Properly tuned loops are critical to efficient, effective plant performance. However, constant changes in the plant environment mean that proportional-integral-derivative (PID) tuning cannot be a set-and-forget procedure. This poses a problem for many modern plants,...
At AIChE Spring21+17th GCPS, James Beall presented, An Activity Report on the Newly Formed ISA 5.9 Subcommittee on the PID Algorithm, to address the lack of no standards or technical references related to the Proportional, Integral, Derivative (PID) control algorithm.
When the plant is not running the way it should, with excessive variability, alarm conditions or sub-optimized performance, plant engineers often connect with the Emerson Production Performance consultants. I had the opportunity to sit down and record a podcast with Emerson’s James Beall who is a member of the team.
It is impossible to miss the shift toward more sustainable operations—driven by new social and consumer expectations—in nearly every industry across the globe. Chemical producers are no exception, as industry leaders take advantage of digital technologies and expanded...
Emerson’s James Beall presented Novel Techniques to Improve Polymer Reactor Tuning at AIChE virtual conference based on a project he worked on. Reactor control is complex with many interactions between control loops. The way to tackle this challenge is to start by identifying the process dynamics and create a realistic process simulation to identify improvements in the control strategy to address the complexities.
Control valve response is a critical factor in successful control strategies and process variability. In a ControlGlobal.com article, Responsible control valve response, Emerson’s Greg McMillan and James Beall discussed the efforts underway to include valve responsiveness into the ISA 75.25 Control Valve Dynamic Testing standard.
In the DeltaV discussion forum in the Emerson Exchange 365 community, there is a post, Question about Dynamic reset limit and “Use PV for bkcal” options. What caught my eye was a response by Emerson’s James Beall describing dynamic reset limiting and specifically how it is performed in the DeltaV distributed control system controller.
In manufacturing processes with flowing fluids, control valves are among the most important equipment to keep the process operating smoothly and reliably. For those not experienced in their design and operation, AIChE's CEP magazine has a great article, Evaluate...
The cold section of an ethylene plant is responsible for cooling and purifying the product-grade ethylene, propylene and other bi-products from the cracking furnaces. Cracked gas is cooled in transfer-line exchangers which produce steam from the effluent gas energy. Gas is further cooled with water in the quench column, scrubbed and dried before being compressed in the cracked gas compressor and fed to the cold box.
One of the longstanding events for knowledge exchange among instrumentation and automation professionals and students is the Instrumentation and Automation Symposium for the Process Industries held annually at Texas A&M University. The next one, its 75th...
The history of model predictive control (MPC) dates back to the early 1970s invented at Shell Oil and was known as Dynamic Matrix Control. MPC was designed at that time to solve largescale control challenges. As technology advanced, this technology could be more...
Because they directly touch the process flow, control valves play a significant role in the stability, robustness and variability in the process. One bad-acting control valve can create large problems for safe and reliable operations. At last week's AIChE Spring...
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The opinions expressed here are the personal opinions of the authors. Content published here is not read or approved by Emerson before it is posted and does not necessarily represent the views and opinions of Emerson.