ray PART Il Control Valve Notes And Positioner Myths Why Piston-Actuated, Positioner-Equipped Control Valves Provide the Best Control Loop Performance. This article is part two of a twopart series examining the use of position: ers with piston-actuated and spring- and-diapbragmractuated process con- ‘rol valves. Part. in the November issue of CONTROL, dispelled some myths associated with using positioners on {fast control loops and made a case for ‘always using positioners. The author also wishes to acknowl. edge the contributions and insights of Page S. Buckley, PE. control dynamics consultant (principal consultant, retired, DuPont) hat are the most important ‘characteristics of control valve performance from a control system point of ‘There are three essential aspects: threshold sensitivity of resolution (i.e. the ability to make small changes from the control loop ourput signal demand); speed of response to controller ourput demand; and ability to give a desired (or predictable) flow characteristic through: ‘our process load demand changes. From an operating standpoint, these performance characteristics translate to the following requirements for the positioner on the control valve: * High threshold sensitivity or resolu- tion (Le.. the ability to smoothly make small changes in valve stem position)— Using a positioner typically improves sensitivity By a factor of 20-50. + Speed of response to command sig- tals or disturbances—As a rough rule Of thumb. all instruments should be a factor of 10 faster than the process, This heips control and also simplifies control loop calculations. Studies show that a spring-and-diaphragm (S&D) actuator without a positioner is typi- ‘DECEMBER 1998 CONTROL cally atleast 10 times slower than a pis: ton actuator with a positioner. This obviously is detrimental in many cases + Desired relationship between com: smand signal and valve flow ~This curve isthe valves installed low characters: and its slope or derivative isthe valve ‘gn. The use ofa positioner greatly helps to maintain the installed valve charac- teristic by closely matching the com- mand signal and desired valve position. Inasmuch as most valves in use today are single seated globe and rotary types. the valve actuator must also cope with fluid dynamics that result in unbalanced stem forces. Valves equipped with S8D actuators and no positioners usually suf: fer distortion of the flow characteristic ‘due to inadequate posioning from these forces and stem stiction. * Control system calculations pre: ictabilty—Because a positioneroper ated valve is much more predictable than avalve without a positioner, control sys tem calculations can be made much more accurately and with more conf dence. There is no reliable way of cal: culating the performance ofa system if the valve does not have a positioner. For best stability and speed of response, the mass of the moving parts and the spring rate should be kept as, Jow as feasible. This is particularly important for S&D actuators. While not absolutely unstable, they can be quite resonant or oscillatory without ade- {quate friction to dampen the system. ‘The use of PTFE packing with its great ly reduced friction has added to this, problem with S&D actuators. One interesting experiment used an S&D_ actuator on a valve with no packing at all in the stuffing box, It was impossible | 10 stop the spring-mass oscillations. This tendency to resonate was one reason for the practice of fitting S&D actuators with positioners having “bypass valve" capability. An oldsime remedy for oscillating S&D actuators ‘was to tighten down on the valve pack- ing, thereby adding enough friction to help reduce the spring mass oscillation effect. This resonance was sometimes quite a problem. If all else failed. the positioner was put on bypass, A lot of valves ended up that way and helped to start the prevailing myths. ‘The piston actuator without springs, on the other hand, acts like a perfect | integrator (no error) and is never unsta ble, nor does it ever resonate (oscil: late). This means that even though the | positioner is proportional only, almost perfect correspondence is obtained between control input signal and valve stem position. | ‘Tests have shown that with the use of springs, piston actuator performance does show some resolution and response speed degradation, all other factors being, | equal. The stiffer the spring or springs, the more the performance suffers. How: ever. in the newer piston actuated valves, ‘careful design has helped moderate this, degradation, (Continued on p28) James B Arant, P.E. an independent ‘consultant for valves and actuators based in Newark, Del, is a senior con- sultant, retired, from DuPont Co, He is 4 Life Fellow of the Instrument Soctety of America, and was recipient of the ISA's Chet Beard Final Control Ele- ‘ments Award in 1988 and the ISA Douglas Annin Award in 1989 for bis contributions to control valve knowl- edge and applications.