Here is the Fourth part of a point blank decisive comprehensive list of what we really need to know in a detailed attempt to reduce the disparity between theory and practice. Please read, think and take to heart the opportunities to increase the performance and recognized value of our profession.
Here is the third part of a point blank decisive comprehensive list of what we really need to know in a detailed attempt to reduce the disparity between theory and practice. Please read, think and take to heart the opportunities to increase the performance and recognized value of our profession.
Here is the second part of a point blank decisive comprehensive list of what we really need to know in a detailed attempt to reduce the disparity between theory and practice. Please read, think and take to heart the opportunities to increase the performance and recognized value of our profession.
I had an awakening as to the much greater than realized disconnect between what is said in the literature and courses and what we need to know as practitioners as I was giving guest lectures and labs to chemical engineering students on PID control. We are increasingly messed up.
In many publications on process control, the common metric you see is integrated absolute error for a step disturbance on the process output. In many tests for tuning, setpoint changes are made and the most important criteria becomes overshoot of setpoint.
Having the blind wholesale goal of reducing variability can lead to doing the wrong thing that can reduce plant safety and performance. Here we look at some common mistakes made that users may not realize until they have better concept of what is really going on.
Inverse response, negative resistance, positive feedback and discontinuities can cause processes to jump, accelerate and oscillate confusing the control system and the operator. Not properly addressing these situations can result in equipment damage and plant shutdowns besides the loss of process efficiency.
The operator is by far the most important person in the control room having the most intimate knowledge and “hands on” experience with the process. Engineers who are most successful with process improvements realize they need to sit with and observe what operators are doing to deal with a variety...
The usual concern is whether an automation system is too slow. There are some applications where an automation system is disruptive by being too fast. Here we look at what determines whether a system should be faster or slower and what are the limiting factors and thus the solution to...
Here we looks at applications where feedforward can do more harm than good and what to do to prevent this situation. This problem is more common than one might think. In the literature we mostly hear how beneficial feedforward can be for measured load disturbances.
