Supervisory Fuzzy Control of a Rotary Cement

~, Kiln
Murat A M P * , Alejandro L. DOMINGUEZ, Roland LONGCHAMP
Institut dAutomatique
&ole Polytechnique F6d6rale de Lausanne
CH-1015 Lausanne Switzerland

Abstract - A cement rotary kiln is a distributed parameter system

that exhibits time-varying nonlinear behaviour. Effective control of the Ivy lfrm
kiln is complicated by several factors, including nonlinearities in the
dynamics and the large dimensionality of the problem. A linear control
scheme has been already implemented and tested with success. In
order to improve the performance of the control scheme, linear
controllers have been replaced by fuzzy controllers. Excellent results
are obtained in terms of development time, production costs and preheate
dynamic performances.
INTRODUCTION
t Tbz , planetary coolers

The three basic processes in a cement production plant are (1)

grinding and homogenization of the raw material mix, (ii) baking of
the mix in a kiln, and (iii) grinding of the finished product. Of crucial
importance to the quality of the cement produced is the temperature in
the kiln where the raw mix is transformed to clinker. Effective control
Vk 1 4 Cd ' rotary kiln

of the kiln is complicated by several factors, including nonlinearities in
the dynamics and the large dimensionality of the problem. The
complexities are such that even operators with years of experience are
often puzzled to explain the nature or origin of perturbations.
The objectives of the work presented in this paper are to develop a
flexible and user-friendly computer environment to control an
industrial cement kiln, and to implement advanced digital control
strategies for effective tracking and disturbance rejection. A linear
control scheme has been already implemented and tested with success.
In order to improve the performance of the control scheme, linear
controllers have been replaced by fuzzy controllers.
The main contribution of this paper is a different approach to use
fuzzy logic for process control. Instead of viewing the problem as a
whole, in the present approach, we replace the classical controllers of
an already tested scheme by fuzzy ones. This reduces the number of
fuzzy rules and hence the controller synthesis is faster. Though fuzzy
control software for cement industries is commercially available, our
approach leads a control synthesis which is less time consuming.
SYSTEM DESCRIPTION
Heating Process
A rotary cement kiln is a nonlinear distributed process which has a
highly complex dynamic behaviour due to the chemical reactions. In
order to understand the behaviour of a kiln and design a model-based
control scheme, a partial-differential equation model incorporating a
model of the flame was given in [ l ] and [2]. Even though we have the
equations describing the dynamic behaviour of the system, several
values of the model parameters are missing and the identification of
these parameters is beyond the scope of this paper. Thus,. a model-
based controller is not used here.
In this section, we present a more detailed description of the
heating process from a control point of view. Figure 1 shows the most
important variables used for control purposes. The control variables
include feed rate of raw mix frm, fuel feed rate at the twyer fft, fuel
feed rate for precalcination ffp, rotational kiln speed vk and ventilator
speed VY. The output variables are feed rate of clinker fci and clinker
liter weight WCI.The other variables used in the control of the process
are buming zone temperature Tbz, combustion gases temperature Tcg,
WCO/NOXcontents of combustion gases and finally kiln drive power
Cd.
* The author is now with Destech Engineering Consulting Inc. Istanbul
Fie. 1: Heating process
Control Strategy
The main objective in the control of a rotary cement kiln is to
maintain an appropriate material temperature profile along the length of
the kiln. This leads to produce clinker with desired quality. A typical
temperature profile is presented in Figure 2. The second objective is to
determine the heating set points which minimize production costs and
to achieve desired production rate.
F'375t 1
1
100 200 300 400
distance along length of kiln [ft]
A typical temperature profile
For our case, we decided to control the temperature in the h l n at
two points: The first point is the calcining zone at the beginning of the
process. The tem;erature of combustion gases Tcg is the controlled
variable and measured by a thermocouple. The second point is the
most important region in the kiln process, namely, the buming zone.
The very high temperature Tbz approximately 1400°C, is the controlled
variable and measured by a pyrometer. In order to take into account
any measurement error, the kiln drive power cd is controlled since it is
a very nice indicator of the internal state of the kiln.
In order to minimize fuel consumption, a static model between
quality measurement WCI and heating conditions, i.e., Tbz, is used and
the buming zone temperature set point is estimated on-line [3].
As for the planetary coolers, they do not require any special care
while the flow rate of air passing through them is controlled with
ventilator speed vv as a function of 02 percentage.