(Continued from p24) Spring resonance problems could be the same with piston acruators as with the S&D actuators, ut the stiffness inher- centin the piston actuator essentially elim- inates such problems. The double-act- ing. high performance positioners used fon these actuators may be another factor minimizing response degradation. ‘Another difference between these «wo types of actuators is their behavior ‘when the plug is near the closed posi tion. Here, the piston actuator has a strong technical advantage. Single-seat- ed valves are commonly installed in a way that favors fail safe. That is, the valve is installed with flow over or under the seat to provide the desired dynamic pressure force. Airto-open valves are installed with flow over the plug. Near the closed post tion, there tends to be what is called the bathtub-stopper effect. This is a fluid dynamic positive feedback effect. tend- ing to close the valve or slam the plug into the seat. The S&D actuator, with oF ‘without positioner. often lacks the stift ress to cope with this effect and will tend to oscillate into and out of the seat. ‘The pistonactuated valve with dou. bleacting positioner is so much stiffer that it minimizes or eliminates this problem. This high stiffness is derived from three main factors: (1) the dou- bleacting positioner transfers air pres- sures around the piston; (2) the small volume of trapped air: and (3) the rel- atively high air pressure (i.e., the greater the attempt to compress it, the ‘greater the resistance), ‘When valve positioners are used, one must take into account some of the principles of cascade loops. The post tioner is the secondary oF slave vari- able controller. For good control, the valve positioner loop should be well ‘damped and its closedHoop natural fre- ‘quency should be an order of magni- tude higher than that of the outside or primary loop. S&D actuators are restricted to relatively low pressure ait (typically 30-60-psig). Even with posi- tioners, they are frequently 5-10 times slower than their pistonactuator coun- terparts. which use high pressure air Ceypically 80-150-psig. This helps explain why there have been observed control loop stability | problems with S&D positioner actua l 2B —_vecenmen 1993 CONTROL tors. They are too slow for fast loops. ‘With one exception, no process control stability problem with piston operated valves has been encountered. In this one ‘case, the actuator had extra strong fall: safe springs because of high pressure drop shutoff needs. Changing out the positioner to a more appropriate model and adding high capacity air booster | relays solved the problem in this case. Failsafe neads ‘When single seated valves became more ‘common, the normal approach was t0 install the valve ina “flow preferred” direction to help push the valve plug either open or shut. Relatively light bias springs typically were installed in the Piston actuator to assist this direction reference. This is a good fail-safe approach when there is concer about Joss of air supply or command signal. ‘At Buckley's request, however, sever al manufacturers ran tess on pistonacne ated valves using springs of various spring rates. in al cases, the stifer the spring, the more positioner performance was degraded, speed of response was reduced, and dead band was increased, However, in the practical sense, the rel ative decreases in performance were moderate enough that it dd not impose an undue burden on the overall control loop performance Involvement with thousands of pis: tonactuated valves with failsafe springs shows no apparent problems. It might be noted that the subject of ful-safery is somewhat overblown, being akin to motherhood and apple pie. In most cases, careful process analysis shows that it makes litle difference what the valve does. except for those directly involved in safety service applications. However, the idea of fail-safe is $0 ingniined, Buckley and myself long ago save up arguing abour it. Valve characteristics ‘When the Instrument Society of Amer- ica’ valve flow equations (S75.01-1974) became available, they permitted easy calculation of the relationship berween stem position and flow for a large num- ber of situations. When digital con- trollers came on the market, some of these had software for characterizing controller output, By using these tools and a few | tricks, Buckley found that it may not always be desirable to have the con- ventional linear. equal percentage. of modified linear characteristics in the actual valve performance. Instead, a valve characteristic behavior that will guarantee control loop stability over a ‘wide range of process flow conditions would be