An Industrial Approach to Implementing MPC in Speciality Chemical Plant

Abstract

Model Predictive Control Technology has been successfully applied to industry for more than two decades. Most of the applications appear in refining and petrochemical industry. Relatively few applications could be found in the chemical industry. In this paper, the approach to evaluate the benefit that could be obtained by implementing MPC as a supervisory controller to a specialty chemical plant is explained in detail. The process and the basic plantwide control structures are simulated in Speedup. The plant pie-testing and plant testing are both done in Speedup. DMC+ commercial software is used to identify the linear model from the plant, build the controller, and tune the controller. By using the interface software between Speedup and DMC+, the process operating under DMC+ can be successfully simulated. The benefits from DMC+ can also be clearly identified in the simulation study. Some important issues in this approach are also pointed out.