(436f) Process Control Laboratory Using Unit Ops Equipment And Honeywell Plantscape

The University of Tulsa has recently revised its process controls class from one 3-hour course to one 2-hour course covering transient modeling and one 3-hour course in advanced control techniques with laboratory experiments. While many departments have experiments in process controls, ours is different in that we use equipment from our unit operations laboratory which is controlled with Honeywell Plantscape software. The students have the benefit of familiarity with the equipment, and they gain experience with software used in industry.

The first experiment is tuning a PID feedback controller for the flow manifold used with the double pipe heat exchanger experiment. The second experiment is tuning a feedforward controller (lead-lag unit) for the liquid level at the bottom of the packed tower absorber. The third experiment is cascade control of the temperature of an oil bath, and this is the only experiment not part of the unit operations lab. A fourth experiment, demonstration only for this first year, is multivariable control of a distillation column.

This presentation will discuss the challenges associated with using the unit operations equipment and Honeywell Plantscape for process controls experiments and how we overcame those challenges.