Chapter 1

Summary

This text is organised in two parts. The first covers, to a large extent, the less theoretical aspects
of process automation. As such, it focuses on the
basic technology and practice of the discipline. It
is surprising how much material comes into this
category. The second part develops a range of techniques,many of which are inherently mathematical
in nature, and focuses on more advanced aspects
of control and automation.
The text has been carefully structured into relatively self contained sections and partitioned into
chapters in a logical way. Extensive cross referencing enables the connections between the topics to
be readily established. Whilst most of the topics
are generic and relatively timeless, some will inevitably become dated: these have been isolated
into single chapters to simplify updating in future
editions. The structure also enables new chapters
to be added as the technology evolves.

Part 1
1. Introduction. This section introduces a variety
of concepts, technology and terminology as a basis for subsequent sections. It is, hopefully, self explanatory: if not, the reader has problems!
2. Instrumentation. For common process measurements such as temperature, pressure, level,
flow, weight and even composition, there is good
quality instrumentation available off the shelf. It

isnt necessary to know exactly how an instrument

works, although it helps to understand the principles. The key issues are specifying the right instrument for the job, installing it correctly, and knowing how to use it.Remember,you cant control what
you dont measure properly in the first place. Many
a control system has foundered on the rocks of
measurement.
3. Final Control Elements. This section covers
the various control elements other than those directly concerned with measurement: these are often loosely referred to as instrumentation too. Despite the variety of applications there are relatively
few such elements to consider. Of particular interest are actuators and valves used for manipulating
the process and for isolation purposes. It is important to appreciate that the quality of control
achieved is a function of all the elements in the
loop. There is no point in striving for perfection
with the measurement if the valve is sized wrongly.
4. Conventional Control Strategies. The 3-term
PID controller is the basis of feedback control. It
accounts for something like 80% of all continuous control as used in the process industries, so a
thorough treatment of the use and application of
3-term control is easily justified. PID control provides the basis for a variety of other strategies, e.g.
cascade and ratio control, and is often used as the
basis for feedforward control. These together account for another 15% or so and are discussed fully.

1 Summary

5. Process Control Schemes. For any given plant

there are invariably many ways of controlling it.
Seldom is any single way correct; it is just that
some ways are better than others. So deciding what
strategies to use and formulating a control scheme
is a question of judgement. Fundamental to this is
an understanding of how the process works and a
feel for how the items of plant and equipment interact. An approach to determining strategies is
outlined and develop in relation to schemes for the
control of a selection of items of plant.
6. Digital Control Systems. These are the norm for
new plants, both continuous and batch: the benefits are well understood. They support both conventional and advanced strategies, and a variety of
other activities such as alarm handling and operator interaction. To be able to apply digital control
effectively it is necessary to have a reasonable grasp
of how the systems work. Their functionality is explained from an applications point of view. Focusing on their functionality is the best approach: this
enables the specifics of any particular system to be
mastered relatively easily, no matter how large or
complex it may be.

therefore, concentrates on the formulation of specifications and good practice with regard to project
management. All aspects of the project life cycle
covering justification, design and development,
testing and acceptance, installation, commissioning and maintenance are covered. The time and
effort necessary to produce properly documented
specifications, and their role as the only meaningful basis for quality assurance, especially in
relation to application software, is emphasised.

Part 2
9. Maths and Control Theory. Advanced process
control is inherently quantitative and has a theoretical basis for which no apology is given. This
section summarises various aspects of both classical and modern control theory. Coverage is sufficient to provide an understanding of subsequent
sections. The reader is spared the full-blooded academic rigour of most texts on control theory. Interspersed amongst the chapters on control theory
are others on the essential mathematics. A knowledge of differentiation and integration is assumed.

7. Control Technology. The realisation of modern control systems has to be achieved within a
rather mundane framework that is properly engineered and is both safe and operable. Signals have
to be physically routed to and from instrumentation scattered around the plant. Different types of
i/o channel are used to illustrate layout and related
issues such as intrinsic safety. The concept of layers of safety is introduced as a basis for considering various aspects of good practice.This embraces
reliability principles and protection system design.
The inexorable drive for safety, and environmental
constraints, place a major responsibility on those
involved in process automation.

10. Plant and Process Dynamics. Usually it is sufficient to have a qualitative feel for the way a plant
behaves.However,sometimes the dynamics are not
easy to understand, perhaps because the plant is
highly integrated or the process is complex.In such
circumstances it may be necessary to build a quantitative model. In this section, models are built of
a selection of items of plant and operations. Several modelling techniques and a variety of classical
assumptions are introduced. The golden rules are
to never start model building unless it is essential, and to keep the model as simple as possible
consistent with reality.

8. Management of Automation Projects. It does

not matter a great deal how sophisticated a control
system is if its not fit for purpose or commercially viable. Fundamental to this is knowing when
and how to apply control technology. This section,

11. Simulation. Occasionally, the equations of a

model may be solved analytically. More usually,
because of non-linearities, discontinuities and the
like, solutions have to be obtained by means of
simulation. Various packages exist for simulating

1 Summary
the behaviour of plant and their control systems.
They enable what-if scenarios to be investigated
as a basis for making design decisions. Use of
such packages is relatively straightforward provided certain common sense rules are followed.
The principles of simulation are introduced. Key
issues such as validation of results are discussed.
12. Advanced Process Automation. This section
covers a diverse range of modern techniques and
technology. To a large extent these are concerned
with information and its manipulation. Database
structures, such as relational and object oriented,
and client-server technology are fundamental to
this. Major topics covered include management in-

formation systems (MIS), statistical process control (SPC), optimisation, expert systems, fuzzy
logic and neural nets. The emphasis throughout
is on the underlying technology and on its application.
13. Advanced Process Control. This section covers
a diverse range of modern control techniques.They
are non-trivial in a mathematical sense. Major topics covered include state feedback, identification
and estimation, self-tuning, model predictive control (MPC) and non-linear control. The coverage
of these topics concentrates on their underlying
principles and on the known practical problems in
applying them.