preferred: ie., a nonstan- dard characteristic. Buckley's dynamic analysis, and his tailoring of the valve characteristic via the controller and positioner to the specific process loop, met with great success. On one critical project, Buck: ley wrote a program to calculate the proper characteristic for more than 20 Critical loops and valves. These loops, regardless of process variable (flow, pressure, level. temperature), worked extremely well—and all of the control valves had positioners. This is not a refinement that is used in normal every: day control valve application. In many cases, the standard char- acteristics work very well when prop- erly applied. An equal-percent inher- ent characteristic for applications ‘with significant system losses and a linear characteristic for low system losses usually produce reasonable overall system characteristics. ‘Valve manufacturers attempt to char- acterize valves with shaped cams in the positioner loop, bur this has limit: ed applicability in some cases. Since ‘the cam is in the positioner loop, the ‘cam contour cannot be too flat of too steep, or the positioner gain may be ‘00 low (sluggish) or too high (unsta- ble). In addition, the mechanical shap- ing of the cam does not always allow for tailoring the characteristic to the ‘optimum. Shaping cams isa crude way of getting to the objective compared ‘with electronic signal shaping, a strong preference of both Buckley and myself. Speed of response Studies indicate that if the valve with positioner has a closedtoop natural fre- quency of 25 cycles per second (cps), this is fast enough for most process control applications. However, caleu- lations for some rapid process mixers show that the associated flow controls needed a closedloop natural frequency of several hundred cps. This is far beyond the capability of any conven- tior call loo fir Cou po: sign po hay aw are such they Ger lin pr de sta of ree by the‘ional valve and actuator system—with or without a positioner. Such loops require expensive, custom-designed and custom built electrohydraulic act aor systems and positioners. It might be noted that some so: called smart differential pressure flow transmitters may actually be slower in their response than their older Pneumatic counterparts, This is caused by the electronic damping required to maintain stability. Thus, for flow control applications, these newer transmitters may end up being the slowest items in the loop and the positioner question is moot Positioner test factors In the 1940s and 1950s, positioness ‘were simple. single-stage, single action, and typically had low gain, (Defined as. input to output change, gain was typi cally in the 10-50 range.) These posi- tuoners might be regarded as semilin ‘ear, but Buckley was able to use so- called “linear tuning analysis” on these loops. The analysis required a simpli- fying assumption of viscous instead of Coulomb packing friction. Today; many high performance valve Positioners have two stages, one for signal amplification and the second for power amplification. They typically have much higher gain, even for use on S&D actuators, although a single. stage positioner can also be designed to give high-performance. Positioners for most piston actuators are double-acting (push-pull) and have such high gain capability (300-900) that they are close to being on-off devices (depending on application require: ments). Here. gain is defined as change in input to the ouput's differential ‘These positioners are decidedly non- linear and a purely Linear analysis is not practical, Such two-stage, nonlinear designs contribute to much higher actuator dynamics and to lower steady- state air consumption, According to Buckley, simple figures of merit for positioners such as step response, loop gain. etc.. can be very misleading. Response to disturbance | by nomlinear devices is a function of the tvpe and amplitude of the distur- | bance and also of the nonlinear char. acteristics of the device. Buckley's experiences with the delib- erate introduction of nonlinear fune: may take a large number of trial and f | response over a range of setpoint and MN why one cannot make simplistic state: ments as to whether a positioner is bad {or the loop. Asa side note. it might be useful ial positioner manufacturers designed their positioners with adjustable gain | expaitty 0 alow one more element of (Continued on p30) ions into a control loop indicate that it ror simulations (0 arrive at a satis factory design. resulting in any rea: onable compromise on control joad changes. This is an example of 1B pl Tae Bea Cone ISO 9000 ‘Certification International quality standards are now making ita lot easier to market your products and services in Europe, or o the companies that do. 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