0-7803-1772-6/94/%3.00 @ 1994 IEEE

754
 FUZZY LOGIC CONTROLLERS
A set of fuzzy logic centrollers (FLC) has been implemented for the
control strategy described above. The combustion gases temperature
Tcg and burning zone temperature Tbz are the controlled variables. The
kiln drive power cd is controlled also. Feed rate of raw mix fm, fuel
kxL -30 -10 0 10 30 ATcg PCI

t.looK
feed rate at the twyer fft and rotational kiln speed vk are the control
variables as shown in Figure 3. Two of these three controllers have

*
two inputs, one has one input. All of them have one output.

FLC-1 Afm
-150 -100 -50 0 50 100 150 ATbzPC]

\ - ' INB NM NS Z PS PM

-Fuzzy logic controllers for a rotary cement kiln

Calcining Zone TemperatureControl
An action on the raw mix feed permits us to control quickly
combustion gases temperature and to fix an operating point for all the
process. The control errors on combustion gases temperature ATcg
and on the buming zone temperature ATbz have been used as inputs
for the fuzzy controller FLC- 1. The gain of the controller is negative.
Fie. 4: Fuzzy sets for ATcg, ATbz and Afrm.
VH, very hot; H, hot; OK, okay; C, cold; VC, very cold;
NB,negative big; NM, negative medium; NS, negative small;
Z, zero; PS, positive small; PM, positive medium.

Burning Zone TemperatureControl

The basic action on fuel feed rate is obtained using only the control H P M I P M I Z I N S I N B
error on the buming zone temperature ATbz. Kiln drive power ATcg OK PM I
PS I Z I NM INB
indicates the burning conditions well even if the temperature c I PS I
z I z I NM INB I
measurement in the burning zone is disturbed. Thus, this
measurement of the kiln drive power has been used as a constraint on Fuzzy associative memory for the fuzzy closed-loop
the fuel feed rate (FLC-3). controller FLC- 1: if 4Tcg=Aj and ATbz=Bi> then <Afrm=Cj,i>
with j=1..3 and i=1..5.
A very fast action is obtained on the burning zone temperature by
rotational kiln speed vk. Thus, a controller using the control error on Rotational Kiln Speed V k
the burning zone temperature ATbz has been designed for Avk (FLC-
2). It is to notice that the gain of the controller is negative. The rotational kiln speed vk is obtained by adding the Avk obtained
from m c - 2 to an a priori value of vk. This a priori value of vk is
Raw Mix Feed Rate frm determined as a function of fm in order to maintain a constant intemal
filling rate in the kiln. The fuzzy sets chosen for Avk are depicted in
The raw mix feed rate f m is calculated by adding the Afm obtained Figure 6. In Figure 7, the set of 5 fuzzy rules defining the fuzzy
from FLC-1 to the desired feed rate given by the operator. The fuzzy associative memory of the fuzzy controller FLC-2 is displayed.
sets (membership functions) chosen for ATcg, ATbz and Afrm are
depicted in Figure 4.
In Figure 5 , the set of 15 fuzzy rules defining the fuzzy associative
memory of the fuzzy controller FLC-1 is displayed. The entries of this
'1 NM/ NS ZPSPM

tabloid should be read as explained in the following example: if ATcg

belongs to the fuzzy set H to degree d i and if ATbz belongs to the
fuzzy set VH to degree d2 then the fuzzy set PM is fired to the smaller
of the two degrees, i.e., to degree d=min(dl,dz).
-0.6 -0.3 0 0.4 AVk['pm]

Fuzzy sets for Avk.

NM, negative medium; NS, negative small; Z, zero;
PS, positive small; PM, positive medium.
AThl
VH H OK C VC
I P M I P S I Z I N S I N M I

Fip.7: Fuzzy associative memory for the fuzzy closed-loop

controller FLC-2: if 4Tbz=Bi> then dVk=Ci>
with i=1..5.

