Category
Control Design/Simulation
Products Used
LabVIEW 8.2, PID Toolkit, LabVIEW real time module and DSC module
Flownex version 7.009
The challenge
Designing a control system for a First Of A Kind (FOAK) pebble bed experimental
facility (Heat Transfer Test Facility (HTTF)) and testing the controllers before the plant
is complete. This project and its timeous results contribute to the development of the
Pebble Bed Modular Reactor.
In order to design controllers without an actual plant requires a soft plant where
controllers are applied on a simulation of the actual plant. Ideally this simulation must be
able to predict the exact plant behavior especially during the transient events where the
thermal inertia of the plant should be taken into account. This simulation must also be
easy to use and manipulate. The designing and implementation of this simulator must
contribute to the timeous completion of the project, thus it should not add any
unnecessary time requirements.
The Solution
The solution was the development of a LabVIEW-Flownex engineering simulator. An
engineering simulator can be defined as follows:
Engineering is the design, analysis, and/or construction of works for practical purposes. 1
An Engineering Simulator is used to design, implement and test or analyze certain key
characteristics and/or requirements of an actual plant/ works before or during the actual
construction and commissioning thereof. It can also be used to assist and train technical
personnel.
1
Wikipedia - The free encyclopedia
2
Wikipedia - The free encyclopedia
The requirements for the engineering simulator are defined as follows:
Design and test controllers for a First Of A Kind (FOAK) plant before the actual
plant is commissioned.
Actual plant Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) and controllers
should be used.
The exact dynamic plant behaviour should be predicted by taking the thermal
inertia of the plant into account.
Simulation should be easy to use and manipulate.
Actual plant look and feel should be replicated in the simulator to enable training
of operators.
Should assist in fault detection during commissioning.
Fast and user friendly implementation of simulator to contribute to timeous
completion of project.
Real time simulations.
The HPTU plant operating conditions vary such that the coolant density for two tests can
differ with a factor of 50 and the mass flows with a factor of 1000 in a Nitrogen
environment. One of the control challenges involved the control of a heated sphere power
3
www.flownex.com
input at a constant offset surface temperature of 50 C above the cold nitrogen gas stream
for various mass flow rates at different densities.
The HPTU is already in the operational phase but the LabVIEW Flownex engineering
simulator was not used for the design of the controllers on this project. The controllers
were designed and implemented during the commissioning phase of the project. It was
planned to design the controller inputs by linking another SCADA and controller to a
Flownex model of the HPTU. The PID controller inputs obtained by this simulator were
then added to the LabVIEW 7 controllers used to control the HPTU plant. The idea was
to eliminate the need for costly actual plant start-ups and shut downs to obtain the control
parameters for LabVIEW. The difference in control algorithms used in the simulator
compared to the LabVIEW controllers caused the LabVIEW controllers to behave
different to the anticipated behaviour obtained from the other control software package.
As a result the programming of the controllers caused a lot of precious down time during
the commissioning of the plant. Most of the controller inputs had to be obtained by
testing on the actual plant. This implied that each commissioning modification to the
plant caused the design of the controller to halt, since the plant could not be started. The
opposite was also true: the commissioning tests was greatly dependent and delayed due to
controller testing and programming. Although the plant was delivered on time for the
start of the operational phase, great amounts of overtime and expensive rush job costs
could have been avoided.
Adjustment of the time step during simulation to get the optimum performance
and accuracy was not possible.
Most of the controller inputs had to be obtained by testing on the actual plant.
Test section
Main Heat
Pump exchanger
Pump
Low flow
Heat
exchanger
Stem cooler supply pumps
Figure 3: HTTU basic plant layout.
The HTTU project thus required a real time simulator that can be used to design and test
the controllers and control algorithms before the construction of the plant is complete.
LabVIEW is used to develop the SCADA system for the HPTU and the HTTU and in
order to simulate any control scenario correctly the simulator need to use LabVIEW for
its control applications.
The motivation to use LabVIEW and Flownex for the simulator involved the following:
Flownex is a very accurate systems CFD thermal fluid code.
Flownex is an easy to use systems CFD code and has much faster simulation
times compared to its contenders. This makes for an ideal simulator engine:
Quick and Accurate.
Flownex and LabVIEW use the same type of graphical programming
elements, functions and wires.
Data logging is handled by LabVIEW through shared variables logging
functions, thus no extra data logging programming is required that simplifies
the setup of the simulator.
By using the same language for the simulator and the control system the
developed controllers or PID control algorithms can only be downloaded
directly to the compactFieldPoint controller.
This simulator setup does not require any pre determined simulation sets.
This implies that the user can adjust any variable at any time.
The user can investigate any plant behavior without putting the plant at risk.
The user can also increase or decrease the speed of the simulator to get the
optimum performance and accuracy.
