profile, and also the exact steps to program the controller. It is hoped that you will not treat this practical as a rigid set of instructions to be followed once and once only, but more as a starting point for exploration. The exact shape of a profile is limitless and coupled to this are the three different control algorithms, so there is plenty of room for experimentation. Time Proportioned Output Time Proportioned Output is a form of On/Off control that switches state at a rate controlled by the deviation between set point and measured value. The On/Off control met earlier switched state as the sign of the error changed, but Time Proportioned Output produces a square wave shaped output where the ON and OFF times (high and low) are determined by the size of deviation and not sign.

The following diagram illustrates Time Proportioned Output control. The waveforms are imaginary but they demonstrate the differences between conventional On/Off control and Time Proportioned Output control. If the error were zero the control effort for Timed Proportioned Output would be 50%, and the output would be ON and OFF for equal lengths of time. As the error increases above the set point, the control effort increases and the OFF time becomes greater than the ON time, until at 100% control effort the ON time is zero. As the error increases below the set point, the control effort decreases and the ON time becomes greater than the OFF time, until at 0% control effort the OFF time is zero. This is all shown graphically in the following diagram.

Time Proportioned Output has one major benefit over conventional On/Off control which makes it more attractive. When the deviation is zero Time Proportioned Output will produce a control effort of 50%, which will switch the logic output between high and low equally, it will be a perfect square wave. This should keep the process variable from changing. With deviation at zero for On/Off control the control effort will be either 0% or 100%, which will drive the process away from the set point, and when far enough switch state driving it back. On/Off control can only produce oscillation at best (small with high frequency or large with low frequency), but a tuned Time Proportioned Output control system should get much closer to a steady process. The disadvantage of Time Proportioned Output is its increased complexity. Plant and Control Loop Characteristics For the engineer concerned only with process control it is perhaps unfortunate that automatic controllers have, to a very large extent become standardised and usually are housed in attractive cases. This coupled with the fact that controllers are often housed in a clean, well lit room, could give the impression that the automatic controller is the most important element in the loop. This impression is quite false. It is the plant that is the most complex part and requires the most detailed study. In process control systems there is likely to be a longer delay in the detection of error than in position or speed control systems. The response of the plant to changes in the controller output is also likely to be slower. On the other hand, most plant processes possess the property of inherent regulation, which can loosely be defined as: 'the property of a process by which, in the absence of control, equilibrium is reached after a disturbance'. This in general terms can be stated as: the greater the inherent regulation of a process, the more easily automatic control can be applied to it. Potential Temperature The Potential Temperature is the equilibrium or limiting value of the controlled condition that tends to be attained following a particular adjustment of the controlling unit. Without inherent regulation the attainment of such an equilibrium value would be impossible. In order to illustrate this, let us take the example of a temperature control system applied to a gas fired continuous annealing furnace. The heat input over a given period may be calculated from the calorific value of the gas and the rate of gas flow. The heat output consists of that taken from the furnace in the form of a heated product plus heat losses in the form of conduction, convection and radiation. All heat losses increase as the furnace temperature increases, that due to radiation depending on the absolute temperature. Therefore, providing the flow of material through the furnace remains constant, when gas flow increases or decreases, the furnace temperature must increase or decrease, until that potential temperature is reached at which the heat balance is restored. It would be interesting to consider, what would happen if heat losses were independent of temperature! Process Reaction Rate (Capacitance and Resistance)

Process reaction rate is the maximum rate of change of the controlled condition following a specific step change at the controlling unit. For a temperature control system, the reaction rate is determined from the region of maximum slope of the temperature/time graph following a sudden change in heat energy input and is expressed in degrees per second. In whatever form it takes, for any process, capacity has the effect of delaying the attainment of the potential value. In a simple process containing just a simple capacity, the reciprocal of the reaction rate gives the capacity lag, e.g. seconds per degree. Resistance is a property of an electric circuit, which obviously has the relationship: I=V/R Also (not as obvious) conductance is the reciprocal of resistance. In the field of heat transfer, the term thermal conductivity is widely used. The flow of heat from one side of a material to the other requires a temperature difference between the two sides, just as a potential difference is required across the ends of an electrical conductor to promote current flow. In the process control field the term resistance is used to denote opposition to flow. It is measured as the potential change required to produce unit change in flow and its units are oC J/s. Transfer Lag A transfer lag occurs when energy is transferred through a resistance to or from a capacity. See the following diagram for the effect of a distance velocity lag :

In a temperature control system transfer lag results from the resistance to heat transfer from the heating element to the process and the thermal capacity of the process material and its container etc. A further example of this type of lag is provided by the compressed air system shown below:

If P2 is initially zero air would enter the receiver at a high rate, but as pressure builds up the rate of air flow is reduced, this has the same effect as a simple RC circuit.

The following diagram shows the time delay introduced by transfer lag.

The change in amplitude due to the effect of resistance and capacity can be shown using a sine wave input, see the following diagram. The two effects of a transfer lag on a sinusoidal input are, a phase lag and a reduction in amplitude.

Time lags in the Control Loop To give a complete picture of the lags in a typical control process, consider the following diagram :

Within the plant itself the following can be said : 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. There is a distance velocity lag on the supply side. This is the time taken for the heating fluid to travel from the valve to the supply input of the heat exchanger. A second lag, similar to the previous one is present on the demand side. This is the time taken for the process fluid to travel from the demand side outlet to the temperature transducer. Due to supply capacity, time is required following a change in valve position for the supply side of the heat exchanger to heat up or cool down. A similar effect occurs on the demand side, this is also due to capacity. A transfer lag exists between the supply and demand sides of the heat exchanger.

In addition to the previous time lags mentioned, further lags and delays occur in the loop as follows : f. g. h. Temperature transducer lag. This is in fact a transfer lag and is due to the resistance to heat flow from the process fluid through the pocket and the heat transfer compound, in addition the thermistors also possess a thermal capacity. Hence the thermal transducer's response would take the form of an exponential curve associated with transfer lag. The time taken for the signal to propagate from the transducer, to the controller and the controller to initiate any control action. However in many cases this is negligible. The delay for the corrective action to propagate to the control valve and for the control valve to maintain a possible new position.

It is typical for a plant to have several lags, as shown below in the typical response curve, which can be approximated by a distance velocity lag L followed by a linear reaction curve. However the greater the number of lags that are present, the more S shaped the response becomes. Therefore it becomes more difficult to decide the exact slope of the approximated reaction curve.

