Department of Chemical Process Engineering

Malaysia-Japan International Institute of Technology (MJIIT)

UNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI MALAYSIA (UTM)
Kuala Lumpur

SMJC 3721
CHEMICAL PROCESS ENGINEERING LABORATORY 2

LAB REPORT
B1 : Liquid Level Control System

LECTURER : PROF TOMOYA TSUJI

: DR NORHUDA ABD MANAF

GROUP 23
NO NAME MATRIC NO

1 SITI JUNAIDAH BINTI MOHD MANSHOR A17MJ0138

2 SITI HAJAR BINTI ABU SAMAH A17MJ0231

3 SYAHEERAH NAZEEHAH BINTI SOPIAN A17MJ0143

4 NURUL ZAIRA ISKARINA BINTI ZAINAL A17MJ0125

5 NASIMAH BINTI RAHIM A17MJ0094

TABLE OF CONTENTS
 CONTENTS PAGE

1.0 INTRODUCTION
1.1 Experimental Background
1.2 Objective
1.3 Experimental scope

2.0 METHODOLOGY
2.1 Equipment and materials
2.2 Experimental procedure/methodology

3.0 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

3.1 Data analysis and discussion
3.2 Answers to the question in the experiment module

4.0 CONCLUSIONS

5.0 RECOMMENDATIONS

REFERENCES

APPENDICES

1.0 INTRODUCTION

1.1 EXPERIMENTAL BACKGROUND

Before many years, level control has been a big issue in the industrial processes. The
controlling of liquid level is ideal in most industrial processes such as food processing, nuclear
power plants, water purification systems, industrial chemical processing, boilers and more.
Although, most industrial problems such as controlling the speed of motor, or fluid level in a
tank, or temperature of the furnace are because of the installation of control process when the
control concepts had not been properly understood (Dutton et al, 1997). But, the inventive of
control engineer may often overcome these challenges by producing a well-behaved piece of
equipment.
A plant can be controlled manually or automatically and the control system consists of a
plant with its actuators, sensors and a controller. Manual controlling process of a plant are not as
accurate as automatic control. An automatic controller is made up of devices, electronic circuits,
computer, or mechanical connection. The interface between the plant and the controller need
actuators (control elements) to give control action.
In many industries process such as petrochemical industries, paper making industries and
water treatment industries are using the tank system to control the liquid level. The liquid level
must be controlled by the proper controller. The objective of the controller in the level control is
to maintain a level set point at a given value and be able to accept new set point. The
conventional proportional- integral- derivative (PID) is commonly utilized in controlling the
level. On the other hand, the fuzzy logic controller (FLC) is also popularly implemented in many
practical industries applications.
There are many alternative controller design theories that can be used to control the level
of liquid in tanks. Proportional integral derivative control is part of the control strategies that
uses to control the level of liquid. P control, PI control and PID control will be experimented to
determine which is the best controller for liquid level control. Even though the PID controller is
commonly used in industrial process, the tuning of PID controller is a main issue in particular for
the system’s characteristic which has bigger time delay and high order system [Underwood,
2000]. Usually, only an expert or experienced workers are able to monitor and tune the PID
controllers based on their experience in industrial process.

1.2 OBJECTIVE
● To interpret the piping and instrument diagram (P&ID)
● To understand the process flow of the liquid level process control (single loop level
control).
● To understand the behaviour of liquid level process and plant operation.
 ● To demonstrate proportional action, proportional and integral action and proportional,
integral and derivative action on liquid level process.

1.3 EXPERIMENTAL SCOPE

The scopes of the experiment are The scope of this experiment is to compare the efficiency
of P, PI and PID controller on liquid level control system.

2.0 METHODOLOGY

2.1 EQUIPMENT AND MATERIALS

● P and ID

2.2 EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE/METHODOLOGY

Start-up procedure

1. The main power supply was switched on.

2. The emergency stop button was released and Main switch was turned on.

3. The facility air supply was turned on.

4. Flash drive was inserted into a USB port and chose PLC.

5. On the HOME screen, START button was pressed then “Process History View” button on

bottom menu.

6. On trending graph screen, data logging START icon was clicked to download the data to the

drive.

7. Positions of the valves were set accordingly as in Table 7.

Hand Valve Position Check List

101HV-001 Open

open
101HV-002

Fully open
102HV-001

Close when tank full

102HV-002 (Inlet)

102HV-003 (Drain) Close

Table 7: Hand valve position for Level Controller.

Understandings The Process Behavior-Liquid Flow Control (MANUAL MODE)

Understanding the Process Behavior-Liquid Flow Control (AUTO MODE)
 P Control PI Control PID Control

Gain 0.5 0.5 0.5

Integral 0 40 40

Derivative 0 0 5

Time started

Time ended

Disturbance Time

Table 9: PID Controller Setting for Level Process Controller

Shut-down procedure

1. Pumps 102-P-01 was switched off.

2. The controller 101LIC-001 was set to manual mode.
3. MV was set to 0% and valve 101HV-002 was fully closed as to let PV measured 0mm
H_2 O through sight glass.
4. Both air supply and Instrument air were switched off and chose HOME menu and
pressed EXIT.
5. Emergency stop button was pushed and both panel power supply and main switch were
switched off.

3.0 RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

3.1 DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

In this experiment of Multivariable Control System, results can be presented in terms of

tables and graphs that will be based from the tables. There will be two tables for this experiment
which are Process behaviour data Manual Level Process Controller and PID Controller Setting
for Level Process Controller

Time Observation At Control Panel At Plant

time (s)
MV (%) PV ( mmH2O) 101LT - 001 (mmH2O)

10:28:54 30 0 672.75 676.42

10:30:04 30 20 672.55 845.71

10:31:12 30 40 672.73 862.98

10:32:09 30 60 672.57 863.66

10:33:08 30 80 672.62 864.03

 10:34:34 30 100 672.69 864.09
Table 2 : Process behaviour data Manual Level Process Controller

P Control PI Control PID Control

Gain 0.5 0.5 0.5

Integral 0 40 40

Derivative 0 0 5

Time Started 10:52:59 10:57:29 10:58:55

Time Ended 10:56:03 10:58:53 11:00:17

Disturbance Time 10:54:46 10:57:44 11:00:03

Table 3 : PID Controller Setting for Level Process Controller

Graph 1 : Pressure vs Time for Manual Controller

 Graph 2 : Pressure vs Time for Manual Controller

Graph 3 : Process Variable vs Time for Manual Controller

Based on the above graph, when the time at 10:29:34 it constantly decreasing and rose
rapidly at time 10:30:10. This is probably due to some technical problems such as we adjust the
position of hand valve of 101HV-002 during the experiment. Then, as the PV increases, the MV
will also increases. Based on the theory, the value of PV at plant and control panel supposed to
be no difference in pressure value. Unfortunately from the experiment data that has been
collected it shows that the theoretical data is completely opposite from experimental data but it
can be seen that the pattern of the graph is nearly the same. This is due to the dynamics of the
machines that cause the pressure value at plant and control panel is different.

In auto mode, there were three control in PID Controller which were P Control, PI
Control and PID Control. There are thousands of combinations of P, I and D values, however
only one combination will drive the most optimal process towards achieving the desired value or
set point. Poor combination of P, I and D values directs the process toward undesirable result. In
order to find the optimum P, I and D values for a process, several techniques have been
introduced and one of them is Single Loop Level Control. The set point (SP) value for all
controllers have been set to 300 mmH2O.

Graph 4 : Pressure vs Time for P Controller

In P Controller, this controller requires biasing or manual reset when used alone. This is
because it never reaches the steady state condition. Although P Controller provides stability of
the process variable with good speed of response, there will always be an error between the set
point and actual process variable. Most of the cases, this controller is provided with manual reset
or biasing in order to reduce the error when used alone. However, zero error state cannot be
achieved by this controller. Hence there will always be a steady state error in the P Controller
response. Graph 4 shows the pressure(mmH2O) against time. When gain was set to 0.5, the
process variable (PV) is gradually decreased while manipulated variable (MV) steadily increase
at 10:54:43. This event occur when disturbance is introduced for ten seconds where the valve
101HV-002 is closed. But after 10 seconds, the graph for process variable (PV) is dramatically
increasing then slightly decreasing until it reached the set point. The response time for this P
Controller was 200 seconds. The loop takes too long to get to its set point after a disturbance. In
this P Controller, the steady state error is estimated to be 0.15%.

