Powering plant optimization and safety Formatted: Font colour: Text 1

How dynamic simulation and process control can help operators make the most of their
opportunities

by Greg McMillan

Greg: Process control is the first line of defense for safe process operation. It keeps operating
conditions away from the safety instrumented system (SIS) activation triggers, which create
abrupt changes that aren’t just disruptive, but also potentially upsetting to other operations
and equipment. Shutdowns and startups are often the most dangerous times of operation.
Process control extends the life and productivity of equipment. Procedure automation per ISA
technical report ISA-TR106.00.01 and ISA-TR106.00.02 uses process control loops to deal with
the challenges of startups and transitions effectively and proactively. Modeling is the key to
safe and effective procedural automation and continual process control performance and
optimization.

To broaden our horizons and better understand how to make the most of the opportunities, we
continue our conversation with José María Ferrer, who has more than 25 years of experience in
the dynamic simulation and control of hydrocarbon processes, and presently serves as a senior
advisor at Inprocess Technology & Consulting Group.

José, how good are models?

José: Hundreds of chemists and “data scientists” worked hard in previous centuries to discover
the laws of how matter behaves. Those laws still exist, and they’re condensed as part of today’s
simulation tools. In general, models are quite good since we trust them (steady-state model) to
design running plants. Some models can also run in dynamics, when adding extra data such as
sizes, geometries, valve characteristics and controllers. How good are those dynamic models?
They’re as good as those steady-state models, but in dynamics. It means that if the components
and the thermodynamic package are well known, you should expect good results.

In 2011, we built a dynamic model of a tricky C3 splitter for the advanced process control (APC)
group at a refining company. The model looked good, but the APC engineers wanted to know
how good it was. The best way to answer that question was to run such a model against
historical data (imposing all the setpoints and boundary conditions into the dynamic model)
during a key period, and compare the outputs of the plant. The results can be seen in
“Reliability of dynamic simulation to reproduce plant dynamics.” Formatted: Font colour: Text 1
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When we build dynamic models of existing plants, we follow five basic steps:
 1. Draw a good process flow diagram of the model scope.
2. Collect and study historical data of all instruments in the model scope.
3. Talk extensively with control room operators and control engineers about plant issues.
4. Build the dynamic model using equipment data sheets and plant data.
5. Dynamically validate the model with historical plant data.

We can use such a model to study any plant issues, improve manual or automated procedures,
or design APC and deep reinforcement learning (DRL).

Greg: Control loop dead time is frequently too small in dynamic models. They must include
mixing and transportation delays and automation system dynamics. Besides the obvious large
dead time from analyzers, which is the sample time plus 1.5 times the cycle time, there are
many other sources of dead time originating in the automation system. The transportation time
of the process fluid to the sensor and the equivalent dead time from sensor lag, transmitter
damping, wireless update time, scan time, signal filters and final control element response time
can be significant. The dead time from control valve lost motion, resolution and sensitivity
limits is frequently overlooked. Since control loop tuning depends on dead time, and the
minimum possible peak and integrated error is proportional to the dead time and dead time
squared, respectively, getting the dynamic model dead time right is essential for improving
process control.

What are the essential aspects of matching the model to the plant? Is it, or when is it,
necessary? Is it done once and forgotten, or performed periodically? How frequently is it done?
Should one employ automatic model online updating or as needed? What must be matched in
the process? What specific measurements must be picked? When it comes to current (average)
values and deltas, what do you do when you can’t get the fit you want or expect (with the
standard parameters available)?

José: Current simulation tools can accommodate dead times and lag times. For relevant
transportation times, you can include pipe segments or the equivalent dead time in the
instrument of the model. You can also include measurement lag and transmitter damping,
automation system scan time and analyzer cycle time, applied filters by the controllers, and
actuator dynamics. This is important for fast dynamic systems such as compressors, anti-surge
controllers (ASC), quick-closing valves of turbo expanders (QCV) or emergency shutdown valves
(ESV) in safety scenarios. In systems such as large distillation columns with setting times of one
day, you can neglect most of these dynamics in the order of seconds.

Matching plant data is a must. Models must be validated with historical data. They can be used
for engineering analysis or as 24/365 real-time simulators (RTS or digital twins). We must be
sure that all model-calculated variables match dynamically (second-by-second) all pressures,
temperatures, levels, flows and analyzers of the model scope.

Validation is an iterative process. After the first run, you’ll discover that the model doesn´t
follow certain variables, and you must determine why. Sometimes you must improve the
model, but often you discover hidden issues of the plant, either in the instruments or in the
equipment. For example, in “The X-files of a depropanizer” the model didn’t match plant data, Formatted: Font colour: Text 1

and we discovered that a parallel condenser of a depropanizer gave only half of the designed Formatted: Font colour: Text 1

duty.

When building online digital twin (or real-time simulation), key performance indicators (KPIs)
are created to track model health and how well the model is tracking plant behavior. When any
of those KPIs drift from their normal values, we study them again to find the cause of deviation,
which could be a model fault, wrong assumption or a hidden issue not seen previously in the
plant. Some model parameters can be automatically updated in the model, such as heat-
exchanger fouling factors, flow transmitters’ material imbalances, feed composition
estimations, installed valve characteristics, PID controller parameters, heat losses and solar
radiation.