In practice the plant being considered by the engineer is almost always infinitely more complex than the example shown previously and in many cases it is an enormous task to try to identify and calculate the various lags associated with the system. Calibration of the TTT

The Thermistor Temperature Transmitter is a device which takes temperature information from the thermistors (T1 - T5) and transmits it to the Process Interface (PI), see photograph below :

The thermistor itself is a small component which has the characteristic of resistance dependant upon temperature. The Thermistor Temperature Transmitter reads the resistance value and converts it to a 4-20mA signal with respect to actual temperature. By converting to the 4-20mA current signal format, communication is no longer restricted to short distances, a concern when dealing with large process plants. Also by using this format signals and equipment become standardised, removing the need for special interfaces. Instrument Calibration When using the thermistor and transmitter combination, temperature measurements are carried out to monitor a process parameter. This parameter is monitored and used to determine the control effort that should be applied to control the process correctly. Such measurements help to maintain the correct operation of the process system. Because of this, the accuracy of these measurements must be guaranteed by proper calibration of the instruments. The importance of calibration cannot be stressed enough. Full calibration consists of comparing the measured value or level of a parameter, as shown by the instrument being calibrated, with the known value or level of the parameter, as measured by a standard instrument of known accuracy. Calibration guarantees that the accuracy of the input or output reading in a calibrated instrument will be at a certain acceptable level, when used under the environmental conditions (e.g. temperature, humidity, pressure) present during the calibration process. Outside those conditions, characteristics may change, and so the accuracy of the instrument will vary to a greater or lesser extent according to its susceptibility to the modifying inputs inherent in the new environmental conditions. Calibration of the Thermistor Temperature Transmitter In this practical you will be shown how to calibrate the output of the TTT. The TTT has a built in calibration circuit which allows the output to be adjusted to a known value. This is achieved by using the two buttons on the front of the TTT. As the labels indicate, the instrument is calibrated for 25 oC and 80oC. Once calibrated using this process, the TTT 4-20mA output signal will directly represent actual temperature, with the desired degree of accuracy. Thermistors A thermistor is a device whose electrical characteristics alter in a predictable way with a change of temperature. The resistance of a thermistor is a function of the temperature around it, or 'ambient' temperature. This behaviour allows the thermistor to be used as an accurate temperature measuring device. There are five such devices included with the Temperature Process Rig. They are positioned to measure the temperature at five points around the secondary and primary flows. In the primary flow they are positioned before (T1) and after (T2) the heat exchanger. This is obviously crucial in observing the cooling effect of the heat transfer. In the secondary flow they are also positioned before (T3) and after (T4) the heat exchanger. The fifth device is placed at the output (T5) of the radiator in order to show the temperature of the flow before and after cooling has taken place. The thermistors are connected to the Thermistor Temperature Transmitter. This device converts the resistance of the device connected to it into a 4-20mA signal representing the temperature. The device can be calibrated for 25 oC and 80oC by use of the panel mounted buttons. Taking Measurements with Thermistors

It is possible to construct a thermister based temperature device by adding a milliammeter and a voltage source. The milliammeter can be calibrated for temperature by use of boiling water (100oC) and ice (0 oC). The diagram below shows a simple arrangement.

The thermistors used in the temperature process rig are known as 'NTC' thermistors. This abbreviation represents 'negative temperature coefficient'. This refers to the behaviour of the device resistance with respect to temperature. An NTC thermistor has resistance which decreases with an increase in temperature. A PTC (Positive Temperature Coefficient) device behaves in the opposite way. There are many types of thermistor. Most devices consist of a circular, flat section of resistive material connected to leads. The type in use with the rig are known as 'beads'. They are mounted in a conductive holder and surrounded with conductive paste for good heat transfer. The device is protected from the liquid flow by a thin metal film. Thermistors are usually specified by their resistance at 25 oC. Common values are 3KOhms, 5KOhms, 10KOhms and 100KOhms. Working temperatures range from -80oC to 150oC. Resistance tolerances are usually in the region of +/- 2% across the range. Choosing Thermistors A number of parameters exclusive to thermistor use must be considered when choosing a device for a specific application. Some of these parameters are explained below. Heat capacity: The amount of heat required to raise the temperature of a thermistor by 1 oC. Current: The maximum steady current to be passed by a thermistor for an extended period of time. Above this value damage may occur to the device. Maximum operating temperature: The maximum temperature at which a thermistor will operate correctly with acceptable performance. Stability: The ability of a thermistor to retain its characteristics across the range of its specified environmental conditions. Switch temperature: The temperature at which the resistance of a PTC device begins to increase very rapidly. The aim of the practical is to provide experience of the operation of thermistors. Their response to changes in temperature, their accuracy and their general operating characteristics can be considered. Once having completed the practical the varied uses of these simple devices should be appreciated. Bleeding the Secondary Flow Domestic heating systems often consist of a series of radiators designed to extract energy from hot water being pumped through them. The situation sometimes occurs whereby one or more of the radiators is partly filled with air instead of water. This does not damage the system in any way. It simply means that the system does not function as efficiently as it should. This is for two reasons. The first is that the air is trapped in the radiator and the water is therefore not being pumped around. The second, and most important reason is that air is not as good a conductor as water. The air does not transfer heat to the metal of the radiator as effectively as the water. This can be demonstrated by the time taken for the element of an electric kettle to become too hot in the absence of water. The air around the element does not remove the energy from it fast enough to prevent overheating.

The cooling radiator supplied as part of the Temperature Process Rig can sometimes fall victim to the same problem. Air can be introduced into the system in a number of ways through pumps and joints. This air can find itself trapped in the upper part of the cooling radiator, where it will remain until bleeding can be carried out. Bleeding involves the removal of air from a fluid system by whatever method. The type of domestic system mentioned earlier is usually bled from a small 'tap' on the offending radiator. Air is pushed out under the system pressure until water begins to be expelled. The tap is closed and the radiator is free of air. A similar procedure can be carried out on the temperature rig if air is suspected to be present in the radiator. Air can usually be detected by a 'gurgle' being emitted from the device while the water is flowing around the system. If this is the case the practical should be followed to avoid the water in the primary flow becoming too hot too quickly whilst carrying out later work. It should be noted that this problem is not encountered only as a result of the temperature rig design. In an industrial situation bleeding would be carried out after periodic draining and cleaning, as well as after prolonged periods of shutdown. Air can easily be introduced into even the most well sealed of systems. Heat Exchanger Design Options A major element in the topic of process control is the heat exchanger. These devices can be found in so many configurations that a person who has been simply introduced to the science of heat exchangers can be quite perplexed in trying to determine which of the almost limitless types available, many apparently satisfying the required heat transfer duty, should be used. For example, designs which incorporate tubes are only a subset of the many heat exchangers available. However, in spite of only being a subset, there is an organisation that sets standards for tubular heat exchangers (TEMA), actually there are several organisations which deal with heat exchangers. An Overview Of Heat Exchangers Heat exchangers have been the focus of many articles, books and papers. Most of them outline the numerous design analysis techniques that have been developed. However often the most critical step in the analysis of a heat exchanger is the determination of the overall heat transfer coefficient, U. This in turn involves the application of convection and (or) phase change correlation's to find the surface coefficients, h and uses these with the areas, A 1 and A2 and wall resistance, Rw, to find the result of the following equation :

The determination of pressure drop should be evaluated, as this also is an important design aspect. Some heat exchangers that perform extremely well thermally may however require a very high pumping power. Therefore it is a compromise between these constants when satisfying the specification. It must be noted that the intention is not to go into great detail on this topic matter, but to give an insight into the heat exchange design and selection process. Short of performing a detailed study of a range of heat exchangers, to define which is preferred for a particular application, some short cut methods are in existence. One such method is the effective index. This technique was defined by Brown (1986) and is the overall heat transfer coefficient for the given heat exchanger divided by the cost per unit area of the heat exchanger. Therefore the higher the value of this index, the better the buy, as all other factors are constant. In general there is a large amount of design information accompanying the various heat exchangers, however an inexperienced design engineer can be somewhat overwhelmed by the vast range of exchangers on the market and which type would be most suited to a particular application. To outline the general characteristics of certain types of heat exchangers, some categorisations of these devices follow. However, it must be noted that only the more important aspects have been discussed and not a detailed study of each type of exchanger. Shell and Tube Heat Exchangers These are by far the most widely applied heat exchangers in the process control, industry. They are constructed of a shell which contained one of the fluids and the tubes which contain the other fluid. The heat transfer therefore takes place between the two fluids across the tube walls. The shell and tube category can be further subdivided into three major sub categories : return bend (A.K.A. U-tube), fixed tube sheet and floating head. Before describing the various configurations, following is a brief look at applications. Tube Diameter - This should be made as small as possible, which will increase the surface area per unit volume of fluid. Limitations on pressure drop and the ability to clean the outside of the tubes may place a constraint on this parameter. Tube Length - Generally this should be as long as possible to decrease costs.

