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Article history:
Received 20 April 2011
Received in revised form
14 July 2011
Accepted 29 July 2011
Available online 20 August 2011
Keywords:
Online estimation
Unscented Kalman filter
Self-tuning control
abstract
The temperature control of a polymerization reactor described by Chylla and Haase, a control engineering
benchmark problem, is used to illustrate the potential of adaptive control design by employing a selftuning regulator concept. In the benchmark scenario, the operation of the reactor must be guaranteed
under various disturbing influences, e.g., changing ambient temperatures or impurity of the monomer.
The conventional cascade control provides a robust operation, but often lacks in control performance
concerning the required strict temperature tolerances. The self-tuning control concept presented in this
contribution solves the problem. This design calculates a trajectory for the cooling jacket temperature in
order to follow a predefined trajectory of the reactor temperature. The reaction heat and the heat transfer
coefficient in the energy balance are estimated online by using an unscented Kalman filter (UKF). Two
simple physically motivated relations are employed, which allow the non-delayed estimation of both
quantities. Simulation results under model uncertainties show the effectiveness of the self-tuning control
concept.
2011 ISA. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Polymerization is the process of reacting monomer molecules
together in chemical reactions to form three-dimensional networks of polymer chains. The widely used reactors in the chemical
industry for the production of fine pigments, chemicals, polymers
and pharmaceuticals are batch and semi-batch reactors. Measurement and control of polymerization reactors is very challenging
due to the complexity of the polymerization kinetics. In the literature, hierarchical approaches to the control system design, and
reviews of traditional regulatory techniques and advance control
strategies for batch and semi-batch process are presented [1,2].
Often the reactions show exothermic behavior, and tight specifications have to be met. Therefore, an exact temperature control is
required. In many cases, conventional linear control algorithms are
reported not to fulfil this requirement. Industrial polymerization
reactors are usually controlled by a cascade structure consisting of
a master controller for the reactor temperature and an underlying slave controller for the cooling circuit. The cascade controller
gives a robust operation but fails to meet the strict temperature
tolerances [3]. Hence there is a need to employ advanced control
techniques such as the concepts of adaptive control [4] to satisfy
the control requirements.
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: vasanthi@annauniv.edu (D. Vasanthi).
0019-0578/$ see front matter 2011 ISA. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.isatra.2011.07.009
23
Table 1
Variables and parameters of the reactor model.
Variable
Variable name
min
M
Unit
(t )
kg/s
Qrea = H Rp
Reaction heat
kW
Rp
Rate of polymerization
kg/s
Reaction enthalpy
kJ kg1
kW m2 K1
m2
(UA)loss
Cp,M , Cp,P , Cp,C
1 , 2
kW/K
Tj =
(Tjin + Tjout )/2
Kp (c )
kJ kg1 K1
Heating/cooling function
of the cooling jacket and the recirculation loop with the outlet
and inlet temperatures of the coolant C . Further variables and the
parameters of the reactor model are listed in Table 1.
dmM
dt
dmP
dt
dT
dt
in
=m
M (t ) +
=
(1)
Qrea
(2)
1
mi Cp,i
in
[m
M (t ) Cp,M (Tamb T ) UA(T Tj )
Qrea
1
mc Cp,C
dTjout (t 2 )
dt
(3)
Tjout (t 2 ) Tjin
Kp (c )
(4)
(5)
c < 50%,
c = 50%,
c > 50%.
(6)
24
Table 2
Empirical relations for the polymerization rate Rp , the jacket heat transfer area A, and the overall heat transfer coefficient U.
Variable
Variable
Variable name
Unit
Rp = ikmM
Impurity factor
E
(k1 )k2
k = k0 exp
RT
s1
= c0 exp(c1 f ) 10
f = mP /(mM + mP + mC )
k0 , k1 , E , R, a0 , c0 , c1 , c2 , c3
Batch viscosity
kg m1 s1
Auxiliary variable
M , P , C
Densities
kg m3
B1
Jacket perimeter
B2
Twall = T + Tj /2
Wall viscosity
kg m1 s1
Wall temperature
1
h
f
m2 K/kW
d0 , d1
Constants
c2 (a0 /T c3 )
A=
U =
mM
mP
mW
P
B1
+ B2
1
1
h 1 + hf
Table 3
Data for reactor parameters.
Constants
kJ kmol1 K1
kW m2 K1
Table 4
Data for polymer A.
