Feedback Control Strategies for a Continuous Industrial Fluidized-Bed Granulation Process

COTABARREN, IVANA; BERTIN, DIEGO; BUCALA, VERONICA; PIÑA, JULIANA

POWDER TECHNOLOGY

ELSEVIER SCIENCE SA

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2015 vol. 283 p. 415 - 432

0032-5910

This paper focuses on enhancing the operation of industrial granulation circuits via the design and performanceevaluation of different control strategies. Particularly, the control strategies were implemented on a ureaflowsheet simulator based on the Uhde fluidized-bed granulation technology (UFT), previously developed inthe gPROMS modeling environment (Process System Enterprise) and validated against experimental data byour research group. First of all, an effective strategy for variable pairing in MIMO systems through RelativeGain Array analysis was tested. Continuing with the control system design, the controller parameter tuningwas performed coupling an integral of time absolute error method with an optimization strategy. Afterward,the ability of single-loop feedback controllers (PI) to reject operational disturbances and track desired setpointswas analyzed. Multiple-loop feedback strategies, such as cascade control were also implemented toimprove controller performance. All the studied control loops were effective to either eliminate disturbancesin the granulation circuit variables or to reach new set-points for the controlled variables, although it is demonstratedthat the cascade configuration outperforms the single-loop feedback control strategy. Summarizing, thiscontribution provides granulation process engineers with useful control strategies for solving typical transientoperational challenges.