DESIGN AND OPTIMIZATION OF TEMPERATURE CONTROLLER FOR

HIGH PRESSURE RATED MODIFIED CSTR SYSTEM

KIRUBAGARAN. R

THIRUPPATHI. K
Project scientist
Ocean Science &Technology for Islands
National Institute of Ocean Technology
Ministry of Earth Sciences, Govt. of India
Chennai, India
Kthiruppathi_81@yahoo.com

Scientist F, Group-Head
Ocean Science &Technology for Islands
National Institute of Ocean Technology
Ministry of Earth Sciences, Govt. of India
Chennai, India
kiruba@niot.res.in

LAKSHMI PONNUSAMY

ATMANAND. M. A

Associate professor
College of Engineering Guindy
Chennai, India
lakshmi_p_2000@yahoo.com

Abstract Continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR) system is the

need of the hour to mimic and maintain deep-sea conditions such as
pressure, temperature, pH, etc. in the laboratory to study
environmental effects. Design and optimization of a temperature
controller for such reactor system are important areas in process
control to offer a diverse range of research outputs. This paper
attempts to identify suitable controller and tuning methods to
optimize the system performance for a hyperbaric reactor system.
CSTR maximum pressure and temperature ratings are 350 bar and
275 0 C respectively. In environmental CSTR systems, temperature
control is an absolute challenge due to the strong on-line nonlinearity, reactor vessel thickness to withstand high pressure and
polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) liner to avoid corrosion while
handling sea water. Various strategies are being employed to achieve
highly precise temperature control by using proportional-integral
(PI), proportional-derivative (PD) and proportional-integralderivative (PID) controllers for analysis purposes depending on
requirement of the systems. A suitable control strategy was explored
to develop an environmental CSTR system for deep-sea applications
using real time on-line open loop temperature curve. First order plus
dead time (FOPDT) process model was chosen to derive transfer
function from the real time on-line system curve at atmospheric
pressure and 310 C temperature condition. MATLAB SIMULINK
tool was used for various controller simulation and result
comparison. Although our attempt using PID or PI algorithms as an
individual controller to obtain set precise temperature within the loop
was convenient to tune, the cumulative error noticed in the loops
made it impossible to handle oscillating poles and zeroes in case of
modified options like environmental CSTR. During the course of the
study, a number of tuning methods such as Ziegler-Nichols, CohanCoon, Chien-Hrones-Reswick and Wang-Juang-Chan tunning
methods for suitable PD controller was also examined to optimize the
temperature controller for environmental CSTR system. A simulation
result on the environmental CSTR system is presented to show the
efficiency of the various controllers and tuning rules. Performance
indices for various tuning methods of the controller with and without
PTFE liner are also calculated, compared, analyzed and presented,
and a winning method using PD controller is identified.

Director
National Institute of Ocean Technology
Ministry of Earth Sciences, Govt. of India
Chennai, India
atma@niot.res.in

Index Terms Environmental CSTR, PID, PI, PD, CSTR,

FOPDT, Tuning methods

I.

INTRODUCTION

Deep sea is an extremophilic and hostile environment

with high pressure, exciting temperature variation, limited
food supply and absolute darkness. Although it has been
characterized as a physically stable environment (Sanders
1968), several environmental variables pose major challenges
to the very basic survival of biological organisms. It is well
documented that some of the environmental variables like
pressure and temperature affects the biological organisms
physiologically and biochemically through the modification in
the performance and structure of vital constituents like
proteins and lipids. The Continuous Stirred Tank Reactor
(CSTR) is one of the optional machineries available to
examine rate limiting factors associated to the deep sea
environment. Since studying the native plants, animals and
microbes of the deep-sea in-situ conditions is too complicated,
we have to overcome technological challenges in conducting
biological experiments mimicking deep-sea environment. The
most challenging parameters in the deep-sea in-situ conditions
are temperature, light and pressure. A CSTR system has been
designed, developed and tested to utilize for mimicking deepsea conditions. But this CSTR system demanded modification
in the controllers to create precious in-situ conditions in the
system. The problem of controlling the temperature in the
environmental CSTR system is considered as a challenging
issue, especially for a control engineer corresponding to its
nonlinear dynamics because of its high pressure rated reactor
vessel which has thick wall material and
PTFE liner
embedded inside the reactor system to avoid sea water
corrosion and that creates temperature oscillation and
instability in the system. Generally, the nonlinear
characteristics of system and their functional parameter
change due to high pressure rated reactor design. The need for

