CONTROL ROOM

The pilot plant in UTHM comprises of capacity at one metric ton (MT) and is operated in
batch mode under a supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system. Control room
is defined as a component of complex system which act as a central space where a large
physical facility or physically dispersed service can be monitored and controlled.
Important features of control room includes:

The control system

System interfaces
Communications
Control room layout
Individual workstation design
Control room environment
Staffing/workload
Maintenance
Emergency response role

In UTHM biodiesel plant, the control room act as a primary centre to control the activity
inside the plant. The process monitoring is done by control room operator. Basically, in
control room all the activities inside the plant is monitored, order and decision is being made
in case unexpected event occurred. The measured parameters such as flow, temperature,
pressure and level are being controlled in the control panel.

According to Abu Huzaifa (student from BNL programme), the main objective of running the
plant that day is to remove the oil from VE203. The process is being controlled by using
automatic valve in the control room. Once automatic valve is opened, then only the process
can take place inside the plant. However, there are times when the activity inside the plant
must be done manually such as opening the hand valve through the order from control room
operator. The whole process is being monitored on a computer, with one operator make notes
of all the activities and one operator communicate with persons inside the plant.

UTHM Biodiesel Plant

Control system used : Single cascade system

Measured parameters : Temperature and control valve

What is Cascade System?

Cascade control is mainly used to achieve fast rejection of disturbance before it propagates to
the other parts of the plant. The block diagram of cascade system can be shown as below:

The Cascade Control Block Diagram shows a generic cascade control system with two
controllers, two sensors, and one actuator acting on two processes in series. A primary or
master controller generates a control effort that serves as the set point for a secondary or slave
controller. That controller in turn uses the actuator to apply its control effort directly to the
secondary process. The secondary process then generates a secondary process variable that
serves as the control effort for the primary process.
The geometry of this block diagram defines an inner loop involving the secondary
controller and an outer loop involving the primary controller. The inner loop functions like a
traditional feedback control system with a set point, a process variable, and a controller acting
on a process by means of an actuator. The outer loop does the same except that it uses the
entire inner loop as its actuator.
In the plant, the product set point temperature is set on the master (primary controller) control
loop. This is compared to the product temperature, and the masters PID output is used to set
the remote set point of the slave (secondary controller). This is scaled to suit any expected

temperature. The slave loops natural response time should ideally be at least 5 times faster
than the master.

The control panel located in the control room. All the parameters to be measured in the plant
are controlled from here.

The equipments and activities of the plant are monitored on a computer

One of the control system on the control panel

The compartment inside the control system