GUIDELINES FOR COMMON CONTROL LOOPS

Guidelines for selection of controller type (P, PI, etc) and controller setting are available for
common process variables such as flow rate, liquid level, gas pressure, temperature and
composition.
FLOW RATES
Flow control loops are widely used in the process industries. For example, half of the control
loops in oil refineries are used for flow control. Flow and pressure control loops are
characterized by fast responses (on the order of seconds), with essentially no time delay. The
process dynamics result from compressibility (in a gas stream) or inertial effects (in a liquid) plus
control valve dynamics for large diameter pipelines. Disturbances in flow control systems tend to
be frequent but generally small. Most of the disturbances are high-frequency noise (periodic or
random) due to upstream turbulence, valve changes and pump vibration. For flow control loops,
PI control is generally used with intermediate values of the controller gain. The presence of
recurring high-frequency noise discourages the use of derivatives action, because flow control
loops usually have relatively small settling times (compared to other control loops), there is little
incentive to use derivatives action to make the loop respond even faster.
GAS PRESSURE
The control of gas pressure is very analogous to the control of liquid level in the sense that some
application use averaging control while other require tight control around a set point. However,
high and low limits are usually more serious concern for pressure control than for level control,
because of safety and operational issue. For self- regulating process, pressure is relatively easy to
control, except when the gas is in equilibrium with a liquid. Gas pressure is self-regulating when
the vessel (or pipeline) admits more feed when the pressure is low and reduces the intake when
the pressure becomes high. Integrating processes occur when the exit pressure is determined by a
compressor, in analog to liquid when there is a pump for the exit stream. For pressure control, PI
controllers are normally used with only a small amount of integral control action. Usually the
pressure vessel is not large, leading to relatively small residence times and time constant.
Derivative action is normally not needed because the process response times are usually quite
small compared to those of other process operations.

TEMPERATURE
General guidelines for temperature control loops are difficult to state because of the wide variety
of processes and equipment involving heat transfer and their different scale. For example, the
temperature control problems are quite different for heat exchangers, distillation column,
chemical reactors and evaporators. The presence of time delays and/or multiple capacitances will
usually place a stability limit on the controller gain. PID controllers are commonly employed to
provide quicker responses than can be obtained with PI controllers.
COMPOSITION
Composition control loops generally have characteristic similar to temperature loops but with
certain differences:
a) Measurement (instrument) noise is a more significant problem in composition loops
b) The time delay associated with the analyzer and its sampling system may be a significant
factor
These two factors can limit the effectiveness of derivatives action. Because of their importance
and the difficulty of control, composition and temperature loops often are prime candidates for
the advanced control strategies.