Articles

Playing the Field

If Most of Loops Are Distributed to Field-Solved PID, What Are the Chances You Could “Hot Swap” Your Host Just Like a Field Device?
Post Date: 05/04/2008
Author:

On ‘Strange’ Loops and Plant Intelligence

Douglas Hofstadter asks in his recently published book, "I Am a Strange Loop," how anything as amorphous and mysterious as the “I” within each of our brains can exhibit any real power over the physical world.
Post Date: 08/30/2007
Author: Keith Larson

Loop controllers

Every month, Control’s editors take a specific product area, collect all the latest, significant tools we can find, and present them here to make your job easier. This month, we focus on loop controllers.
Post Date: 06/04/2007
Author:

A Return to Single-Loop-Integrity

Control in the field is becoming mainstream once again – just as the ISA SP50 fieldbus committee predicted it would be. CONTROL's regular contributor Dave Harrold looks at the integrity of the control loop.
Post Date: 03/19/2007
Author: Dave Harrold

Struggling loop controllers in a mature market

In this month’s Product Roundup, readers can see that the evolution of single- and multi-loop controllers has followed the path of many types of industrial controls.
Post Date: 03/08/2007
Author:

Talking about talking

Columnists Greg McMillan and Stan Weiner, PE, bring their wits and more than 70 years of process control experience to bear on your questions, comments and problems in this month’s installment of Control Talk.
Post Date: 12/15/2006
Author:

Tuning rule bonanza

Control Talk columnists McMillan and Weiner say in order to get good performance, you need to measure and track the process, the controls, and the equipment under actual real-time operating conditions.
Post Date: 11/07/2006
Author:

Loop gain in aluminum extrusion processes

Process control authority Béla Lipták answers a reader's question regarding PID loops and if they can be used without having to change the loop gain when the number of pumps used is changed.
Post Date: 11/07/2006
Author:

User-friendly advanced control

Senior Tech Editor Dan Hebert, PE, looks at the latest advances in simulation and modeling technologies for improved loop control, including new software packages and embedded APC systems.
Post Date: 10/26/2006
Author:

Jacket temp: Thermocouple multiplexers

In this installment of Ask the Experts, Bela Liptak and his cadre of automation experts suggest to a reader how to tune a reactor temperature control loop for nearly all exothermic chemical reactors.
Post Date: 10/14/2006
Author:

Intoxicating answers

Control Talk columnists McMillan and Weiner describe the period of time between when you first take a drink and when you first recognize the effect and bypass the next round for coffee as dead time.
Post Date: 08/10/2006
Author:

All around loop controllers

Every month, CONTROL editors take a specific product area, collect all the latest, significant tools we can find, and present them here to make your job easier. This month, we take a look at loop controllers.
Post Date: 06/12/2006
Author:

Loop controllers refuse to die

The single-loop controller is alive and well and living in process automation. Find out what they are used for in this Product Roundup of loop controller devices, and maybe you can solve a problem or two.
Post Date: 03/20/2006
Author:

Flame detector stops false alarms

Multi-spectrum IR sensing and neural network processing is combined in one device to give automation professionals a potent new tool in protecting people and plants from dangerous flame sources.
Post Date: 01/22/2006
Author:

Cascade control tuning

ControlGlobal.com presents "Ask the Experts," a column moderated by noted process control authority and columnist Bela Liptak. Save yourself the hefty consulting fees by getting the answer to your question from Liptak's cadre of professional automation experts.
Post Date: 12/27/2005
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Under the hood of override control

All the techniques for preventing reset windup of non-selected controllers will perform comparably to reset feedback if the dynamics of the various loops aren’t too dissimilar.
Post Date: 12/14/2005
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Daytime talk is a hoot and a holler

McMillan and Weiner imagine a transcript of a control engineer on a daytime talk show and offer up the Top 10 reasons why you won’t find a model-based control text book anywhere in today’s college classroom.
Post Date: 11/06/2005
Author:

Three alternative approaches to better loop control

What's wrong with those ramps? Well, as the performance of control loops declines over time, there are better alternatives to properly handle potential problems. Check out what to avoid when tuning your ramps.
Post Date: 09/10/2005
Author:

Critical components of a surge control loop

Process control authority Bela Liptak brings in specialists from his cadre of co-authors to answer a reader's question. Find out what are the critical components of a surge control loop.
Post Date: 08/07/2005
Author:

How to survive the oncoming train of technology

Be warned: the light at the end of the tunnel is a train! Control engineers are being dragged back into the world of manufacturing with new technologies that will affect both how and where they work.
Post Date: 08/04/2005
Author: