Incatools blog

A split range control strategy uses software or hardware-based splitter and two or more final control elements to control a process variable. Split range strategies can be found in different applications across process industries: temperature control with heating/cooling media, large and small valves installed in parallel, pressure control with a vent valve, etc. 

Usually, split range applications are tricky and time-consuming, and you should know what I’m talking about as a process control engineer

Oscillations over the entire range of operation and across the split point, typically improperly selected at 50%, are common in real operation. 

In this blog, we will discuss the usual problems you might face when configuring and tuning a split range strategy and the possible and practical solutions to overcome it.

Batch reactors are used to produce a variety of products in all sectors of process industries, especially in the pharmaceutical, specialty chemicals, wastewater treatment and the beverage sector. The flexibility to use the same equipment to produce different products sometimes makes batch reactor difficult to control. If we add to this the integrating/runaway process response, suboptimal PID control loop tuning, poor control loop elements performance, and an inappropriate process and control design,we might have the perfect recipe for disaster. If you want to learn more about obtaining optimal batch reactor temperature control, keep reading the blog.

There are many critical PID loops in an operating plant. Operations managers typically like to minimise changes on tuning parameters on such PID loops, quite often maintaining the status quo, even if improvements are possible or desirable. The performance of such PID loops could be optimised if they could be inserted in manual mode followed by moving the output a few times, collecting data, and calculating PID tuning using PID tuning software. Unfortunately, operations managers may not allow you to insert this critical loop in manual, so how can you calculate PID tuning parameters for such a loop while maintaining it in closed-loop mode? In this PID tuning example, we’ll show the best practices and pitfalls.

Operations managers have many priorities to juggle in their workday. Some of these activities are completing emergency repairs, resolving instrumentation issues, meeting production targets, preparing and presenting reports. When a company purchases a new APC projectit may fall to the bottom of the priority list due to other activities requiring more attention. Why is it important to start APC activities soon after the contract award? What are the convincing arguments for operations managers that will help them move the APC project higher up the priority list and start implementation as soon as possible?

Advanced Process Control (APC) carries a raft of benefits. Any competent control engineer can list at least a dozen. That list will often contain only quantitative benefits - emphasizing production yields, feedstock flows, product qualities and the like. There are however also other benefits to advanced process control - benefits less strictly numeric, but nonetheless with a huge impact on operating efficiency.

Leading specialty chemicals company, Lanxess Belgium, noticed the plant wasn’t working at its full potential. Many controllers were underperforming and in manual mode. Due to lack of time, the control engineers ran aground to complete optimization. Read in this blog what benefits they gained by using the INCATools software, or download the case study to discover the process and results.

More than a hundred years ago, Sperry Corporation invented automatic pilot control in airplanes. It was magical and scary at the same time. Nowadays, they can anticipate the exact arrival time, other planes nearby, and the weather forecast. It became unimaginable that our planes would fly without it. APC is the automatic pilot in plants. APC projects can maximize your performance and plant's profit. For decades, the chemical process industry has been working with it. It can benefit smaller plants considerably as well. However, proper PID tuning is the first step in an APC project. It is the foundation for your automatic plant pilot, learn in this blog why.

The key objective for a DCS engineer is to make sure automated operations run as smoothly and as safely as possible. You want to keep the operators as happy as possible - which means keeping the alarms to a minimum and prevent operator interventions. The impact of optimal PID tuning on smooth and safe operations and the number of operator interventions, cannot be overestimated. With a fully-booked schedule, PID tuning is often something that has a lesser priority.

In this blog, we want to explain the impact of the PID tuning on the operator interventions. The first objective of this blog is to put PID tuning higher on the priority list. The second aim is to provide you a way to achieve better tuning within a minimum of time and on a first-time-right principle.