The Aug. 1 Control Engineering webcast on “The mechanics of loop tuning” will cover six things you should look for before you start tuning, tips for working with operators, how to avoid upsetting the process while tuning and how to finish a loop-tuning session properly.
Learning Objectives
- Understand that the Control Engineering webcast Aug. 1, “How to automate: The mechanics of loop tuning,” has practical PID-controller tuning advice and preview some PID tuning advice in this article.
- Review the learning objectives for RCEP-PDH webcast on the mechanics of loop tuning.
- Learn more about the webcast instructor’s process control expertise gathered during a 37-year career in process controls.
Loop tuning webcast insights
- The Control Engineering webcast Aug. 1, “How to automate: The mechanics of loop tuning,” has practical PID-controller tuning advice and preview some PID tuning advice in this article.
- Learning objectives for RCEP-PDH webcast on the mechanics of loop tuning are provided.
- Mechanics of loop tuning webcast instructor has process control expertise gathered during a 37-year career in process controls.
Mechanics of loop tuning Insights
The Control Engineering webcast Aug. 1, “How to automate: The mechanics of loop tuning,” has practical PID-controller tuning advice and preview some PID tuning advice in this article. Learning objectives for RCEP-PDH webcast on the mechanics of loop tuning are provided. Mechanics of loop tuning webcast instructor has process control expertise gathered during a 37-year career in process controls.
Get help tuning your proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller from Ed Bullerdiek, retired control engineer with 37 years of experience (Figure 1), as he continues his yearlong Control Engineering PID tuning series with the Aug. 1 webcast, “How to automate: The mechanics of loop tuning.”
Pre-webcast registrants and those listening live will have opportunity to have their PID-tuning questions answered by Bullerdiek during the question-and-answer portion of the webcast. Course instructor, Bullerdiek is an engineer with 37 years of process control experience in petroleum refining and oil production, knowledge that can help in other process control industries and applications. The webcast will be archived for one year from the broadcast date, and a RCEP-PDH credit is available for those attending live. Bullerdiek Control Engineering article series, “PID spotlight” on PID tuning has ranked among most-read articles on the Control Engineering website since it began in January.
Webcast has practical PID-controller tuning advice
The PID tuning webcast course investigates common PID controller tuning questions, including how to figure out if the problem is a PID-controller tuning problems, six ways to stay out of trouble when tuning PID control loops, tips for working with operators on loop tuning (without upsetting the process) and how to close a loop-tuning session properly. This PID tuning tutorial webcast will poll the audience and answer their most-pressing loop-tuning questions.
Other questions addressed, for example, include what to do when a flow controller faces a bad control valve. In that case, the process variable (PV) draws a square wave and the OP draws a peaked wave. Discussing the graphic, Bullerdiek said, “This is typical for a valve without a positioner. Positioners tremendously reduce the number of problem valves, but when they go bad, they create their own kind of fun. If you do not install positioners on many or most control valves, you may be seeing a lot of this.”
Among Bullerdiek’s notes for the webcast below, see some of his eight steps to uncovering PID-controller tuning problems. These include:
“Check the loop tuning logs (your site does keep loop-tuning logs?) You should look for notes about a problem or perhaps a special situation…. Or perhaps this controller has special tuning; perhaps it is intentionally tuned slow to avoid interacting with another control loop. If you see that controller requires frequent attention you should look into if the process is slowly changing, for example heat exchangers are plugging. If this is the case you should expect to see the tuning changes all trend in the same direction (usually slower).”
Learning objectives for webcast on the mechanics of loop tuning
During the PID loop tuning webcast, young engineers and those with more experience will benefit from looking at control system loop tuning from a fresh, experienced and slightly irreverent perspective. Learning objectives are:
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The six things you should look for before you start tuning: Is it really a tuning problem?
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Understand the etiquette for working with operators.
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Take steps to avoid upsetting the process while tuning.
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You aren’t done when you are done: How to close out a loop-tuning session properly.
More about the instructor’s process control expertise
Bullerdiek was a process control engineer for Marathon Petroleum (previously called Marathon Oil) at six locations in the refining and production organizations with responsibilities including project execution and management, advanced process control (APC) development and support, daily operations support, control group supervision, standards development and internal consulting. He has worked with multiple distributed control systems (DCS), programmable logic controllers (PLCs) and with supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA). He worked on all major refining processes, in oil field automation, gas plants and utilities. Bullerdiek has a BS degree in Chemical Engineering from the Rose Hulman Institute of Technology.
Mark T. Hoske is editor-in-chief, Control Engineering, WTWH Media, [email protected] and webcast moderator.
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Need practical PID tuning advice? Get it here.
Part 1: Three reasons to tune control loops: Safety, profit, energy efficiency
PID spotlight, part 2: Know these 13 terms, interactions
PID spotlight, part 3: How to select one of four process responses
PID spotlight, part 4: How to balance PID control for a self-limiting process
PID spotlight, part 5: What does good and bad controller tuning look like?