Tube Pitch - Normally a triangular arrangement is used to decrease overall size. However it may be necessary to use other arrangements to decrease pressure drop etc. Shell Design - Concern must be given to the shell design, so that the shell- side fluid cannot short cut the desired path, this is accomplished by using well defined baffles. Shell Side/Tube Side Applications - Normally higher viscosity and lower flow rate fluids are applied to the shell side. This is due to the fact that turbulence is more easily initiated on the shell side due to the more complicated flow path. If a certain fluid use causes periodic cleaning of the heat transfer surfaces or has a special need (e.g. fouling, toxic, corrosive high pressure high temperature, etc.), it is normally flowed through the tubes. The highest heat transfer per unit of pressure drop is generally possible in the tubes. Counter Flow/Parallel Flow - Counter flow opposed to parallel flow offers the potential for maximum temperature change of a fluid stream. Only in special circumstances is parallel flow used, where many of these circumstances are a result of the physical layout. In generally it can be said that for shell and tube heat exchangers, the tubes represent 60 - 70% of the total purchase cost. Hence the type of material used for the tube construction can have a dramatic effect on the cost of the heat exchanger. The following table shows the relative cost of some of the more common tube materials : Material Low-carbon steel Copper Red brass Admiralty brass 98/10 copper nickel Aluminium 304 stainless steel Nickel Titanium Approximate Relative Material Cost 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.6 2.0 2.5 5.0 12.0

Operating pressures also have a distinct impact on the cost of heat exchangers. An example of pressure effects on shell cost can be seen in the following table: Design Pressure (psi) 300 600 750 1000 1200 Heat Exchanger Relative Cost 1.0 1.3 1.6 2.0 2.5

Return Bend (U-Tube) Type Shell and Tube Heat Exchanger This is one of the most common heat exchangers used in industry. The following diagram shows a simplified view of this type of heat exchanger. In practice many tubes would be used whereas only one tube is displayed in the diagram. The vertical plates can serve as baffles to change flow direction, supports for the tubes, or for both purposes.

The return bend shell and tube heat exchanger provides the following advantages : Large variations in fluid temperature can be tolerated, as the tubes can readily expand and contract, without the added feature of expansion joints, which can be found in other types of exchanger. Very high pressures can be applied to the tube side. This type of design is generally less expensive than many other shell and tube designs. The tube package can usually be removed for cleaning or repair. This type of heat exchanger is not without it's disadvantages : Typically, the exchanger is restricted to clean fluids, as although the tubes can be removed it is often the case that this task can prove time consuming and in some cases difficult. Many of the tubes may be impossible to replace if a failure occurs. U-tubes always result in an even number of passes, whilst this is a limitation it is only minor. Fixed Tubesheet Heat Exchangers The following diagram is a simplified representation of a fixed tubesheet heat exchanger. In contrast to the U-tube exchanger, here the tubes are attached to both sides of the shell arrangement.

In many respects the fixed tubesheet heat exchanger is similar to the U-tube exchanger. Although one clearly distinguishing feature is that an end chamber is used to return the tube side flow through the second set of tubes. Hence the U portion of the heat exchanger is replaced with a plenum region in the fixed tubesheet exchanger. This can lead to some differences in possible applications with respect to the U-tube heat exchanger. Among the advantages of the fixed tubesheet are the following : This type of exchanger can handle fouling fluids on the tube side. The straight through flow of the tubes allows mechanical cleaning on the inside. Fixed tube exchangers generally allow configurations with odd or multiple tube passes, which was not possible with U-tubes. A fixed tube exchanger has fewer joints than other types of straight tube exchangers. Minimal capital expense is involved in the fixed tubesheet type in comparison with other straight tube exchangers. These type of exchangers provide greater protection to the environment with respect to shell side fluid leakage. This configuration can result in the minimum shell diameter of all shell and tube heat exchangers, for a given heat transfer surface. Obviously there are some disadvantages inherent with this type of heat exchanger : One of the most important aspects with this type of exchanger is that thermal stresses can become critical if the effects of temperature profiles in the tubes and shell are not matched. As the tube side can accommodate fouling fluids due to easy mechanical cleaning the shell side is restricted to clean fluids. Floating Head Heat Exchangers

This type of heat exchanger is simply a variation of the fixed tube sheet configuration. They are designed to accommodate the movement of the tubes that might result from thermal expansion and contraction, see the following diagram.

Due to this movement the exchangers yield most of the advantages of the fixed types, without the concern for thermal stress factors. However this simple modification complicates the design and maintenance of the device resulting in higher capital and operation costs. Attention must be made to the designing of the floating head, such that it does not leak. Plate Heat Exchangers These exchangers are a relatively early development, with at least one patent dating back to the late 1870s. They are made up from specially formed metal plates with grooves pressed in them, as shown in the following diagram. The grooves provide two basic functions, to aid the heat transfer process and add rigidity to the overall assembly. Heat transfer takes place between two streams across n plates in the overall assembly, with two additional plates forming the outer containers of the device.

The plates are normally constructed from cold worked metal, often stainless steel, in the order of 1mm thick. Gaskets are used to contain the fluids within the flow channels and the plates are held in their layered format by the frame. Plate heat exchangers are available on the market with total heat transfer areas down to a fraction of a square meter and up to over 1000m 2. In contrast with the shell and tube heat exchanger, the plate heat exchanger is best suited to liquid-liquid duty with flow rate/specific heat product almost the same for the two fluids. Flows with dissimilar products can be applied but with decreased effectiveness. For high pressure duty (above 300 psi ), a shell and tube exchanger is preferred over a plate exchanger. The basic construction of the plate heat exchanger make them unsuitable for high pressures. There is more area per unit volume of heat transfer surface available in the plate type device compared to almost all other closed type exchangers. With this characteristic coupled with the ease of manufacture of the plate device, the plate type usually has a lower cost than any tube type exchanger. It can be seen from this discussion that there is almost a limitless option for heat exchangers on the market. It is therefore a very important design consideration for the engineer trying to satisfy a specification. All the various points mentioned previously have to be balanced together, with the cost (in most cases) being the leading consideration.

On/Off Heater Control This is the most primitive type of control and is often considered by some engineers to be inferior to complex modes of control. However there are still many applications where it can provide the necessary control with the minimal cost and layout. With this method of control the correcting element can assume one of two positions, On or Off. In a temperature control system (Temperature Process Rig), one position of the correcting element gives a heat input which is too small to meet the process requirements and hence the temperature falls below the desired value. In the other position the heat input is greater than that required by the process and the temperature rises above the desired value. Control action is discontinuous and permanent oscillation of the temperature is the result. In the case of the Temperature Process Rig, the On-Off Control is applied to the heating element of the reservoir. The following diagram shows the oscillation of potential and recorded temperature and illustrates the effect of the transfer lag. The potential temperature is that which would be reached if transfer lag were not present.

It is assumed that the change-over from ON to OFF takes place at the instant the actual temperature passes through the desired value, also the heating and cooling actions are equal. The actual temperature rises and falls above and below the set point due to transfer lag. On/Off Heater Control (2) As can be seen from the previous diagram, there was no overlap present. The following diagram shows the control effort with overlap present This has the same result as the first control method except that the angle of lag is nearly 180 o.