Graph 5 : Pressure VS Time For PI Controller

Besides, Graph 5 shows the pressure (mmH2O) against time for PI Controller. For the
integral term it is also known as reset control. The integral integrates the error and is responsible
for eliminating the steady-state error offset value. The value of the integral time, tells how much
weight is given to the integral action. Given enough time, integral action will drive the controller
output far enough to reduce the error to zero. In this PI Control, the parameter is set to 0.5 for
gain and the integral is 40. To achieve the set point, The response time for this controller took 84
seconds. This is currently the best response time if to be compared to P Controller as it has a
faster response time to achieve the set point. The PV in Graph 5 kept increasing constantly after
the disturbance was introduced and then maintained until it reached the set point.

Graph 6 : Pressure VS Time For PID Controller

Last but not least, for PID Controller shown in Graph 6 where the pressure(mmH2O)
against time. In a PID controller, the derivative mode provides more control action sooner than
is possible with either P or PI control. This reduces the effect of a disturbance and shortens the
time it takes for the level to return to its set point. When the value of gain is 0.5, integral is 40
and derivative is set to 5, the settling time took about 82 seconds to achieve the set point. The
graph continuously going constant before reaching the set point. It did not oscillate and reached
the set value without oscillation and with only one overshoot.

Overall, in this experiment, Proportional + integral + derivative control was used to fix
both steady state error and transient state of the system and to reach the desired reference value
within the shortest time with the highest accuracy. The effects of PID parameters on the system
were examined and PID controller was observed to produce the ideal results. This is due to the
fast time response.
3.2 ANSWER TO THE QUESTIONS IN THE EXPERIMENT MODULE

1. Based on the process behaviour graph, discuss the process response of PV as MV

increases.

Based on the graph, as the PV increases the MV will also increases. According to what we have
learnt, the value of PV at plant and control panel should not too different from one another in
pressure value. But the data obtained for this experiment is different from the theoretical data but
the flow of the graph can be seen which is almost the same from one another. The reason behind
it is because the dynamics of the machines that causing the pressure value and control panel is
slightly far from one another.

2. Identify the elements of the level control group.

Element Tag Unit

Process 101LT-001 mmH2O

Measurement 101LT-001 mmH2O

Controller 101LIC-001 mmH2O

Final Control Element 101LCV-001 %

3. Why does the P remain unchanged when the MV is set to 100% for Manual
Mode?

P controller response are in a steady state error because it is rest in a manual mode which is
usually used for most cases in an experiment.
4.0 CONCLUSIONS
To conclude, a PID controller is a standard instrument used in industrial control
applications. A PID controller can be used for regulation of speed, temperature, flow, pressure
and other process variables. PID controllers offer good performance in a variety of operating
conditions and they can be operated in a simple, direct manner. They can be stand alone or
embedded, and they can be used for one or many control loops. They can also be combined with
sequential logic and advanced control functions to form complex automation systems.
For this experiment, there are some errors that need to be improved, the accuracy of the
apparatus itself is low as the apparatus only use sensor to read the data and it takes a long time to
get an accurate reading and to wait for the reading of setpoint and the process variable to merge
their line in data. Other than that, only PID controller is the best controller because it is more
accurate and stable that P and PI controller.
From this experiment, we met the objective of the experiment by interpreting the piping
and instrument diagram (P&ID) and understand the process flow of the liquid level process
control (single loop level control). We also succeed to understand the behaviour of liquid level
process and plant operation. Last but not least is to demonstrate proportional action, proportional
and integral action and proportional, integral and derivative action on liquid level process.

5.0 RECOMMENDATIONS

REFERENCES

https://www.ukessays.com/essays/engineering/water-level-control-system-of-the-tank-
engineering-essay.php

https://www.southernavionics.com/remote-control-unit-and-connection-options

Manual Control System

http://homepages.ed.ac.uk/jwp/control06/controlcourse/restricted/course/second/course/lecture2.
html

APPENDICES