Estimate of process compositions and plantwide control from multiple secondary measurements using artificial neural networks

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Abstract

The primary object of this exploration is to infer process compositions from other measurements in place of on-line analyzers under plantwide consideration using the predicted capability of artificial neural networks (ANN) dynamically. The Tennessee Eastman (TE) plant was employed for the investigation. First, transient data of process compositions and secondary measurements, such as temperature, pressure, level, and flow rate were obtained. Then, a composition estimator was developed using these data by the training and testing of recurrent ANN models based on a cross-validation technique. Several plantwide control techniques including classic PI control and supervisory model predictive control (MPC) to regulate process compositions in the TE plant using ANN estimators were investigated. Simulation results have demonstrated that an ANN estimator with laboratory calibration can reliably estimate process compositions on-line from secondary measurements. In addition, plantwide control using ANN estimators, either in the classic PI control or in the neural MPC, can perform reliable composition control.

Introduction

One of the main difficulties in chemical process control is getting reliable and accurate measurement of product compositions, but the product compositions normally mean the product quality. Without the measurement of compositions, several good control schemes or theories cannot be normally implemented in chemical process industries. Although composition analyzers, like on-line gas chromatography (on-line GC), have been used in the process industries for a long time, they usually suffer from many shortcomings. The on-line GC usually needs a high investment. However, the reliability of the on-line GC is normally not so good, and it needs more cost and manpower for maintenance. Moreover, the most important drawback for using the on-line GC in chemical process control is that it possesses a very large time delay and thereby lowers the achievable control performance. The use of inferential variables to estimate process compositions in place of direct on-line measurements is usually desired for plant engineers. One of the most popular alternatives to on-line GCs in the control of continuous distillation column is using tray temperatures to infer the product compositions (Boyd, 1979, Yu & Luyben, 1984). Several researchers (Joseph, Brosilow, Howell & Kerr, 1976, Yu & Luyben, 1987, Mejdell & Skogestad, 1991a, Mejdell & Skogestad, 1991b, Piovoso & Kosanovich, 1994) have proposed various estimation techniques by using multiple temperatures to infer the product compositions in the distillation column. These techniques are normally based on rigorous models or statistical methods using steady-state plant data. One drawback for these methods is that they usually need a longer time, say 1 year, to collect the plant operation data. Recently, a dynamic estimator to infer the product compositions of a binary distillation column via temperature measurements using a nonlinear extended Kalman filter was also developed by Baratti, Bertucco, Da Rold, and Morbidelli (1995). From the above literature review, it seems that most previous studies in composition estimator were generally focused on a single unit, say distillation column. However, process systems are normally represented as sets of interconnected unit operations, and the column compositions for a typical process plant may also be influenced by the operation conditions of other units (e.g. reactor), and vice versa. As a result of more stringent environmental regulation and economic considerations, plantwide control recently has tended to become more important in today's chemical plants (Downs & Vogel, 1993). The single unit approach for composition estimator sometimes may not be satisfied by many chemical process industries, especially for those processes having recycles. Thus, to develop a composition estimator under plantwide consideration seems to be important.

On the other hand, artificial neural networks (ANN) have been successfully used for a number of chemical engineering applications. Astrom & McAvoy, 1992, Morris, Montague & Willis, 1994, Baughman & Liu, 1995 have presented overviews of the issues pertaining to the use of ANN for sensor data analysis, fault diagnosis, process modeling, identification and control. An ANN is composed of nets of nonlinear basis functions; it has the ability to evolve a good process model from experimental data and requires very little or no knowledge of first principles. It has the ability of learning and prediction for nonlinear models, and has therefore been used to identify the process dynamics nonparametrically by several authors. In addition, the ANN software that provides the inferential estimation for a process is also called a ‘virtual sensor’. Composition estimators using ANN for a batch distillation column via tray temperatures and flow rates have been recently developed by Zamprogna, Barolo, and Seborg (2001).

The primary object of this investigation, however, is to estimate the dynamic process compositions from other secondary measurements using the predicted capability of ANN under plantwide consideration. It assumes that the process plant has already installed on-line GCs, and the proposed estimator could be an aid of (or even in place of) on-line GCs in plant operations and control. In comparison with most of the previous estimation techniques (Joseph et al., 1976; Yu & Luyben, 1987, Mejdell & Skogestad, 1991a, Mejdell & Skogestad, 1991b, Piovoso & Kosanovich, 1994) using steady-state multiple tray-temperatures in a single column only, the proposed ANN model dynamically infers the process compositions using all possible measurements under plantwide consideration. The Tennessee Eastman (TE) plant (Downs & Vogel, 1993) with on-line GCs, which is typically a highly integrated and interconnected system, is employed for the investigation. A classic PI control scheme using the proposed ANN estimator in the TE plant is studied. Besides, a cascade configuration of model predictive control (MPC) technique using the proposed ANN estimator in the TE plant is also explored.

Section snippets

Process description

The TE plantwide industrial process developed by Downs and Vogel (1993) is a challenging problem in process control and related fields. Several researchers (McAvoy & Ye, 1994, Ricker, 1995, Ricker & Lee, 1995a, Ricker & Lee, 1995b, Banerjee & Arkun, 1995, Ricker, 1996, Luyben, 1996, Sriniwas & Arkun, 1997, McAvoy, 1999) have studied this process. A schematic diagram of the process is given in Fig. 1. The process involves five unit operations: a two-phase reactor, a condenser, a vapor/liquid

Composition estimator using artificial neural networks

The feedforward ANN structure as shown in Fig. 3 is composed of many interconnected neurons organized in successive layers and is employed in this study. The input layer is composed of fan-out units which do not perform any computation but simply distribute their inputs to all neurons in the next layer. The ‘bias’ as shown in Fig. 3 is considered to be similar to a neuron, and its weight is connected to a fixed input of +1. The last layer is the output layer. Between the input and output layers

Classic control using a composition estimator

Since the compositions XA,pg, XB,pg and XG,pd can be estimated from other secondary measurements by an ANN model, we try to use them as controlled variables based on Luyben (1996) control structure shown in Fig. 2. In order to eliminate inherent errors of the ANN estimator, a correction error for each component, as mentioned in the previous section, given by the plant laboratory every 2 h is also added. Then, the estimated composition X̂A,pg is used instead of the on-line GC through the

Model predictive control using composition estimators

Early work on the TE process using nonlinear MPC was reported by Ricker and Lee (1995a). They presented a model of the TE process more rigorously with the help of lower order first principle model and on-line estimation. This model is a nonlinear mechanistic, state-variable formulation with 26 states, 10 manipulated variables and 23 outputs (Ricker & Lee, 1995b). Using a multivariable controller with eight controlled and manipulated variables, Ricker and Lee (1995a) have demonstrated that the

Conclusions

A dynamic approach to estimate process compositions from multiple secondary measurements under plantwide consideration using an ANN model has been investigated in this study. Recent publications in the literature concerning the composition estimator (Mejdell & Skogestad, 1991a, Mejdell & Skogestad, 1991b, Piovoso & Kosanovich, 1994) generally lie in the use of statistical methods, and they normally need a longer time to collect steady-state plant operating data. An alternative nonlinear

Acknowledgements

This work is supported by the National Science Council of Taiwan (R.O.C.) under the grant NSC85-2214-E-029-002.

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