Process Control

This book identifies the process as the central factor in plant automation and develops theory and practice to achieve good dynamic performance. Approaches are presented for measurement selection, process modifications, control structure design, and algorithm tuning to achieve good performance over a range of operating conditions. The sequence of topics - modeling, single-loop control and tuning, enhancements, multiloop control, and design - builds the student's ability to analyze increasingly complex systems, culminating in multiloop control design. The full complement of fundamental topics is reinforced by realistic process examples, including challenging end-of-chapter problems. Each technology is analyzed to provide guidelines for design and algorithm tuning; this approach demonstrates how fundamentals can lead to excellent practice and encourages the student to develop sound generalizations. The accompanying workbook and software, in the MATLAB environment, enable students to reproduce and extend the solved problems and design cases in the textbook. The simulations enable students to implement the digital implementations of most methods, for example, model identification, PID algorithm, windup protection, cascade, feedforward, and model predictive control.