Symbol
Unit
Value
Symbol
Unit
kJ kmol1 K1
8.314
mM ,0
kg
0.0
(UA)loss
p
1
2
kW K1
0.00567567
mP ,0
kg
11.227
40.2
mW
kg
42.75
22.8
kg m3
900.0
15.0
kg m3
1040.0
kg m3
1000.0
1/hf
m2 K kW1
[0.8, 1.2]
[0.000, 0.176, 0.352, 0.528, 0.704]
M
P
W
Cp,M
kJ kg1 K1
1.675
Tamb
Cp,P
kJ kg1 K1
3.140
Tinlet
294.26
Cp,W
kJ kg1 K1
4.187
Tsteam
449.82
MWM
kg kmol1
104.0
mc
kg
42.750
c
m
kg/s
0.9412
Cp,C
kJ kg1 K1
4.187
k0
s1
55
k1
m s kg1
1000
For c < 50%, ice water with inlet temperature Tinlet is inserted in
the cooling jacket, whereas a valve position c > 50% leads to a
heating of the coolant by injecting steam with temperature Tsteam
into the recirculating water stream [7,5].
Various disturbances and uncertainties are specified in order
to model the following practical problems with the control of
polymerization reactors.
k2
0.4
kJ kmol1
29,560.89
c0
kg m1 s1
5.2 105
c1
16.4
c2
2.3
c3
1.563
a0
555.556
Hp
kJ kmol1
70,152.16
d0
kW m2 K1
0.814
d1
m s kg1
5.13
kg/s
7.560 10
in,max
M
m
in
in
tM
,0 , tM ,1
T set
min
[30, 100]
355.382
set
i =3
ai
t
t heat
if , t t heat
if t > t
heat
(7)
25
Fig. 4. Response with conventional cascade controller for nominal parameters and summer season: (i) results for first batch, (ii) results for fifth batch.
26
Fig. 5. Response with self-tuning controller for nominal parameters and summer season: (i) results for first batch, (ii) results for fifth batch.
27
Fig. 6. Response with conventional cascade controller for nominal parameters and winter season: (i) results for first batch, (ii) results for fifth batch.
in
mi Cp,i T m
M (t )Cp,M (Tamb T )
Qrea
+ (UA)loss (T (t ) Tamb )
Control scheme
Cascade control
Self-tuning control
U .A
Table 5
Comparison of ISE and IAE values of both control schemes during summer.
(8)
Thus Tj is found with the help of Eq. (8), and this Tj is compared
with the current jacket temperature, Tj , and control action is taken
by manipulating the control valve, which in turn maintains the
reactor temperature at its set point, and the error is kept within
the tolerance limit.
4. Simulation results and discussion
The process is simulated with the conventional PI cascade
control structure as well as the self-tuning control structure and
the performance of both the control schemes are compared.
Fig. 4(i)(a)(c) and (ii)(a)(c) show the simulation results for the
process with conventional cascade control for batches 1 and 5 for
the summer season, respectively. The sampling time for the selftuning control is set to 1 s, which is the same as the sampling time
of the cascade controller. Fig. 5(i)(a)(h) and (ii)(a)(e) give the
simulation results for the process with self-tuning control for the
summer season for batches 1 and 5, respectively.
As per the recipe given in Section 2.1, at 1800 s the monomer,
which is at ambient temperature, is added in the reactor, but the
reactor is at an operating temperature of T set = 355.382 K at that
instant. Therefore the reactor is initially cooled by the monomer
feed before the reaction, and hence there is a need to increase
temperature by means of increasing the jacket temperature. The
process exhibits an exothermic reaction; thus the heat inside the
reactor will be high, and so to compensate this there has to be
reduction in the jacket temperature. At the end of 6000 s, the
monomer feed is stopped and the reaction will come to an end,
ISE
IAE
First batch
Fifth batch
First batch
Fifth batch
764.5785
54.9608
994.4308
85.6100
1455.5
449.0182
1719.6
579.0522
28
Fig. 7. Response with self-tuning controller for nominal parameters and winter season: (i) results for first batch, (ii) results for fifth batch.
the cascade control during the heating up of the reactor. The UKF
provides robust estimates of the reaction heat and heat transfer
coefficient, and the reactor temperature stays within the specified
tolerance interval of 0.6 K with the self-tuning control scheme,
as shown in Fig. 6(i)(a)(c) and (ii)(a)(c) and Fig. 7(i)(a)(h) and
(ii)(a)(f).
Cascade control
Self-tuning control
ISE
IAE
First batch
Fifth batch
First batch
Fifth batch
848.0387
58.9357
1175.6
75.5651
1413.8
458.6496
1717.3
556.1799
5. Conclusion
The Chylla and Haase polymerization process is a nonlinear
and multi-batch process, for which temperature control is very
difficult. A self-tuning controller has been designed to obtain the
desired control performance. The performance of the self-tuning
cascade control has been studied for batches 1 and 5 for the given
polymer. Also estimates for the heat transfer coefficient U and
reaction heat Qrea are obtained using an unscented Kalman filter for
these batches. On comparison with a conventional cascade control,
the performance of the self-tuning cascade control is found to be
superior, and it meets the control objective of maintaining the
reactor temperature within the tolerance interval of 0.6 K from
the set point.
29
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