The Basic Process Rig or Optional Auxiliary Valve provides the secondary flow to the Temperature Rig and should be set up as follows :

o o o

Connect the 240 V switched AC output on the back of the PI to the Basic Process Rig. Connect the servo valve on the Basic Process Rig (or Optional Auxiliary Valve) to the servo valve input on the PI. On the PI link the servo valve current inputs to the current source outputs.

Turn the current source fully clockwise opening the valve fully. This should also be carried out on the Temperature Process Rig, to ensure that both servo valves are fully open.

On completion of the Temperature Process Rig patching diagram the temperature can be controlled manually using ON OFF control techniques. The Heat Exchanger In its most basic form a heat exchanger, as the name suggests, is a process component for either heating or cooling process fluids, by means of an isolated heat transfer fluid. The heat exchanger on the Temperature Process Rig is a three-pass shell and tube exchanger. Its function is to transfer heat between the primary flow and the secondary flow, of which is supplied by either the Basic Process Rig or Optional Auxiliary Valve. As mentioned above, the heat exchanger used on the Temperature Rig is a three-pass unit. This simply means that the cooling fluid follows a path through the exchanger in the shape of an `S', allowing the fluid to effectively take three passes through the exchanger. This configuration provides better efficiency than, say a two pass exchanger.

The heat exchanger is made up from a number of cupro-nickel tubes through which the secondary flow fluid makes its three-pass flow, thus allowing heat transfer between the primary flow passing over the tubes. The body of the heat exchanger consists of a cast aluminium shell with bronze end plates. The following diagram shows an exploded view of the device.

It can be seen that the efficiency of the heat exchanger is flow dependent. For example a `fast' primary flow would transfer more heat than a `slow' primary flow. Therefore this shows that the heat in the primary circuit can be controlled simply by controlling the flow of the secondary circuit. In the same manner the secondary flow heat absorption could be controlled by the primary flow rate. Primary Circuit Pump The pump used for the primary circuit is a basic domestic central heating pump. The pump itself is a Grundfos Selectric, as can be seen below :

The motor is a three speed squirrel cage induction wet rotor type, running in water lubricated bearings and should never be run dry. It can produce a maximum system pressure of 10 bars and operate over a water temperature range of +15 oC to 110 oC. Preparing for the Practical The Basic Process Rig (or Optional Auxiliary Valve) provides the secondary flow to the Temperature Rig and should be set up as follows :

o o o o

Connect the 240 V switched AC output on the back of the PI to the Basic Process Rig. Connect the servo valve on the Basic Process Rig (or Optional Auxiliary Valve) to the servo valve input on the PI. On the PI, link the servo valve current inputs to the current source outputs. Turn the current source fully clockwise opening the valve fully. This should also be carried out on the Temperature Process Rig, to ensure that both servo valves are fully open.

This practical demonstrates the effect of the heat exchanger by allowing the cool secondary flow to absorb the heat of the primary flow, thus causing a drop in temperature across the heat exchanger in the primary flow. It must be noted that the very nature of this practical causes the secondary temperature to heat up very quickly. Therefore if you are using the Basic Process rig, the temperature in the sump could rise above 30 oC. If this is the case the sump should be partly drained and refilled with cold water to bring the sump temperature back into the reasonable operating range 20-30 oC. Operation Of The Cooler The main reason for the cooler on the Temperature Process Rig (TPR) is to drop the temperature of the heated return fluid (secondary flow) before it re-enters the Basic Process Rig (BPR). The overall effect of this process is to prevent the secondary flow circuit (water in the tank of the BPR) from heating up too quickly. This is achieved using a cooler, which consists of a radiator and a fan unit, commonly known as Airblow Water Coolers. The radiator itself comprises an aluminium structure of heat dissipating fins, whereby the fluid to be cooled passes behind. In order to increase the cooling efficiency, a fan is attached to the rear of the radiator to draw air through the radiator dissipating the heat from the fins. It must be noted that coolers of this type can only reduce the temperature to a minimum degree equal to the ambient air temperature. However with respect to the TPR due to the size of the cooler this would actually take a considerable amount of time depending upon the temperature of the BPR fluid. It is therefore shown that the cooler is only intended to provide a degree of cooling to the BPR. However in industrial applications, a cooler may be the primary source (only source) for cooling a process, in which case its specification would be critical to the dissipation required. Coolers of this type tend to be relatively large with respect to their function. In this particular case the cooler is switched on to demonstrate its efficiency in cooling the secondary flow before returning to the sump tank of the BPR. Therefore, carefully note the temperature drop as it will be relatively small with respect to the heat exchanger. Preparing for the Practical The Basic Process Rig (or Optional Auxiliary Valve) provides the secondary flow to the Temperature Rig and should be set up as follows :

o o o

Connect the 240 V switched AC output on the back of the PI to the basic process rig. Connect the servo valve on the Basic Process Rig (or Optional Auxiliary Valve) to the servo valve input on the PI. On the PI, link the servo valve current inputs to the current source outputs.

Turn the current source fully clockwise opening the valve fully. This should also be carried out on the Temperature Process Rig, to ensure the servo valve is fully open.

Modelling of Dynamic Systems In everyday life we all construct models of complicated systems in order to predict the effect our actions will have upon them. For instance, when driving a car it is possible to predict the degree of steering wheel movement required to negotiate a particular corner. Little thought is required as to the operation of the steering rack-and pinion mechanism or to the coefficient of friction between the tyres and the road. All we need to know is that a steering input produces the desired degree of directional change in the car. This directional change is the output of a dynamic control system. A dynamic system takes a certain period of time to react to changes in the system input; the output of a dynamic system evolves with time. The diagram below illustrates the concept of a system, with its stimuli and responses.

Engineers and scientists strive to construct mathematical models of complicated machinery and dynamic processes to allow performance predictions to be made. The successful construction of such models can be advantageous for two reasons. System models enable the engineer to construct ideas regarding performance without the need to expend large amounts of capital building a prototype which may or may not function. Of course, a prototype will eventually be constructed, but if a model has been proved to function the engineer can be confident that the same will be true of the prototype. One perfect example is the use of super-computer modelling to predict the performance of nuclear weapons. New designs of device can be mathematically modelled using data and experience gathered from numerous past detonations. In this way a new weapon can be 'detonated' inside the processor of a computer rather than having to resort to underground tests of actual devices. This method not only saves vast amounts of money but also protects the environment from unnecessary contamination and damage. The second great use of system modelling is in the teaching and training of personnel for complex and potentially dangerous tasks. It is possible to learn a task without the need to be 'on-site'. For example, a flight simulator avoids the need to have inexperienced pilots taking the controls of real aircraft. This not only reduces the risk of accidents but also alleviates the need to have an aircraft out of service for extended lengths of (expensive) time. Multi-processor computers used in a flight simulator are programmed with every aspect of the performance of the aircraft in question. One processor may be occupied in simulating the engine performance in heavy rain, whilst another processor may be occupied in simulating acceleration along the runway by tipping the whole cockpit back. Every aspect must be catered for to provide a thoroughly realistic environment. Modelling and Procon It is possible to develop complex simulations and models with more modest equipment. Mathematical software such as MATLAB allow complex technical computations to be carried-out in within a user-friendly PC-based programming environment. The simulation of the temperature rig presented in the following practical is by no means a comprehensive representation of the behaviour of the hardware. If this were the case modelling of the heat transfer characteristics of the exchanger would be required across the full range of expected temperatures. A model would also be required of the effect on flow rate of the impeller in the pulse flow transducer. Modelling of the thermal characteristics of the radiator would be required. All aspects of rig behaviour would need to be considered, even down to the friction experienced by the fluid while flowing along the pipe surfaces. In any case, such a simulation would render the hardware redundant. The simulation implemented as part of this practical is designed to illustrate the basic behaviour of the temperatures throughout the temperature rig. The heating and cooling effects in the primary and secondary flows can be observed, as can the effects of the heat exchanger and the radiator. Once the simulation has been 'played with', the user should have formulated ideas and opinions about the expected behaviour of the real rig. Simulation of Temperature Rig