For very large or complex simulation models the simulation times can become slower
than real time, for example the model of the High Temperature Test Unit. The Flownex
network shown in Figure 4 is a simplified network of the complete HTTU plant. This
model consists of very accurate and detailed models for each system in the plant as the
data acquired will be used for controller design. This involved models for the pebble bed,
the heat exchangers, the water jacket model, auxiliary systems, etc.
78 79 65 42 43
70 71
Gas
3 46
W ater
Main Heat 6
9000
RS H
58 53
exchanger
19 7 26 8
T P
9001 4 22 2 9 24 10
RS TT871 Spru its tuk
82 64 41 40
47 74
25
TT961
9002
56 41 40 37 Watertank
59 10 50
81 80
Po mp E520 CV910
72 TT911
Test Section 73 33
39
39 30
36
36
24
31
33
32
34
26
28
27
P
38 RS
Flow 47 52
35 48
1
meters 38 46 48
12
89
13
13
50
31
83
34
RS
heat exchanger
86 87
78 79 75
56 30 23 32
P
TT836 TT837
9004 53 51 29 35 28
RS H
control
85 45 44
77 TT910
90 57 55 51
84
76 45 44
54 11 88
82 12 80 11
TT856
69
77 76
68 Blower+vessel
110 P
72
108
Cooling tower inlet
64
66 100 68 117 111 112
T T P
1 65 99 83 58 116 95 110
71
107 108 109 119
TT861 M ain s water drain CV860
63
121
63 105 106 107 85
20
0.1kg/s deur WJ Waterjacket 111
122
119
130
123
113
114
89
15 52 98 67 3 114 Pumps
115
109
125
M ains s up ply CV861
105 104 103 102 124
92 Sandfilter 94
115
103 61 60 102 112 91
93 96 91
92 97 90
74 69 118
20 73 126
67
Antrasiet
101
87 88 84 55 100 117
75 60 127
120 14 128
101 Silikasand
93 23 17 86 16 118
16 17 94
95
59 96
Figure 4: LabVIEW Flownex engineering simulator provides the integration between the soft plant and
the actual LabVIEW user interface.
The only method of increasing the speed of any simulation is either increasing the
computer performance or decreasing the simulation accuracy. The LabVIEW-Flownex
simulator has the solution for this all known computer performance problem. By
subdividing the models of the plant into separate Flownex models, the plant can be
simulated separately and if the user wants to investigate the effect of the plant as a
complete model the subdivided models can be linked together. If the user requires to
increase the performance of the simulator even further as a result of a much larger and
more detailed plant, the models can be divided between more than one computer.
WORKSTATION 1,2 or N
The heater element for example is positioned in the centre of the annular graphite pebble
bed as shown in Figure 6. The heater element, pebble bed and water jacket, which forms
only a part of the main thermal fluid Flownex network shown in Figure 4, can thus be
modelled as a separate Flownex model as shown in Figure 7. This separate model can
with the help of the shared variables in LabVIEW be linked to the other separate detailed
models on the same or different computers or processors. A typical section of the
LabVIEW programming to enable the communication between LabVIEW and Flownex
inputs and outputs are shown in Figure 8. The combined simulation power, speed and
accuracy are then integrated and displayed on the LabVIEW SCADA and control
interface as shown in Figure 9. The figure illustrates the behavior of the test section
model of the heater, pebble bed and waterjacket during transient events specified by the
user on the LabVIEW interface. The display for the different interlocks and the fault or
bridge indications are also shown in Figure 9.
Graphite Graphite central reflector
Graphite spheres
in Pebble bed
1200mm
Water Jacket
Heater Elements
Figure 6: Heater element position relative to the test section and waterjacket.
Heater Water
Element jacket
Graphite
reflectors
Figure 7: Heater element, pebble bed and water jacket Flownex model in the test section.
Figure 8: Typical LabVIEW programming to link inputs and outputs to and from LabVIEW and Flownex.
Figure 9: LabVIEW - Flownex engineering simulator interface for the heater, pebble bed and water jacket
in the test section during simulation.
Conclusions
Using the LabVIEW-Flownex engineering simulator the controllers have already been
designed by the time the plant commissioning starts. There are also sufficient operators
trained before the commissioning even commence.
Thus, to summarize the advantages and capabilities of the LabVIEW-Flownex simulator:
No predetermined simulation setups are required, the user can simulate without
stopping the simulator.
The simulation speed can be adjusted by increasing the computer load or by adjusting
the accuracy during simulation.
Simulation speed can be increased by either using a faster computer or by splitting up
the models on different computers.
The simulator setup/connection to Flownex is very easy to use.
The simulator setup file is small - approximately 36 Kbytes.
The Flownex models can provide accurate results at faster than real time speed.