Dr.

Haresh Manyar

Mathematical Modelling for

Process Control

To develop a control system for a chemical process which will

guarantee that the operational objectives of our process are
satisfied in the presence of ever changing disturbances.
Experimental approach:

- physical equipment in place

- change input variables to get data for output variables
- costly and time consuming
- can not be done before chemical process construction
Theoretical approach:
- we need a set of mathematical equations (differential,
algebraic) whose solution yields the dynamic or static
behaviour of chemical process.

State variables and state equations for a chemical process

To characterize a system and understand its behaviour, we need:
A set of fundamental dependent quantities to define the
natural state of a given system
a set of equations in the above variables-which will describe
how the state of the system changes with time
- Mass
- Energy
- Momentum

State variables
Convenient measurements:
Density
Concentration
Temperature
Flowrate

State equations are derived from the Principle of Conservation of

Fundamental Quantities.

Amount of S
Amount of S
Accumulation of S Flow of S
Flow of S
generated within consumed within
within a system
in the system out of the system the system
the system

time period
time period
time period
time period
time period

The quantity S can be one of the following fundamental quantities:

- total mass,
- mass of individual components
- total energy, and
- momentum.

Commonly used forms of balance equations

Total Mass Balance

d( V)
iFi jFj
dt
i inlet
j outlet

Mass Balance on a component A

d(nA ) d(cA V)

cA Fi cA Fj rV
dt
dt
i inlet
j outlet
i

Total Energy Balance

dE d(U K P)

Fi hi Fj hj Q Wg
dt
dt
i inlet
j outlet
i

State Equations for the Stirred Tank Heater

Lets apply the conservation principle
on the total mass and total energy
(a)Total mass

Accumulation Flow of mass Flow of mass

of mass
in the system out of the system

time
time
time
Ah
i Fi F
dt
Assuming constant density (independent of temperature),

dh
Fi F
dt

State Equations for the Stirred Tank Heater

(b) Total Energy

Accumulation Input of
output of
energy supplied
of total energy total energy total energy by steam

time
time
time
time
d [ AhC p (T Tref )]
FiC p (Ti Tref ) FC p (T Tref ) Q
dt
Where Cp is the specific heat capacity of liquid in tank and Tref is the reference
temperature where specific enthalpy of liquid is assumed to be zero.
Rearranging the above equation gives following state equation:

Ah

dT
Q
Fi (Ti T )
dt
C p

State Equations for the Stirred Tank Heater

dh
A Fi F
dt

Ah

State equations

dT
Q
Fi (Ti T )
dt
C p

State variables: h,T

output variables: h,T (both measured)
Input variables:
- disturbances: Ti, Fi

- manipulated variables

Q, F (for feedback control)

Fi (for feedforward control)

State equations along with state variables constitute mathematical model

(left hand side indicates rate of accumulation of mass or energy over time)

Analysis of the
dynamic and static behaviour
of the stirred tank heater

Assuming that the tank heater is at steady-state,

the situation is described as follows:
Rate of accumulation is set zero.

Fi ,s Fs 0

and

Fi ,s (Ti ,s Ts )

Qs
0
C p

dh
Fi F
dt
dT
Q
Ah
Fi (Ti T )
dt
C p
A

Case 1: disturbance: the inlet temperature decreases by 10%.

liquid level in the tank remains same, h=hs. (check state equation of mass)
temperature of liquid in the tank, T will start decreasing with time.

We notice that after a certain time, the tank

heater again reaches steady state conditions.

steady-state situation:

Fi ,s Fs 0

and

Fi ,s (Ti ,s Ts )

Qs
0
C p

dh
Fi F
dt
dT
Q
Ah
Fi (Ti T )
dt
C p
A

Case 2: disturbance: the inlet Flowrate decreases by 10%.

liquid level in the tank decreases with time
temperature of liquid in the tank, T will start increasing with time.

Again, we notice that after a certain time, the tank heater again reaches
steady state conditions.

Dead-Time
( transportation lag or pure delay or distance-velocity lag):
So far, it has been assumed that whenever a change takes place in
one of the input variables (disturbances, manipulated variables), its effect
is instantaneously observed in the state variables and the outputs.
This is contrary to the physical experience, which indictates that
whenever an input variable of a system changes, there is a time interval
(short or long) during which no effect is observed on the system itself.
This time interval is called Dead time.

volume of the pipe

A.L
L
td

seconds
volumetric flow rate A.U av U av
Tout (t) Tin (t - t d )

Degrees of Freedom Analysis

To simulate a process, we must first make sure that the

out-put variables of model equations (variables on left
hand side) can be solved in terms of the in-put variables
(variables on the right hand side).

dh
Fi F
dt

Ah

dT
Q
Fi (Ti T )
dt
C p

In order for the model to have a unique solution, the

number of unknown variables must equal the number of
independent model equations.
f = (number of variables)- (number of equations)

Degrees of Freedom Analysis

for Process Control
The degrees of freedom NF is the number or process variables
that must be specified in order to be able to determine the
remaining process variables.
If a dynamic model of the process is available, NF can be
determined from a relation that was introduced earlier,

N F NV N E
where NV is the total number of process variables, and NE is
the number of independent equations.

For process control applications, it is very important to determine the

maximum number of process variables that can be independently
controlled, that is, to determine the control degrees of freedom, NFC:
Definition. The control degrees of freedom, NFC, is the number of
process variables (e.g., temperatures, levels, flow rates, compositions)
that can be independently controlled.

In order to make a clear distinction between NF and NFC, we will

refer to NF as the model degrees of freedom and NFC as the control
degrees of freedom.
Note that NF and NFC are related by the following equation,

NF NFC ND

where ND is the number of disturbance variables (i.e., input variables that

cannot be manipulated.)

General Rule. For many practical control problems, the control

degrees of freedom NFC is equal to the number of independent material
and energy streams that can be manipulated.

Figure : Two examples where all three process streams

cannot be manipulated independently.

Example: Determine NF and NFC for the steam-heated, stirred-tank

system modeled by Eqs. 1-2. Assume that only the steam pressure Ps
can be manipulated.

dh
A Fi F
dt
dT
Q
Ah
Fi (Ti T )
dt
C p

Solution
In order to calculate NF from Eq. 1, we need to determine NV and
NE. The dynamic model contains two equations (NE = 2) and six
process variables (NV = 5): Fs, Ti, Fi, F and T.
Thus, NF = 5 2 = 3.
If the feed temperature Ti and flow rate Fi are considered to be
disturbance variables, ND = 2 and thus NFC = 1 from Eq. (10-2).
It would be reasonable to use this two degrees of freedom to
control temperature T by manipulating steam pressure, Fs and .