Simulation of processes and situations is an extremely effective method of training and education. Flight simulators allow inexperienced pilots to take control of an airliner without the risk of accidents. Process simulators allow would-be process operators to control complicated and potentially dangerous equipment with no risk of injury. Not only do simulations reduce the danger and expense involved in training and familiarisation, they also allow experimentation and studentled discovery. The simulation that follows in this practical has been designed for this reason. The simulation is designed to reflect the behaviour of the temperature process rig whilst connected to the basic process rig. Temperatures around both the primary and secondary flows can be monitored to allow a picture of the behaviours of such components as the heat exchanger and radiator to be built-up. It should be noted before beginning the practical that the simulation has been built- up around a discrete digital model of the system. The real rig is very much an analogue system, with all the infinite variations that this entails. The behaviour of the simulation does not exactly model the rig in every detail; this kind of simulation is beyond even some of the most powerful computers. However, the relationships between the flow rates and temperature fluctuations are a true reflection of the real world. During the practical you are led through some situations which display the fundamental facts which must be understood. Beyond that the simulation can be freely experimented upon. Primary Flow Control This practical is intended only to give you a 'feel' of the control effort required to maintain temperature at a given set point. You will basically be controlling the flow of the primary circuit using the primary circuit manual valve. This in turn controls the flow rate through the heat exchanger. Therefore if the primary flow increases, more heating fluid flows through the heat exchanger, hence transferring more energy across into the secondary flow. The overall effect is heating the secondary flow.

Alternatively if the inverse of the above was carried out, that is, the primary flow rate reduced, the overall effect would be less heat energy transferred to the secondary. This is true to such a point where the primary flow is so low that the heat transferred is less than the cooling radiator is taking out, hence the temperature of the secondary flow decreases. Using this theory, the temperature can be controlled. It must be noted that the secondary flow temperature at T5 is the temperature directly after passing through the cooling radiator. Therefore if you are using the BPR for the secondary flow it will be some time before a noticeable change will be present at T3 (secondary flow input to TPR). This is due to the lag created by the BPR sump tank. Preparing for the Practical The Basic Process Rig (or Optional Auxiliary Valve) provides the secondary flow to the Temperature Rig and should be set up as follows :

o o o o

Connect the 240 V switched AC output on the back of the PI to the Basic Process Rig. Connect the servo valve on the Basic Process Rig (or Optional Auxiliary Valve) to the servo valve input on the Basic Process Rig PI. On the PI, link the servo valve current inputs to the current source outputs. Turn the current source fully clockwise opening the valve fully. This should also be carried out on the Temperature Process Rig, to ensure the servo valve is fully open.

Once the system has 'settled down', that is the system is being maintained about the set point it can be seen that the control effort becomes much less. This is because the variation in temperature between the two flows is small, hence a small control effort is all that is needed.

Secondary Flow Control This practical is similar to the previous one except the control effort is applied to the secondary flow circuit. It must be noted that if you are using the Basic Process Rig to supply the secondary flow, then there is a possibility that the temperature in the sump may exceed the upper operating parameter of 30 oC.

This is due to the fact that the secondary flow is being used to regulate the temperature of the primary, hence the secondary flow is being used to absorb the heat that is being constantly applied by the heater to the primary. If the secondary flow water temperature in the sump does exceed 30 oC, then simply drain off and add fresh cold water (see the Bleeding Secondary Flow Practical). If this practical is carried out for any length of time the situation mentioned above will be inevitable. However, if this were an actual industrial process there would have to be an element within the process which removed the heat which was being applied. In our case this is the cooling radiator, but due to practical size limitations it is not large enough for the job. If it was replaced with a suitably sized chiller, for example, the process would be satisfactory. If you do not replace the Basic Process Rig sump water when it exceeds 30 oC, the process will reach such a point whereby the temperature of the secondary will be nearing the temperature of the primary. It is then not possible to remove heat from the primary and the whole process would become unstable with the temperature of the primary reaching saturation at about 70oC. Preparing for the Practical The Basic Process Rig (or Optional Auxiliary Valve) provides the secondary flow to the Temperature Rig and should be set up as follows :

o o o o

Connect the 240 V switched AC output on the back of the PI to the basic process rig. Connect the servo valve on the Basic Process Rig (or Optional Auxiliary Valve) to the servo valve input on the PI. On the PI, link the servo valve current inputs to the current source outputs. Turn the current source fully clockwise opening the valve fully. This should also be carried out on the Temperature Process Rig, to ensure the servo valve is fully open.

You will basically be carrying out the same function as the controller in the future assignments. Therefore strictly speaking this is not open loop control as the human element is acting as a link, closing the loop. Once the system has `settled down', it can be seen that the control effort becomes much less. This is because the variation in temperature of the TPR, caused by the secondary flow is much less effective due to the fact it has `warmed up'; the efficiency of the heat exchange process is therefore reduced. This is displayed by the fact that the valve is constantly open at some particular value, instead of opening and closing, in an effort to maintain the set point. Process Control and Mimic Diagrams Throughout most aspects of everyday life human beings strive to represent complex situations with simplified representations and symbols. These are all designed to make the exchange of information from one point to another as smooth as possible. It is impossible to ignore the impact of symbolism and representations on the world today. It is hard to imagine road signs consisting entirely of text. A red circle with a black '30' printed in its centre would need to be replaced with the text 'The speed limit on this road beyond this

point until another sign is passed is thirty miles per hour unless your particular vehicle is restricted to a lesser speed. You should drive your vehicle at this speed so long as the road conditions allow'. The long winded definition of the law is replaced by a simple symbol understood by all road users. This idea can easily be carried over into the field of industrial process control. Process Control and Mimic Diagrams (2) The control of a large industrial process requires the assimilation of many important variables relating to the operation of the equipment. These variables could be temperatures, pressures, flow rates, throughput rates or weights. Any number are possible. It is likely that each part of the process would have attached to it a device to allow monitoring. If the process included a vat of liquid to be kept at a constant temperature a thermometer would be present on the vat to allow the temperature of the liquid to be monitored by an operator. It can be seen that symbolism is already being used to create a piece of instrumentation. The level of energy contained within the molecules of the liquid is being converted, via a suitable conversion device, into an understandable quantity. This quantity is temperature, and we choose to represent it in terms of Fahrenheit or Celsius units. Process Control and Mimic Diagrams (3) It is no surprise that the proliferation of computers into everyday life has had an effect on the way in which the behaviour of process variables, including temperature, are monitored and controlled. The SCADA (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition) standard is an example of the degree to which computers have eased the burden on process operators. Almost all processes within industry utilise a system of Virtual Instrumentation and mimic diagrams in order to allow more effective monitoring and control. The idea behind virtual instrumentation is that the process operator can sit in front of a computer monitor and see a real-time visual representation of the process as it progresses. Many of the packages allow alteration of process set-points and some even incorporate live CCTV pictures direct from points around the process. The packages require that every monitoring instrument around the system output their measurements in a standard control form. The data is collected in this standard form via a data acquisition i/o card plugged into the computer. The information is processed by the software and displayed in a user- defined form on the monitor. This type of output is called a software based MMI (Man Machine Interface) The philosophy behind this form of process management is that an operator sitting in the quiet of a control room observing his processes from a distance can make better judgments than if he were on the shop-floor surrounded by noise and bustle. He will also, of course, be able to react to emergencies in a more controlled manner. Process Control and Mimic Diagrams (4) Manufacturers such as National Instruments, ISS and Orsi produce software which can be designed and tailored by the end-user to fit exact requirements. In this way it is possible for the software to expand and develop as new processes and components are added. The Industrial Process Control Mimic Diagram practical included as part of this assignment gives a feel for exactly what the operator of a large factory might see from his control room. The diagram shows all the components of importance to the control and monitoring of the process. All the control devices can be operated directly by use of the mouse with feedback instantly being obtained as readings from related transducers. Although the workstation computer is likely to be situated close to the process rigs in this case, the 4-20 mA control signals allow the user to be positioned far from the hardware. In some cases this may be a different building or even a different site. The advantages of virtual instrumentation and mimic diagrams are seemingly endless, and they are set to play an ever increasing role in complex processes where the flow of good quality, accurate and up-to-date information is essential. Closed Loop Temperature Control This practical is intended only to give you a glimpse of the sort of control that can be achieved with the Temperature Process Rig (TPR) and the controller. It is a fully functioning Proportional + Integral Control system, monitoring actual temperature, comparing this to a desired level (the set point), and altering the position of the servo valve controlling the secondary flow with the aim of achieving the set point.

