Barrel temperature control for quality of thermoplastic polymers in the extrusion process

Abstract

In this paper, the design procedure; modeling and controller design, testing are presented. Extensive tests have shown that the system reacts rapidly to changes in the operating conditions and effectively rejects disturbances due to unexpected changes in the quality of the material. This paper is the design and experimental testing of a feedback control system for the regulation of the volumetric flow in a polymer single screw extruder. Extruder temperature control is a challenging control problem. The problem becomes even more challenging when multiple barrel are included, such as in barrel temperature control for extruders. When characteristics of the system are examined, it becomes clear that a commonly used proportional plus compound plus derivative PID controller cannot meet such performance specifications for this kind of system. In order to achieve the required performance, a control strategy that utilizes techniques such as model predictive control, autotuning, and multiple parameter PID is formulated. This control strategy proves to be very effective in achieving the desired specifications.