Summary of Week 1

1. Introduction to Systems Engineering

- Objectives:
To analyze the dynamic operation of a process
To investigate and implement changes in system
in order to improve performance
- Incentives for automatic process control
To minimize the effect of disturbance
To ensure that operation remains within constraints
To optimize performance
- Feedback control

see page 249 for different sensors

see page 253-256 for discussion on control valves
2. Process Modeling:
- Modeling Questions:
Which way? (does increasing flow rate in decrease temperature?,etc.)
How fast? (how much time does it take to reduce pressure by 50% ?)

What is the behavior of the response? (does it oscillate?, etc.)

Will it even get there? (is it stable?)
One effective way to model dynamic behavior: differential equations
dx/dt = f ( x, u, d )
o where x=process output variables (state variables), u=manipulated
variables, d=disturbance variables

- Steady State Analysis:

can be obtained from process model by setting all time derivatives
to zero
there can be more than one steady state and the different steady
states can be stable or unstable
the stable steady-state values of x(t) can be obtained as t
approaches infinity
- Final form of models depends on specific objectives of the modeler
- Models can be generated using basic principles from physics and
chemistry, e,g,
mass and energy balances,
thermodynamics,
reaction kinetics,
heat and mass transfer
momentum balance.