The Set Point can be changed by the user, however it must be noted that as the temperature of the secondary flow increases, the less efficient the exchanger becomes, until such a point that the secondary flow temperature is greater than the set point, hence the system becomes unstable. It is not necessary for you to understand exactly what Proportional + Integral Control is, and how it is being implemented, only to appreciate some of the applications available with this product. Preparing for the Practical The Basic Process Rig (or Auxiliary Control Valve) provides the secondary flow to the Temperature Rig and should be set up as follows :

o o o o

Connect the 240 V switched AC output on the back of the PI to the basic process rig. Connect the servo valve on the Basic Process Rig (or Auxiliary Control Valve) to the servo valve input on the Temperature Process Rig PI. On the PI, link the servo valve current inputs to the current source outputs. Turn the current source fully clockwise opening the valve fully. This should also be carried out on the Temperature Process Rig, to ensure the servo valve is fully open.

The TPR the connections shown in the following diagram should also be carried out:

Industrial Process Control This practical is intended only to give you a glimpse of the sort of control environment that is used in industry for modern plants. The control used in this practical is proportional + integral which is maintained by the controller. The manual intervention is carried out by the operator, who may change the set point, switch the pump/fan on/off and monitor a Process Variable (PV) such as temperature & output. Information about the process is presented in the form of a mimic diagram, which follows the style of a typical industrial plant mimic. It diagrammatically displays all the information in a visually pleasing format to the operator, this is also known as virtual instrumentation. Thus allowing him/her to provide the necessary overall observation/control of the plant by simply using the mouse to select various options. Preparing for the Practical The Basic Process Rig (or Optional Auxiliary Valve) provides the secondary flow to the Temperature Rig and should be set up as follows:

o o o o

Connect the 240 V switched AC output on the back of the PI to the basic process rig. Connect the servo valve on the Basic Process Rig (or Optional Auxiliary Valve) to the servo valve input on the PI. On the PI, link the servo valve current inputs to the current source outputs. Turn the current source fully clockwise opening the valve fully. This should also be carried out on the Temperature Process Rig, to ensure the servo valve is fully open.

On the TPR the connections found in the following diagram should be carried out.

The controller will try and maintain proportional control of the Temperature Process Rig whilst the user can control the various parameters and observe the result. Automatic On/Off Control The aim of this practical is to automatically control the temperature of the fluid at the radiator exit (T5) by turning the primary flow heater on and off. The first practical of the Temperature Rig Familiarisation Assignment dealt with the manual on/off control of the heater to sustain a temperature at the primary flow output from the heat exchanger. The practical here introduces a more complicated method of control, and also clearly displays the lags associated with temperature based systems. The practical makes use of the Comparator and Schmitt Trigger contained in the on-off control section of the Process Interface. The heater will be turned on as the temperature falls below the set-point, and then off as the temperature rises above the set-point. Also contained in the on-off section are the variable hysteresis control and the logic inputs to the switched supplies. One of these switched supplies will be connected to the heater. The comparator of the PI accepts two voltage inputs. In this case the inputs are derived from the control set-point and the temperature output. These current signals are converted into voltage form for input to the comparator. The comparator has two inputs; one inverting (+) and one non-inverting (-). The output of the comparator is fed into the Schmitt trigger, whose output is either 0v or 5v depending on the comparator inputs. The output voltage range of the current to voltage convertors is 0.4 to 2 Volts. This results from the 4 to 20mA currents flowing through the 100 Ohm resistors provided on the PI. There are no standard control voltages in use in the process industry. The voltage into which control currents are converted depends entirely on the intended purpose of the conversion. For instance, different voltages are required for different logic families. The Schmitt trigger output will be used as input to the logic control of the switched 240V supply. It is this switching which will turn the heater on and off. Hysteresis The Hysteresis level determines the difference between the high-to-low and low-to-high switching levels. The greater the level of hysteresis the greater the difference between the two levels. Hysteresis is not only able to control oscillation of processes but also to control the effects of outside interference. The hysteresis loop curve below displays the action of hysteresis. When the deviation becomes greater than Vt, the output switches to its low state. This is the control effort that will drive the measured value in the opposite direction.

This diagram shows the two change state paths dependent on the direction of the deviation from the set point. It also shows the two switching levels +Vt and -Vt.Imagine that the deviation is initially large and negative. The output will be high (5V) . As the variable and set point levels become closer together the deviation will become less negative. Eventually the deviation will become positive. When the deviation becomes greater than +Vt, the output will switch to its low (0V) state. This is the control effort that will drive the measured value in the opposite direction. On/off control determines that the measured value cannot remain at the reference level. It must lie in the region between two reference levels determined by the hysteresis value. The greater the hysteresis, the greater the distance between these levels. On/off control is not used in situations where precise control is required. A variable must need only to lie between certain levels for on/off control to be acceptable. The perfect example of this is the control of the temperature in a room via a thermostat. People cannot detect variations of a few degrees Celsius so slight variations in temperature a perfectly acceptable. During the practical it is possible to vary the level of hysteresis. This can be used to discover more about the way in which hysteresis levels affect the operation of on/off control systems. PID Control For a comprehensive theory and background on Proportional, Integral and Derivative control, see the PI + PID assignments for the Basic Process Rig. The following theory describes proportional and derivative control. Derivative control and the use of the Temperature Process rig can be explored using practical 3, PID Control of Temperature with the integral action term turned off. Proportional Plus Derivative Control In order to reduce the overshooting caused by sudden load changes, the effect of lags in a process may be counteracted by the addition of a derivative term to a proportional only controller. The position of the regulating unit will now be proportional to the deviation and to the rate of change of the deviation. Therefore, in a temperature control system the effect of derivative action is to cause the control valve to be positioned by additional amounts as the rate at which the temperature is rising or falling, increases or decreases. The relationship between proportional and derivative control action is illustrated graphically in the following diagram.

The deviation in the diagram is assumed to change at a constant rate and owing to this, the valve is immediately positioned by the amount x. As the deviation increases the valve continues to be moved by proportional action. The time taken for proportional action to increase by an amount equal to the derivative action, when the deviation is changing at a constant rate, is known as the derivative action time. Proportional Control of Temperature In ON/OFF control, small deviations from the desired value cause just as much movement of the correcting element as large deviations. However it is frequently convenient to arrange that the position of the correcting element is directly related to the deviation, this is known as proportional control. The following diagram shows that within the proportional band, there is a unique correcting element position for every value of the controlled condition It is usually arranged that the correcting element position required to give the desired value of the controlled condition occurs at the centre of the proportional band, i.e. the valve is half open when the temperature is correct under normal condition of load. The proportional band is that range of values of the controlled condition which operates the correcting unit (valve) over its full range. A very narrow proportional band is obviously tending toward ON/OFF control, since a small change in the controlled condition would result in a large change in controller output.

On the other hand, a very wide proportional band may result in sluggish control, and the sustained deviation (offset) of proportional control will be present. Proportional Control (2) Suppose water passing through the secondary circuit of a heat exchanger is being heated by the hot water primary circuit. If the temperature of the secondary circuit is being controlled by regulating the primary flow circuit, via a proportional controller, the primary circuit valve would be half open when the temperature is correct and the flow of water through the secondary was normal, this is point A on the following diagram.

Should the temperature rise or fall, then the primary valve will open or close, in an attempt to restore the temperature to the desired value. If however, the flow of water in the secondary be suddenly increased, then the primary flow must also be increased to maintain the temperature desired value. The primary valve will open, but, as the temperature begins to rise towards the desired value, the valve will gradually close. The only way of ensuring a greater primary flow is for the control point to settle at some new temperature below the desired value, see point B. If a narrow proportional band is used, the offset due to any likely load changes may be small enough to be permissible without any serious risk to the process, the opposite of this being true for a wide proportional band. In this practical the controller has proportional control over the TPR servo valve, with the process variable being T5. Therefore the process being maintained is the control of the primary flow to control the temperature of the secondary flow at T5. Once the process settles to a new set point (obviously with an offset), the measured variable (temperature at T5) can be seen to oscillate at a very low frequency. This is due to the hysteresis of the safety thermostat present in the TPR heater tank. For example the thermostat cuts out at 70 oC, but does not cut back in until the temperature has fallen to 65 oC. Hence this effect propagates (taking into account the system lags) through the system to T5. The user has full control of the set point and proportional band to investigate the effect of varying the proportional band on the system. The result being displayed on the chart recorder. Preparing for the Practical The Basic Process Rig (or Optional Auxiliary Valve) provides the secondary flow to the Temperature Rig and should be set up as follows :

o o o o

Connect the 240 V switched AC output on the back of the PI to the Basic Process Rig. Connect the servo valve on the Basic Process Rig (or Optional Auxiliary Valve) to the servo valve input on the PI. On the PI, link the servo valve current inputs to the current source outputs. Turn the current source fully clockwise opening the valve fully. This should also be carried out on the Temperature Process Rig, to ensure the servo valve is fully open.

On the TPR the connections found in the following diagram should be carried out.

P + I Control of Temperature

Integral control produces a rate of movement of the correcting element proportional to the deviation. Therefore if integral action is added to proportional action, assuming linear operation, the position of the correcting element will be proportional to the magnitude and duration of the deviation. As long as there is offset, the correcting element (valve) will continue to open or close at a rate proportional to the deviation until the desired value is attained. Although offset is eliminated, the combination of proportional with integral action brings two disadvantages: 1. 2. The process takes longer to stabilise than with proportional control only. For negative deviation, integral action shifts the whole proportional band above the desired value until the controller condition reaches it. This means that the correcting element does not start to close until it is too late to prevent over shoot.

The following diagram shows the output from a controller set to PI following a sudden deviation.

The initial step is due to proportional action. Assuming that the deviation can be held constant, integral action will cause the output to increase at a constant rate until, at time t2, the output is double that at time t1. The time interval t2-t1 is known as the integral action time. In other words, the integral action time is the time in minutes (or seconds) taken for the integral action of the controller to move the regulating unit by the same amount as it is moved by the proportional action of the controller when the deviation is constant. In this practical the controller has proportional and integral control over the TPR servo valve, with the process variable being T5. Therefore the process being maintained is the control of the primary flow to control the temperature of the secondary flow at T5. The user has full control of the set point, proportional band and integral time to investigate the effect of varying the P+I values on the system. The result being displayed on the chart recorder. Preparing for the Practical The Basic Process Rig (or Auxiliary Control Valve) provides the secondary flow to the Temperature Rig and should be set up as follows :

o o o o

Connect the 240 V switched AC output on the back of the PI to the basic process rig. Connect the servo valve on the Basic Process Rig (or Auxiliary Control Valve) to the servo valve input on the PI. On the PI, link the servo valve current inputs to the current source outputs. Turn the current source fully clockwise opening the valve fully. This should also be carried out on the Temperature Process Rig, to ensure the servo valve is fully open. On the TPR the connections found in the following diagram should be carried out.

PID Control of Temperature For satisfactory control of processes having large distance-velocity and transfer lags, and where load changes may be sudden and/or sustained, the controller must incorporate P, I and D action. Such a controller is known as a three term controller . The derivative component of the control effort enables a controller to recognise a rapidly changing error and take extra action to account for it. By applying a control effort that is not simply directly proportional to the error, the response of the plant has been improved. This ability to recognise a rapid change in the rate of change of the error in a system is very important in many situations. A massive increase in the core temperature of a nuclear reactor, caused by a failure elsewhere in a plant for example, could result in meltdown. By applying a very large control effort, the time taken to reverse the direction of the system (towards failure) can be reduced. It is producing an overcompensation for the rapidly changing error to halt its progress. But it is not only overcompensation that a derivative action offers to a system. As the measured value of a system approaches its set point, the rate of change of error will decrease as the proportional action reduces. This reducing error rate will produce a negative control contribution from the derivative term, reducing the control effort further. This applies a breaking effect to the control effort, and reduces the chance of overshoot. PID Control of Temperature (2) The derivative action will pull a system away from failure by producing an overly large control effort, and slow down its approach to the set point with the aim of preventing overshoot. However for a process with slow load changes, such as the temperature rig, the addition of Derivative Action to Proportional + Integral, does not produce any real advantage. This practical will demonstrate to you full three term, PID control as applied to the control of temperature in the primary flow circuit. You can vary Proportional Band (changing the gain which changes the contribution of the proportional action term), Integral Action Time (or Reset Time, determining the contribution of the reset action term), and Derivative Action Term (determining the contribution of the derivative action term ). Conclusions should be drawn from this practical as to the effect of the derivative action. Preparing for the Practical The Basic Process Rig (or Optional Auxiliary Valve) provides the secondary flow to the Temperature Rig and should be set up as follows :

o o o o

Connect the 240 V switched AC output on the back of the PI to the basic process rig. Connect the servo valve on the Basic Process Rig (or Auxiliary Control Valve) to the servo valve input on the PI. On the PI, link the servo valve current inputs to the current source outputs. Turn the current source fully clockwise opening the valve fully. This should also be carried out on the Temperature Process Rig, to ensure the servo valve is fully open.

On the TPR the connections found in the following diagram should be carried out.

Complex Control Systems For various reasons adequate control of a process is not always possible using a single control loop. Complex or multiloop systems are then employed. In a cascade control system two controllers are used, a primary controller and a secondary controller. There are two reasons for using cascade control, firstly to reduce the difficulties of control by reducing effective time lags and secondly to reduce the effect of supply changes, load changes and other disturbances near to their source. The following diagram shows a capacity and resistance process arrangement. The controlled variable in this system is to be the liquid level in tank No. 4. The regulating unit is control valve A, but direct control of flow through this valve using the level in C4 is unsatisfactory due to the four capacities and three restrictions.

A more satisfactory way of controlling this process is to use cascade control with primary and secondary controllers positioned as shown in the following diagram. The secondary controller is employed to measure and control the level in capacity Cl, the set point of this being determined by the primary controller connected to tank 4. The secondary controller and its control valve, together with that part of the process under its control, may be considered as the regulating unit for the primary controller. Two important advantages are obtained. 1) The secondary controller, tank Cl and control valve A form a single capacity control loop in which supply changes are rapidly detected and counteracted, therefore level in tank C4 is little affected by changes on the upstream side of the control valve. 2) The primary controller has now only three capacities in its loop; time delay is reduced and control is simplified.

A more practical application of cascade control is shown in the following diagram. The controlled variable is the temperature at some suitable point in the fractionating tower. This temperature depends on the flow of steam and also on the composition and rate of flow of feed. The two advantages of cascade control mentioned previously are both achieved, i.e. time delay due to column capacitance is reduced and the effect of disturbances is minimised.

The following block diagram generally covers all types of cascade control systems.

The primary controller needs all the control actions necessary to achieve close regulation of the controlled variable. If a wide proportional band is necessary for satisfactory control then integral action will be required to eliminate the offset. Also, if long time lags remain in that part of the process not under the control of the secondary controller, derivative action will also be needed. The secondary controller may be of the simple proportional type if the part of the process under its control is simple. However, if the secondary control loop contains a difficult part of the process, a wide proportional band may be required and integral action will then be needed to eliminate offset. Ratio Control A common example of the use of two controllers, one of which varies the desired value setting of the other, is met in ratio control. For example, the flow of two fluids A and B may have to be proportioned so that they are mixed in the correct ratio (see the following diagram) even when the uncontrolled flow of fluid A varies over a wide range. In this case the primary controller merely acts as a transmitter producing an output directly proportional to the flow of fluid A. The desired value setting of the secondary flow controller is adjusted so that the flow rate of fluid B is kept in the correct proportion.

Often a second measured variable is used (dual loop) to provide safety for the plant or its product, whereby the secondary controlling system can override the primary to keep the process in the safety region of the set point. The next diagram shows an example of override control, whereby a high pressure fluid source supplies a number of processes, some at high pressure and others at constant lower pressure The processes supplied at high pressure are such that pressures below a certain critical value will result in a spoilt product. Should the demands of the low pressure users become excessive, the source may be unable to maintain the required pressure on the high pressure side.

Both controllers are able to affect the control valve opening. The supply pressure to the secondary controller is the output pressure of primary controller and, if the high pressure falls below the set point of the latter, the output pressure of the secondary controller will fall because its input fluid pressure falls. The valve closes to maintain pressure on the upstream side and the pressure on the downstream side may fall well below the set point. Conditions return to normal when the low pressure demands are reduced or the source provides a greater output. Flow Ratio Control Flow ratio control is used when two flows have to be proportioned so that they flow at a predefined ratio, even when the uncontrolled flow varies over a wide range. This can be achieved effectively by using two controllers, a primary and a secondary. The primary controller lies in the uncontrolled flow and propagates the (changing) set point to the secondary controller, which endeavours to control the secondary flow to keep it in ratio with the uncontrolled flow. This practical is based upon the above scenario. The aim is to maintain a pre-defined ratio between the primary and secondary flows through the heat exchanger, hence keeping the heat transfer constant. See the following diagram. Fluid A is the secondary flow (BPR) and fluid B is the primary flow (TPR). The set point of fluid A can be altered by the operator, whilst the Secondary Controller automatically maintains the flow ratio of fluid B with respect to fluid A.

The primary controller (BPR) controls the flow to the given set point, whilst retransmitting the measured variable using the signal retransmit function to the secondary controller. In order to keep the ratio, the secondary controller reads in this measured variable on the remote set point input, and hence maintains the ratio. The user has full control of the set point and integral for the secondary flow (BPR), the proportional band has been set to 120. However the proportional band can also simply be altered using the on-screen control if necessary. On the primary flow the proportional band has also been set to 120, whilst the integral time can be changed using the virtual controls. The chart recorder has been set up to display both measured variables, to allow investigation of the ratio control. The control outputs are also shown on-screen (labelled P.Output). These boxes directly show the effort being produced by the two controllers. Preparing for the Practical The Basic Process Rig provides the secondary flow to the Temperature Rig and should be set up as follows :

o o o o

Connect the 240 V switched AC output on the back of the PI to the basic process rig. Connect the servo valve on the Basic Process Rig to the servo valve input on the PI. On the PI, link the servo valve current inputs to the current source outputs. Turn the current source fully clockwise opening the valve fully. This should also be carried out on the Temperature Process Rig, to ensure the servo valve is fully open.

On the TPR the connections found in the following diagram should be carried out.

Use the extended dual 'banana-plug' lead to connect the signal retransmit of the BPR to the Remote Set Point Input of the TPR. The user participation in this practical has intentionally been limited in order to focus the attention on the basics of flow ratio control. This control method is a very important process in industry. Dual Loop Temperature & Flow In some process situations it is impossible to achieve automatic control with only one control loop (one controller). Therefore two loops, or dual loop control has to be employed. This is where two controllers are used, known as primary control and secondary control.

This practical is based upon the process scenario of control over temperature and flow. The control parameters are secondary flow and temperature of secondary. Many industrial processes are based around this scenario. The flow control of the secondary flow (BPR) is the same as the previous practical, where the flow set point and the integral time can be altered using the on screen virtual controls. The Proportional Band is initially set to 120 but can also be altered using the on-screen controls. The temperature of the secondary is monitored at T5 and is controlled by the heating fluid of the primary flow. Each process (flow & temp) has its own controller, primary & secondary respectively, therefore two separate loops exist. The primary flow is controlled by the secondary controller and using the virtual controls the following parameters can be changed: set point, proportional band and integral time. Preparing for the Practical The Basic Process Rig provides the secondary flow to the Temperature Rig and should be set up as follows :

o o o o

Connect the 240 V switched AC output on the back of the PI to the basic process rig. Connect the servo valve on the Basic Process Rig to the servo valve input on the PI. On the PI, link the servo valve current inputs to the current source outputs. Turn the current source fully clockwise opening the valve fully. This should also be carried out on the Temperature Process Rig, to ensure the servo valve is fully open.

Dual Loop Temperature & Level This practical is basically the same as the previous one except, level is being controlled instead of flow. However the intention is to give the student the feel of a real industrial application. In complex industrial plants the process scenario may be similar to the one in this practical, but more likely to be much more complex. Hence it would be very impractical for the plant operators to have to manually read all the various parameters from the controllers themselves. Therefore the plant control is usually based around a central control station where all the plant parameters are displayed. This practical displays a multitude of virtual displays and controls, that are similar to industrial applications. See following diagram.

Preparing for the Practical The Basic Process Rig provides the secondary flow to the Temperature Rig and should be set up as follows :

o o o o

Connect the 240 V switched AC output on the back of the PI to the basic process rig. Connect the servo valve on the Basic Process Rig to the servo valve input on the PI. On the PI, link the servo valve current inputs to the current source outputs. Turn the current source fully clockwise opening the valve fully. This should also be carried out on the Temperature Process Rig, to ensure the servo valve is fully open.