UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST INDIES DEPARTMENT OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING CHNG 2006 (CH26B) Process Dynamics and Control I

Midterm Examination: 10:10 AM 12:00 PM, Friday, March16/07 Systems Lab, Ground Floor: Akong - Mathura Chemical Engineering Design Office: Mohammed - Yarsien
Answer all questions. Copy the files created in each question onto a floppy disk using the suggested filenames. Label your disk with your name, student number and the number of the computer you used. All written work you wish to have marked must be written on the question paper. Liquid aniline at 200 C and 500 kPa is charged to a cooling vessel with volumetric flowrate 5 m3/hr (see Fig. 1). A 100 kg/hr air stream also enters at 32 C and 500 kPa. The tank is a vertical cylinder of volume 10 m3. Control valves V1-V4 are linear-trim and designed for a pressure drop of 200 kPa at the nominal flowrates. At the initial steadystate, the level in the tank is 50% of scale and the liquid effluent temperature is 60 C.
Air
V1

PC

FC

Offgas
V3

Hot Liquid Aniline

V2 LC

V4 TC

Cooled Aniline to Storage

V5

Cooling Water

Figure 1 - Continuous stirred tank cooling.

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When fully opened, the cooling water valve can pass enough fluid to remove qmax = 4 10 6 kJ/hr of heat. The bottoms product pump delivers a pressure rise of 300 kPa with an efficiency of 75%. The range of the temperature transmitter is 0 200 C and that of the flow transmitter is 0 10 m3/hr. The pressure transmitter is calibrated for 100 500 kPa. The temperature control loop is subject to a measurement delay of 3 minutes. (a) Specify the action (reverse or direct) required for each of the controllers in Fig. 1. Explain your answers. [16 marks]

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(b) Construct a steady-state simulation of this process using HYSYS.Plant. Name the file test (ss).hsc. When building this model, Choose the UNIQUAC property package. Move to the Binary Coeffs tab and left-click the Unknowns Only button to have HYSYS estimate the missing activity model interaction parameters. Specify the proportional gain K c and integral time I of the flow controller as 0.7 %/ % and 0.1 minutes, respectively. Set the tuning constants of the pressure controller to 2 %/% and 10 min. Use a value of K c in the LC which will keep the tank level in the range 40 60%. (For the purpose of computing this controller gain, the bias and setpoint may be assumed fixed at 50%.) Outline your reasoning in the space below.

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Select the Signal Processing option of the flow controller PID block and install a PV filter with a time constant of 5 seconds. Configure a strip chart for each controller to sample the PV, SP and OP every twelve seconds and trend the preceding twelve hours of operation. Change the span of the PV axis on the temperature controller chart to 20-100 C. Choose the Direct Q duty source when sizing the temperature control valve. After completing the TC block configuration (PV range specified, control valve sized, etc.) ensure that its output has been initialized to the correct steady-state value. Create an additional strip chart recorder (call it Export) which would facilitate the export of all relevant control variables to a CSV file. Uncheck the Active box for Pressure Rise on the Dynamics tab of the pump and select Power instead. Activate the dynamic pressure specifications for each boundary stream on the flowsheet. Left-click the Dynamics Assistant button on the toolbar to ensure that no problems will be encountered when transferring your model to Dynamics Mode. [45 marks]

(c) Switch to Dynamics Mode. Place the flow, pressure and level controllers in Automatic, run the simulation for one minute and then save your file as test (dyn).hsc. [4 marks] (d) Open test (dyn).hsc and save it as testd.hsc. Simulate 5 hours of open-loop operation (i.e. with the TC on manual), introducing a 5% step decrease in the controller output at time t = 60 minutes. Fit a first-order-plus-deadtime model to the reaction curve and describe the method used to estimate each parameter. Save your case file, then close it. [N.B. Express the process steady-state gain in dimensionless form, i.e. with engineering units %/%, noting that the thermocouple was calibrated for 0 200 C.] [10 marks]

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(e) Estimate the surface area available for heat transfer as well as the flowrate (kgmole/hr) and molar holdup of water in the cooling jacket. The height of the jacket is 3.2 m and its inside and outside diameters are 2 m and 2.15 m, respectively. The overall heat transfer coefficient is approximately 10,000 kJ/hr m2 K. The heat capacity of water may be taken as 75 kJ/kgmole K and it enters at 32 C. Assume further that the cooling jacket is full and that the fluid in it is well-mixed. [15 marks]

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(f) Open test (ss).hsc and save it as test2 (ss).hsc. Delete the temperature controller and rebuild it using the From Utility Fluid duty source. The minimum and maximum water flowrates are 0 and 4170 kgmole/hr. Switch to Dynamics Mode. Place the flow, pressure and level controllers in Automatic, run the simulation for one minute and then save your file as test2 (dyn).hsc [5 marks] (g) Open test2 (dyn).hsc and save it as testg.hsc. Repeat part (d) and compare the estimated first-order-plus-deadtime models. Which duty source option (Direct Q or From Utility Fluid) do you think provides a more realistic simulation of the cooler temperature dynamics? [5 marks]

OMITTED

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END OF QUESTION PAPER

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