Acta Chimica Slovaca (ACS) publishes papers on fundamental and applied aspects of chemistry, biochemistry, chemical technology, chemical engineering and process control, biotechnology and food technology. Welcome are also topics which include chemical aspects of materials, physical chemistry and chemical physics, analytical chemistry, macromolecular chemistry and biomedical engineering.

Robust PI Control of Chemical Reactors

Jana Závacká *, Monika Bakošová, Katarína Vaneková

Institute of Information Engineering, Automation and Mathematics, Faculty of Chemical and Food Technology, STU, Radlinského 9, 812 37 Bratislava, Slovakia

E-mail: * jana.zavacka@stuba.sk

Abstract: The paper presents a method for design of robust PI controllers for systems with interval parametric uncertainty. The proposed method is based on plotting the stability boundary locus in the plane of controller parameters that is called (kp, ki) - plane. The designed approach is verified by simulations of control of the continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR) with hydrolysis of propylene oxide to propylene glycol. The reactor has three uncertain parameters: the reaction enthalpy, the pre-exponential factor in the reaction rate constant and the overall heat transfer coefficient. The control input is the volumetric flow rate of the coolant and the controlled output is the temperature of the reacting mixture.

Keywords: chemical reactor, PI controller, robust control, interval parametric uncertainty

Full paper in Portable Document Format: acs_0054.pdf

Acta Chimica Slovaca, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2010, pp. 3—14