Software improves plant control strategies

Researchers at Luleå University of Technology, in collaboration with Karlsborgsverken and SCA Packaging Obbola AB in Sweden, have developed open source software to improve control strategies in production processes.

“We have developed a new methodology for designing control strategies,” explained researcher Miguel Castaño. “We believe it can increase the efficiency and profitability in the process industry.”

The hard part is knowing how actuation will affect the whole process

Control points provide data on performance. But due to the often large size of pulp and paper plants, this can prove complicated.

For instance, a pulp and paper plant may require several 1000s of control points whose individual performance ultimately determines whether production targets are met.

“The hard part is knowing how actuation will affect the whole process,” said Castaño. “When you actively manipulate, for example, a single valve to govern a certain flow, you may induce other changes in the process due to its interconnected nature.”

Today in industry this is done on the basis of process knowledge or common sense, but rarely with the support of systematic and theoretical tools.

In his thesis, Castaño simplified and developed mathematical tools that allow process industries in different sectors to draw up their own specific production process and calculate the significance of a change in a unique actuator on at different measuring points.

“By further developing existing and new methods, we have created a tool that makes it possible to figure out which measurement points in the process are best to use to calculate an actuation, whilst avoiding negative side effects. This means that you can work more systematic and beneficial in the process industry,” said Castaño.

The tool is available as open source software and is being further developed by Swedish group OProVAT.