978-1-4673-6190-3/13/$31.00 2013 IEEE

better control strategies for precious temperature control in the

special kind of deep-sea CSTR system process control in order
to achieve better performance. The design of PID
(ProportionalIntegralDerivative) controller tuning involves
selecting the amounts of Proportional, Integral and Derivative
components required at the output of the controller. Since the
design of PID controllers involves obtaining the P, I and D
components there always occurs a compromise in the design.
The design of the optimum values for the PID, PI & PD
controller parameters has always been challenging. One of the
most important controllers both in academic and industrial
application is PID, but for environmental CSTR system the
case is different in the sense PID controller is not suiting with
the CSTR system. Suitable controller has been identified by
testing and comparing with various controllers and tuning
methods. A mathematical model of the environmental CSTR
has been developed by using real time open loop temperature
curve and this is used for the study of the control strategy of
the process. In the present work a combination of the control
strategies in the precious control of temperature for an
environmental CSTR system is explored. A comparative study
of the traditional PID, PI and PD controllers are examined to
control temperature in the environmental CSTR system.
Different control tuning methods are also studied individually
and also in combination in the control process. The suitable
and reliable controller for the deep sea high pressure rated
CSTR process is explored and identified in this work. The
PID, PI and PD controllers used in the control are tuned using
the conventional tuning methods such as Z-N (ZeiglerNichols) tuning, C-C (Cohen- Coon) tuning, C-H-R (ChienHrones-Reswick) tuning and W-J-C (Wang-Juang-Chan)
tuning. The various possible strategy of controller has been
simulated for FOPDT process model using MATLAB
SIMULINK tools and the same has been implemented to
create in-situ conditions in the environmental CSTR system.
This paper contains the following subsequent sections. Section
II describes the problem definition. Section III describes the
experimental setup. Section IV describes the design and
performance of the controller. Section V describes the results
and discussion. Section VI briefs the conclusion.
I.

PROBLEM DEFINITION

The problem of controlling the temperature in the

environmental CSTR system for deep-sea condition i.e.
mimicking in the reactor is considered as a challenging issue
especially for a control engineer corresponding to its nonlinear
dynamics because of its high pressure rating and thick wall
material in the reactor system. In the present study, steady
state simulation of a environmental continuous stirred tank
reactor system precious temperature control has been carried
out using MATLAB simulink software and the same has been
implemented in the developed real time rector system.
Environmental CSTR system is a new kind of instrument
because it should match with the extreme environment like
deep sea, according to specific requirements case to case
basis.

To avoid corrosion in the reactor system during sea water /

microbial culture media of similar nature, PTFE liner has to be
embedded inside the reactor system. Nevertheless, it induces
oscillation and instability of the system and thick reactor
vessel compounds this issue further. Therefore, an attempt was
made to achieve the precious temperature control in the
environmental CSTR mimicking one of the vital deep sea
parameter i.e. temperature.
II. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP AND DESCRIPTION
The physical system used to create deep sea conditions in
the environmental CSTR system includes a high pressure rated
double jacketed reactor vessel, multiport serial server,
digitally control heater/chiller system, Modem, temperature
sensor and PC. The temperature control system controls and
communication is established using Delphi 6 software running
on a PC.
The working pressure and temperature, at which any reactor or
pressure vessel can be used, will entirely depend upon the
design, size and nature of the material used for construction.
Since all materials tend to vary their strength according to
change in temperature, any pressure rating must be stated in
terms of the temperature at which it is applicable. We have
selected 5000 psi pressure rated and -90oC to 235oC
temperature rated 5L volume reactor vessel for real time
experiments. The PTFE liner has been used to fit inside the
reactor vessel. It must be noted, however, that adding a liner
will slow the heat transfer rate into the vessel and it may be
necessary to adjust the temperature control method to prevent
overheating.
Refrigeration bath circulators suitable for controlling the
temperature are of externally connected appliances and
thermoregulation is achieved through circulation of silicone
oil in the thermostat bath. The equipment is able to meet the
highest demands and this is ensured by the appropriate range
of functional components, like controller, programmer,
temperature sensor, RS 232 interface as well as extensive
safety and warning systems for better performance. The bath
vessel has a volume of 5L and can be emptied via a drain pipe
controlled by valve.
Multiport server has many industrial and commercial device
applications and equipped with serial communication portsRS232, RS485 and RS422, and these serial ports typically
have limited transmission distance. For instance, the
transmission distance of RS232 at the transmission rate of 9.6
kbps is 15 m and that of RS422 at the rate of 110 kbps is 1.2
km. Environmental CSTR system demands this kind of system
to ensure the safety of the operator while creating high
pressure and extremely high/low temperature in the
environmental CSTR system. The Multi-port Industrial Serial
Server SE5008/SE5016 is a gateway between Ethernet
(TCP/IP) and RS-232/RS-422/RS-485 communications. It
allows almost any serial device to be connected to a new or
existing Ethernet network.

From this graph we can obtain the following terms,

Fig.1. Simplified system controller model

Fig.2. System working model

III. DESIGN AND PERFORMANCE OF THE

CONTROLLER
This section describes in detail about the design and
performance of the various traditional controllers used for the
environmental CSTR system for precious temperature control
using PID, PI and PD controllers. Simplified system controller
model (Fig.1) as well as system working model (Fig.2) gives
diagrammatic representation of the system. FOPDT process
model was examined in the presence (Fig 3. and Fig 4.) and
absence (Fig 5. and Fig 6.) of PTFE liner in high pressure
rated environmental CSTR system. The above model is
justifiable since over 80% of the industrial process is being
implemented by using this model. Real time open loop
temperature curve has been employed for mathematical model
derivation for the controller design and analysis.

Fig. 4. Simulated response for environmental CSTR system with

PTFE liner

Fig.5. Real time open loop transfer function for environmental CSTR
system without PTFE liner

From this graph we can obtain the following terms,

Fig.3. Real time open loop transfer function for environmental CSTR
system with PTFE liner

rule gives minimum error and in absence of PTFE liner C-C

tuning rule gives minimum error.

Fig.6. Simulated response for environmental CSTR system without PTFE

liner

Tuning of conventional controller has been done by using

various tuning methods such as the ZieglerNichols, CohanCoon, Chien-Hrones-Reswick and Wang-Juang-Chan tuning
methods.

Fig.7. Comparision for PI,PD and PID Controller-without Liner

IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

During the comparison of controllers through simulated
and real time output, the better performance of PD controller
in the environmental CSTR system was noticed to achieve
precious temperature control and the same can be clearly
observed from the real time results of PID, PI and PD
controllers (Refer Fig. 7 and Fig.8). Various controller tuning
rules for PD controller such as Z-N, C-C, C-H-R and W-J-C
have been examined for the precious temperature control in
the environmental CSTR system. A Z-N tuning rule of PD
controller in the environmental CSTR system has also been
examined, (Refer Fig. 9 and Fig. 10) from that it was observed
that there is one higher overshoot in the presence of PTFE
liner and many over and undershoots in the absence of PTFE
liner. C-C and C-H-R tuning rules performs better than other
tuning rules examined in this study (Refer Fig. 11, Fig.12, Fig
13 and Fig.14) for real time and simulation results. W-J-C
tuning rule also examined with regard to real time and
simulated results (Refer Fig. 15 and Fig.16) also giving
oscillatory outputs. These results show unfitness of the Z-N
and W-J-C tuning rules for the environmental CSTR system.
We have compared all the real time and simulation results in
that C-C and C-H-R tuning rules provided better performance
for the environmental CSTR system (Refer Fig. 11 and Fig.
13), however there is a negligible oscillation in the simulation
and real time result. During the results comparison and
analysis of these results it has been observed that in the
presence of PTFE liner C-C tuning rule performs better (Fig.
11) than all other tuning rules and in the absence of PTFE
liner C-H-R tuning rule performs better (Fig.14) than all other
tuning rules examined in this study.
To evaluate the system performances, various
performance indices for the various tuning rules were studied
and analyzed to get better result for the environmental CSTR
system. Four major performance indices such as IAE (Integral
Absolute Error), ISE (Integral Square Error), ITAE (Integral
Time Absolute Error) and ITSE (Integral Time Square Error)
have been analyzed for the tuning rules examined in this
study. From the performance indices (Table 1 and 2), it has
been noticed that the presence of PTFE liner C-H-R tuning

Fig.8. Comparison for PI, PD and PID controllers-With Liner

PD Controller : Z-N Tuning Method

With and without liner effect

Tuning Methods

Kc

Zeigler-Nichols

0.5

The above table is to calculate the PD controller setting and

given below the settings are,
With liner effect Kp = 11.30 & d = 2.76275
Simulation Result

Real time Result

Fig. 9. Simulated and realtime results for PD controller Z-N tunning rules
with PTFE liner

without liner effet, Kp = 10.1017 & d = 1.1725

Simulation Result

Real time Result

Fig. 10. Simulated and realtime results for PD controller Z-N tunning rules
without PTFE liner

PD Controller : Cohan-Coon Tuning Method

Tuning Methods

Kp

Without liner effect

Cohan-coon

Kp=10.1095 & d 0.9849

Simulation Result

Real time Result

Where a=KL/T & =L(L+T)

The above table to calculate the PD Controller setting and
given below the settings are,
With liner

Kp = 13.54436 & d = 2.28923

Simulation Result

Real time Result

Fig. 14. Simulated and realtime results for PD controller C-H-R tunning rules
to without PTFE liner

PD Controller: Wang-Juang-Chan Tuning Method

Tuning
Methods

Fig. 11. Simulated and realtime results for PD controller C-C tunning rules
with PTFE liner

Without liner effect

Simulation Result

Kp = 9.0604 & d = 0.9782

Real time Result

PD Controller : Chien Hrones-Reswick Tuning Method

Tuning Methods

Kp

Chien Hrones-Reswick

Wang-JuangChan
The above table to calculate the PD Controller setting and
given below the settings are, Where a=KL/T & =L(L+T)
With liner
Simulation Result

Fig. 12. Simulated and realtime results for PD controller C-C tunning rules
without PTFE liner

Kp

Kp = 7.3014 & d = 2.617118

Real time Result

Fig. 15. Simulated and realtime results for PD controller W-J-C tunning rules
with PTFE liner

Without liner effect

Simulation Result

Kp = 4.937 & d = 1.1046

Real time Result

0.42L

The above table to calculate the PD Controller setting and

given below the settings are, Where a=KL/T & =L(L+T)
With liner
Simulation Result

Kp = 15.07348 & d = 128.07348

Real time Result

Fig. 16. Simulated and realtime results for PD controller W-J-C tunning rules
without PTFE liner

Fig. 13. Simulated and realtime results for PD controller C-H-R tunning rules
with PTFE liner

which results in increasing the steady state error. This paper

compares traditional controllers such as PID, PI and PD
controller real time and simulated results and identifies
suitable controller for this kind of environmental CSTR
system. PD controller performs better than PID and PD
controllers. This paper also demonstrates a number of PD
controller tuning methods being used to tune a temperature
controller for high pressure rated environmental CSTR system
for deep-sea conditions mimicking processes. Simulation
results on environmental CSTR system and transfer function
models are presented to show the efficiency of the various
controllers and tuning rules.

Fig.17. PD controller analysis of all tuning rule without liner effect

Table: 1. Performance index-without liner

Tuning Methods

Zeigler-Nichols
Cohan-Coon
Chien-Hrones-Reswick
Wang-Juang-Chan

PD Controller

IAE
23.24
24.5
22.89
39.87

ISE
4.179
4.159
3.992
8.134

ITAE
2422
2663
2417
4498

ITSE
210.5
250.4
208.2
706.1

The performance was analyzed for the controllers designed by

using PID, PI and PD methods, identifying a suitable
controller and enhanced the system performance by using
various tuning rules. The PD controller performs better for
both with and without PTFE liner.
The performance index of the controller is evaluated and
presented for the controllers designed by using various control
methods. Simulation results on linear model equations of
double jacketed modified environmental CSTR system using
FOPDT model show that the controllers designed for the
system performs better.
VI. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors would like to acknowledge the financial
support from the Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of
India, under Research Plan No. MoES/9-DS/6/2007-PC-IV
VII. REFERENCE

Fig.18. PD controller analysis of all tuning rule with liner effect

Table: 2. Performance index-with liner

Tuning Methods

Zeigler-Nichols
Cohan-Coon
Chien-Hrones-Reswick
Wang-Juang-Chan

PD Controller

IAE
28.83
26
44.06
40.9

ISE
7.148
6.719
12.41
10.52

ITAE
2875
2457
4503
4201

ITSE
302.8
228
728.2
629.3

V. CONCLUSION
The individual controllers within the loop use PID or PI
algorithms and which are easy to tune but this control strategy
is unable to handle system structures. It also further cumulates
error through the loops making it impossible to cancel
properly the oscillating poles and zeroes in the system model.
The PI controller increases the order of the system by one,

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