Question 1 The flow of air into the catalytic cracking unit of a GTL diesel plant to be built in Lupane on the

Lupane Coal Bed Methane gas project is controlled by two control valves. One is a large slow moving valve that is located on the suction of the air blower. The other is a small, fast acting valve that vents off into the atmosphere. The fail safe condition is to not feed the air into the regenerator. Therefore the suction valve is air-to-open and the vent valve is air-to-close. a. What action should the controller have, direct / reverse? Justify your answer.
Air to CAT cracker regenerator
FT

Atmospheric suction

P vent
Gs FC

CO

The device with the following transfer function is to be installed in the control line to the vent valve.

The purpose of this device is to cause the valve to respond quickly to changes in CO gas but to minimise the amount of air vented (since this wastes energy) under steady state conditions. b. What will be the dynamic response of the perturbation in PV for the step change of 10% of the full scale in CO? c. What is the new steady state value of PV? Answer a. In this system if the air flow in the regenerator is above the set point the vent valve opens and discharges into the atmosphere. Thus an increase in the controller output results in a
1

corresponding decrease in the input and vice versa. The controller gain is therefore positive and the controller action is reverse (i.e. controller output increases as the input signal decreases). b.

Therefore PV(s) =

= = =

Taking the inverse Laplace transforms we get the dynamic response as,

c. New steady state value will be ( )

But Therefore ( )

Question 2 You are the lead process design engineer for Skidmac Consulting Group that is based in Harare and you have been awarded a contract to work on the design of control systems for Schweppes Zimbabwe Willowvale plant. The projects team at Schweppes are ecstatic about the control system that you have proposed for their Mazoe Orange Crush reactor circuit. (a) The reactor circuit for the fruit juice manufacturing plant is cooled by both jacket cooling and auto-refrigeration as shown above. Sketch a block diagram using appropriate process and control system transfer functions describing the system for this system. Assume that the transfer functions are known, either from fundamental mathematical models or from experimental testing. Answer

Discharge Pressure R PressureReaction Temperature

Where:

(b) Describe in detail with illustrations how the Ziegler-Nichols method is used to determine controller settings. Answer The Ziegler-Nichols method is a short experimental method for determining optimum controller settings. Taking an example of the closed loop shown in part (a) of the question, for determining the optimum controller settings for the temperature controller, the closed loop is opened at a point after the controller and the entire set up is operated at normal values as illustrated below.

b Discharge

Reaction Temperature

A step change in the manipulated variable is then applied and the response recorded at a point b before the controller. This gives the step response of the open loop system without the controller. The following precautions must however be taken to get the response data:

The step change of m should be small in magnitude and sufficient for recording and interpreting.

The step change should be below and above the set point. The step change should be made in both directions if the system is nonlinear. The variables should not be let to reach maximum or minimum values There should be no friction in any part of the system All parts having time lag should be included in the last test

A step response data curve is plotted using the obtained results and from these, calculations are made for the optimum controller settings.