Greg: The fidelity of a dynamic model is shown by how well the controller outputs of the plant
match those in the digital twin because control loops transfer variability in the controlled
variables to the manipulated variables. Model-predictive control (MPC) can be used to adapt
model parameters to improve delta twin virtual plant fidelity. The MPC targets and controlled
variables are the actual plant and virtual plant manipulated variables (e.g., flows), respectively.
Key model parameters are chosen as the MPC manipulated variables, and flows of associated
process controller outputs are chosen as the MPC controlled variables. An automated test
sequence is run for the MPC at the highest possible speed offline, and the MPC models are
identified and visually checked as reasonable in terms of the direction and relative magnitude
of the effect. The digital-twin virtual plant is connected to the actual plant in a read-only
nonintrusive setup. The automated adaptation of key model parameters proceeds.

For more on digital twin virtual plant use and adaptation, see the ISA books “New Directions in Formatted: Font colour: Text 1

Bioprocess Modeling and Control: Maximizing Process Analytical Technology Benefits, Second
Edition and “Advances in pH Measurement and Control: Digital Twin Synergy and Advances in Formatted: Font colour: Text 1

Technology Fourth Edition”. Formatted: Font colour: Text 1

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José, what is a deep-gain analysis?

José: Over the last 20 years, I’ve seen some smart APC engineers use steady-state process
simulation models to calculate controlled variable (CV) open loop gains and that includes the
manipulated variable (MV) gains of in a given MPC. This The open loop gain is the final change
of the CV divided by the change applied to the MV.

The gain is calculated for all the operating range of the MV. So, for every pair CV-MV, a gain
curve is obtained. If that curve is flat, you’re lucky because most of the MPC controllers assume
that the process gains are constant. This is a basic gain analysis using a steady-state simulation
model.

A deep gain analysis goes one step deeper. You calculate that CV-MV gain curve for all
operation envelopes of the MPC, in other words, for all the potential states of the process.
Therefore, for every pair CV-MV, you obtain a collection of curves depending on the values of
all other MVs. This is relatively easy to automatically calculate using certain functionalities of
current simulation tools in steady state. An industrial application of such deep gain analysis is
described in “Dynamic simulation for APC projects: A case study on a reformate splitter with Formatted: Font colour: Text 1

side draw”. I believe that doing this previous gain analysis for any new MPC implementation will Formatted: Font colour: Text 1

help to better design the MPC from the very beginning.

Here is an Excel file of a typical deep gain analysis of a small MPC. Formatted: Font colour: Text 1
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Greg: In tuning controllers, there is a tradeoff between robustness and tightness of control.
Models can help find the nonlinearities that can possibly be addressed by adaptive tuning to
reduce the robustness needed and increase the aggressiveness and consequential tightness of
control.

What is optimum tuning and how can simulation help?

José: Having a plant with well-tuned controllers can save millions of dollars by avoiding onsite
trips for equipment maintenance. I’m still surprised by how many plants still run with loops that
aren’t well tuned.

Most of the current software tunning tools look at a single loop and a single state of the plant.
Those tools represent the process as a “black box,” an isolated first or second order system.

The plant operation envelope has many states and loops that interact with other loops, so
many important loops need to be studied to take a broader picture of the process, not just a
single loop and single state.
Dynamic simulation models are excellent tools for calculating optimum tuning of the full plant.
We’ve used them extensively for that purpose for new and existing plants. The tuning can be
evaluated for all the different states of the plant and for the true perturbations given by the
historical data fed to the dynamic simulation. Simulation models can typically run five to 100
times faster than real-time depending on the scope of the model to be tuned, so multiple
combinations of tunning can be evaluated automatically with certain simulation scripts.
However, the most important factor is to understand how the process behaves and the tradeoff
of dumping the perturbation upstream or downstream of the loop.

Here for is a simple Excel file I made 25 years ago to interactively tune a loop and visually Formatted: Font colour: Text 1

understand the influence of each parameter. Formatted: Font colour: Text 1

Greg: I’m deeply grateful to the Control Talk participants of the past 22 years, who helped deal
with the increasingly difficult challenge of sustaining and increasing awareness of the critical
role of process control, possibly due to the lack of understanding by executives, publishers and
technical organizations. Some process industry magazines no longer have articles on process
control and many symposiums no longer have segments with process control in their titles.
There are some sessions on process control buried in symposiums with process safety in their
titles. I think perhaps the retirement of leading experts in process control is a contributing
factor. Most the of the active leading participants are retired who answered questions in the
several hundred posts on my ISA Mentor Program Q&A website now renamed “Ask the Formatted: Font colour: Text 1

Automation Pros”s are retired. We are kind of into a runaway reaction from the loss of Formatted: Font colour: Text 1

expertise. While I’m now officially retired from my part-time job in simulation and process
control improvement as a senior principal engineer, I’ll continue my effort to increase
awareness of the importance of modeling and control through this Control Talk column.

SIDEBAR:
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Top 10 better names for old process control experts

10. Senior principal engineer

9. Distinguished, not extinguished, engineer
8. Vintage engineer
7. Seasoned engineer
6. Weathered engineer
5. Mature engineer
4. Forebearer engineer
3. Golden age engineer
2. Totally experienced engineer
1. Historic engineer