755
Fuel Feed Rate at the Twyerh
The fuel feed rate at twyer fft is obtained by adding Afft calculated
from FLC- 1 to the last value of fft. The fuzzy sets chosen for Acp and
Afft are depicted in Figure 8. In Figure 9, the set of 10 fuzzy rules
defining the fuzzy associative memory of the fuzzy controller FLC-3
is displayed.
RESULTS
Our control strategy using linear contruilers gave us excellent
results (mean values over a year): automatic operating rate over W%,
fuel consumption decreased by 2% (3240 MJ/ton), daily production
increased by about 1.5-246, mean deviation decreased regarding
mechanical resistance [4]. We did not yet have the opportunity to test
our fuzzy controller long enough but some improvements regarding
the above mentioned results can be expected. Figure 11 shows the
variables of interest over 10 hours.
Buming zone temperature [“C]

-10 0 io AcC,WI

’1
100 200 300 400 500 [minl
NM NS Z PS PM
Rotational kiln soeed h r n l
2.4 .

-0.05-0.03 0 0.03 0.05-Afft Itodhl 1.6 .

I I
100 200 300 400 500 [min]
Membership functions for Acp and Afft. Fuel feed rate Iton/hl
H, high; L, low; NM, negative medium; NS, negative small;
Z, zero; PS, positive small; PM, positive medium.
6 1
4 .
2 -
L l N M ] NS I Z I PS I
Fuzzy associative memory for the fuzzy closed-loop
controller FLC-3: if 4Cp=Aj and ATbz=Bi> then <Afft=Cj,i> Raw mix feed rate [ton/h]
with j=1..2 and i=1..5.
130.
Very interesting characteristics can be obtained for a fuzzy 120
controller by an appropriate choice of membership functions. The 110.
inputloutput relationship for fuzzy controller FCL-3 with Accp=L is loo.
depicted in Figure 10.
100 200 300 400 500 [min]

Fig. 1k Tbz, vk, fft and frm records.

IMPLEMENTATION
We applied our method to the industrial kiln at HCB Co. EcMpens
plant (Switzerland) which has a capacity of 1900 tons of clinker per
day and obtained excellent results. The program has been entirely
written in the C language and runs on an IBM compatible personal
computer connected by a RS-232 serial link to a set of Programmable
Logical Controller (PLC) boards.

The fuzzy part has been developed using the fuzzyTECH

development software [5] which can give a C code. Both the original
linear controller and the fuzzy part have been linked together in order
to apply the kiln control strategy to the real process.
-100 -50 0 50 100 ATbz [“C]

Fip. 10: Inputloutput relationship for controller FCL-3 with Acp=L.

756
 CONCLUSIONS

In a large industrial process, many variables need to be manipulated

and controlled. When using a typical fuzzy controller, the linguistic
synthesis becomes difficult and time consuming. In this paper, a
different approach to use fuzzy logic has been adopted. We started by
assuming that a control scheme which contains for example linear
controllers exists and works for the process. Then we simply
substituted such controllers by fuzzy ones. In this way, the synthesis
of the fuzzy controllers is very fast and improvements can easily be
obtained.
In comparison with well known market products for rotary cement
kiln control that use a thousand of rules, our controller uses only 30
rules.
REFERENCES

[ I ] H. A. SPANG, A dynamic Model of a Cement Kiln,

Automatica, Vol.8, pp.309-323, 1972.
[2] M. AKALP, Modkle dynamique distribuC d'un four 9 ciment,
Internal Report 1993.02, Institut d'Automatique, 1993.
(31 M. AKALP, R. LONGCHAMP, Control of a Rotary Cement
Kiln, Preprints Vol. I, pp.243-250, IFAC Workshop on
Automatic Control for Quality and Productivity, Istanbul,
Turkey, June 1992:.
[4] M. AKALP, A. DAINA, Doner Cimento Firinlarinin Otomatik
Kontrolu, Otomasyon, Vo1.9, pp.60-66, March 1993.
[5] fuzzyTECH 2.2, Inform GmbH, Aachen, Germany, 1992.

757