CBE 162 - Dynamics and Control of Chemical Processes - Fall 2018

Homework 6
Due: Friday, October 12th at 9:10 am

Question 1 ​Stability with P controller​ ​[30 points]

Assume that you can apply a P-only feedback controller to each of the following processes below. What
are the bounds on k c (the controller proportional gain) that will assure stability of the closed-loop system
for each process?

Question 2 ​Stability with PI controller [30 points]

Consider the following open-loop unstable process:

a) For a PI controller, find the range of stabilizing controller proportional gains ( k c ) for an integral
time constant of τI = 2.
b) Using Simulink, provide two Scope plots for t = [0, 60] of the closed loop system response to a
unit step at t=0 when (1) the controller proportional gain is +1 and (2) the controller proportional
gain is -1. Note: we are assuming an ideal PI controller, with the same time constant as in part (a).

You may use either the PID controller block or a transfer function block as the PI controller.

Question 3 ​Direct synthesis [40 points]

Assume we have a typical closed loop process of the form:

We are given that the real process is second order, with a gain of k p and two time constants τP 1 and τP 2 .
We wish to force the closed loop process to take the following first order form:

a) What does the controller transfer function need to be in order to do this? You should recognize
the form of the final solution as a PID controller - write your solution in the general, “ideal” PID
 CBE 162 - Dynamics and Control of Chemical Processes - Fall 2018

form (see equation 5.13 of the text) and identify the parameters k c , τI , and τD in terms of k p ,
τP 1 , τP 2 , and λ.

b) Build a Simulink model of this process implementing a real PID controller (i.e. an ideal PID
controller with a filter) using the parameters extracted earlier, and the following numerical
process parameters:

τP 1 = 4 ; τP 2 = 2 ; kp = 4 ; λ=1

Use this model to determine the effect of a step change of +1 in the system set point. Provide
two Scope plots for t = [0, 10]: (1) when the filter coefficient is 1 and (2) when the filter
coefficient is 100.

You may use either the PID controller block with the specified filter coefficients or a transfer
function block (see Eq5.14b where the filter coefficient N in Simulink corresponds to 1/α in the
textbook).