Process Control and Safety

Abstract

The automatic control of processes is widespread throughout the whole of industry and many of today’s process operators sit at a computer console checking that many tens of controllers are working satisfactorily. Nevertheless it is worth standing back to ask basic questions concerning the nature of a single control loop such as that shown in figure 8.1 for the cooling of a batch reactor or the one in figure 8.1 for the heating of a stirred vessel with through-flow. Thus the opening sections will be an elementary introduction to process control.