Fault tolerant control system design for vacuum effect evaporator plant with sensor and actuator fault

Abstract

As the final part of the Multi-Effect Evaporator (MEE) unit, Vacuum Effect Evaporator (VEE) will determine the product quality and efficiency of the petrochemical plant. Control systems that work on VEE must have high performance and reliability. This paper proposes a fault tolerant control system (FTCS) scheme for VEE to accommodate sensor fault and actuator fault that can occur simultaneously. This scheme consists of two things, namely: detection and error diagnosis by using an observer and control signal reconfiguration mechanism with compensation technique. As a real case study, simulated VEE is based on a petrochemical plant in West Java province. Simulation results show that the proposed FTCS is able to compensate for both in the sensor and actuator faults simultaneously, so that the stability and overall system performance remains optimal.