Introduction

Practical Control Systems Engineering

The purpose of Control System’s is to produce a particular specified output or response from a process or plant when it is subjected to a particular input. The application of such systems in industry is widespread such as level control, temperature control, pressure control, speed control, position control etc.

What are the Course Objective’s?

The objective of this course is to deliver an informative, stimulating and understandable course in Control Systems Engineering, using mainly verbal and visual techniques with elementary mathematics.

Control Systems theory is a paradise for mathematicians where differential equations, Laplace transforms, z-transforms, state space analysis and advanced vector analysis are commonly used to explain and evaluate systems. This approach is of course very useful in the system design stage and plays a key role in the analysis and behavior of the system or plant, but the actual practical system and devices and physical operations are often clouded over and hidden in the background.

The focus of this course will be on performance and behavior of the devices and units that make up the control system, open loop and closed loop, and to examine the underlying working principles. It is also important to explore and explain to terminology and concepts that are in use in everyday Control Systems.

A control simulation software package known as SimApp will be used throughout the course.

Who needs Control System’s Training?

All staff involved in process operation and maintenance such as electrical engineers, process and chemical engineers, mechanical engineers, technicians and senior electricians will get great benefit from this course. It will serve as a refresher course to those who are well versed in the area and it will provide a great foundation for those who are relatively new to the area. It will also give attendees the opportunity to sort out some details they glossed over or barley understood in their student days.

What are the advantages to the Plant Owners?

The additional confidence and competence gained on this course should make a safer more efficient and reliable plant for all concerned.

What are the advantages to the Attendees?

The course will examine and explain the most popular control concepts in modern day control systems regularly in use in the vast majority of plants in today’s automated world. The practical connection between Process and Instrumentation Diagrams (P&ID’s), the sensors, the actuators, the controllers and the actual mathematical modeling of the systems will be explained in detail. 

Is there Certification?

A Certificate of attendance will be issued to each attendee that complete the course.

Fundamentals of industrial open loop and closed loop systems

Course Details

[1] The purpose of the control system. Fundamental concept of systems and natural response’s

[2] Analog, digital and pneumatic controllers. The practical systems and devices used to implement closed loop control in industrial applications.

[3] P&ID symbols and diagrams. The drawings and symbols used in Process and Instrumentation control systems.

[4] Process types and performance. First order, second order and ramp type processes.

[5] Open loop and closed loop systems. Systems with and without feedback loops.

[6] Proportional, integral and derivative control. The hardware, control functions or algorithms that are used in closed loop controllers to achieve desired outputs.

[7] Pneumatic controllers and positioners. The implementation of control strategies using mechanical hardware.

[8] Tuning of control loops, open-loop, oscillation method and Step-by-Step method. Techniques employed in practice to set up the correct proportional, integral and derivative values in the plant controller.

[9] Feed-forward control, Ratio control, Split range control, Cascade control. Control configurations frequently used in industry to achieve desired performances from closed loop control systems.

[10] Interactive control loops. The technique of decoupling control loops from one another where interaction between the loops can’t be prevented in practice.

[11] Adaptive control & Optimization of control loop operation. Advanced controller applications where controller settings may be altered while the system is in operation to achieve optimum results.

Learning Outcomes Practical Control Systems

On successful completion of this module the learner will be able to: