Training Course Details

Introduction and appreciation of practical

Process Control

Length of Course: One day.

Synopsis: A concentrated course held either in the client's plant or at a training centre in Johannesburg. It serves as an introduction to feedback process control and its application in plants. The course is essentially practical rather than theoretical.

It has been found that the majority of control loops in plants operate extremely poorly. Control loops are frequently tuned very sluggishly, and operators, tending to accept this as natural, are used to switching loops into manual both during start up, and for load changes that the controller should have easily handled. The right training will allow them to judge if the controls are indeed working adequately, and what to expect from them. Furthermore, in plants where our courses have been presented, a new spirit of co-operation between the various departments has emerged.

Who Should Attend: The course is designed for people who are involved in running a process plant, but are not really familiar with the practical elements of process control, and its potential in particular. It is specifically for people such as operators, process engineers and production personnel.

Objectives: Upon successful completion of the course the student will understand:

• The purpose of each element in the control loop.
• The reasons for various control strategies.
• The role performed by instrument engineers and technicians.
• The importance of teamwork for successful operation of the plant.
• Problems that often occur in loops.
• How optimally tuned loops should behave.

Topics:

Items around the Feedback Loop:

• The importance of measurement in control
• The final regulating device (valves etc.)
• The process
• The controller
• Control strategies

Tuning Methods:

• Tuning methods
• Loop analysers

Loop Analysis:

• The current state of the average loop
• The main problems encountered in loops
• Examples of such problems taken from plants around the world.

Control From the Operator's Point of View:

• The current situation The desirable situation
• The importance of teamwork between various disciplines

Practical Demonstration on Simulator:

• Loop analysis Problems in loops
• The behaviour of various types of optimally tuned loops

Note: Most of the topics covered in this course are covered in much more detail in the Training Part 1 and Training Part 2 courses.

Michael Brown Control Engineering - email michael.brown@mweb.co.za