Section 1.

Basic Measurement
Concepts

Process Control and

Instrumentation
Process Control and Instrumentation Basic Measurement Concepts

Section 1
Basic Measurement Concepts
1.1 Introduction

Although the subject of many hundreds of articles, books, and courses, the basic elements of
automatic process control are still widely misunderstood. Worse, the majority of control
systems are misapplied. Research carried out by ISA and other bodies indicates that some 30
to 35% of control loops are normally operated in manual and that as many as 60% of loops
would, in fact, be better off operating in the manual mode. Other research indicates that up to
75% of all loops will oscillate when operated in automatic.

And according to work carried out by EnTech Control Engineering Inc. only about 20% of all
control loops surveyed in mill audits were found to actually reduce process variability in
automatic mode over the short term whilst the remaining 80% of loops were found to increase
variability.

One of the major problems in regard to the PID controller is a complete lack of
standardisation. There are none. There are no standards in regard to the configuration of the
controller; the actual working principle; or even the terminology used by different
manufacturers. This is not going to change!

The first step in successful application is to gain an understanding of the basics of a control
system. As shown in Figure 1.1, the four basic elements of any control system comprise:
• process;
• transducer (sensing element plus transmitter);
• final control element; and
• controller.
Controller

Process

Transducer (sensor + transmitter) Final control element

Figure 1.1. The four basic elements of a control system: the process; the transducer
(sensing element plus transmitter); the final control element; and the controller.

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Process Control and Instrumentation Basic Measurement Concepts

1.2 The process

The process equipment comprises the piping, vessels, reactors, furnaces, distillation columns,
etc. in which mass, heat and energy transfer takes place.

The process load is the total amount of energy required to maintain the process in a balanced
condition. In a heat exchanger, for example, in which a flowing fluid is continuously heated
with steam, a certain quantity of steam is required to hold the temperature of the liquid at a
given value when flowing at a particular rate. Any change in the process load will require a
change in the position of the final control element in order to keep the temperature at its
required value –the set point.

Process lag
Ideally, any load change or disturbance would be met with an instantaneous response that
would completely and immediately bring the process up to its new equilibrium condition. In
practice, however, this is difficult, if not impossible, to achieve.

Although the response may start immediately, it will require a certain amount of time to
complete its effect. This delay is the lag of the system.

In the tank shown in Figure1.2, opening the valve will cause the level to start to rise
immediately. However, it will not reach the new value until some time later – a time that is
dependent upon the size and shape of the tank and the flow through the valve.

Figure 1.2. Opening the valve will

cause the level to start to rise
immediately.

This process lag is primarily the result of three process characteristics: capacitance, resistance,
and dead time.

The capacitance of a process is a measure of its ability to hold energy and may be likened to
inertia. Resistance, on the other hand, may be likened to the "opposition to flow" and in the
example of a heat exchanger will be determined by a number of factors – including the
thickness of the piping and the thermal resistance of the process medium.

Deadtime
The process deadtime is the delay between the initiation of a control action and its first effect
on the process variable. During this interval, no control action can take place because no
information is available regarding the new state of the process. Deadtime is usually the result
of transport delay caused by conveyors, piping, reaction towers, etc., and severely limits the
ability of a feedback controller to perform.

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Process Control and Instrumentation Basic Measurement Concepts

Deadtime occurs in many different control applications and is generally the result of material
being transported from one place, where it has been acted on by an actuator, to another place
where the action is measured. Not until the material is measured can any changes caused by
the actuator be detected.

A typical example is shown in Figure 1.3 in which material is transported on a conveyor belt
from a loading hopper to a belt weigher located some distance away.

If, for example, the material took ten minutes to travel from the hopper to the belt weigher,
then the result of any change in the rate at which the material is discharged onto the conveyor
belt, would not be detected for ten minutes. This dead time is also referred to as transport lag.

Loading hopper

Hopper feed
actuator
Material travel

Conveyor belt
Belt weigher
Transport lag = 10 min

Figure 1.3. The dead time, or transport lag, is the time taken for the material,
discharged from the loading hopper to be detected by the belt weigher located
some distance away. During this period any changes produced by the actuator
will not be detected.

Deadtime introduces more difficulties in automatic control than any of the other lags and
every effort should be made to keep it to a minimum. In many applications it is possible to
measure the process closer to the actuation point. Thermocouples, for example, are often
located on the basis of access convenience rather than process to optimisation and can be
moved closer.

This is a particularly true in acid/base neutralization where the pH electrode is often located
according to the needs of routine service and maintenance requirements. Better control can
often be implemented by a closer look at the needs of the actual control system.

1.3 Process reaction curve

In any process system, we first need to know what it is that we wish to control. In the simple
flow measuring and control system shown in Figure 1.4, the process medium is a fluid and the
goal is to control its flow. Whilst it may seem pretty well axiomatic, it is important to
recognize that in order to perform flow control on the process medium it to first necessary to
measure its flow. This measurement is called the process variable (PV).

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Process Control and Instrumentation Basic Measurement Concepts

Process Variable Process Demand

(PV) (PD)

Process

Transducer (sensor + transmitter) Final control element

Figure 1.4. Definition of terms in a simple flow measuring and control system.

The actual control of flow is performed by the final control element and the controlled
variable is called the process demand (PD) or manipulated variable (MV).

Assume that the valve was initially closed and is now rapidly opened to its 30% open
position. This means that the process demand (PD) has been subject to a step change from
zero to 30%.

How will the PV react? Figure 1.5 illustrates what is called the process reaction curve which
is simply a plot of the output (PV) under the influence of a step change in the input (PD). It
should be noted that, in this example, the process exhibits a very rapid increase from zero to a
new steady-state condition with virtually no deadtime.

PD = 30%

Figure 1.5.
Process reaction
curve – a plot of
∆PV the output (PV)
under the
influence of a
step change in
the input (PD).

The question is, what is this new value? In other words, what is the change (∆PD) in the
process variable?

Again, referring to Figure 1.5, the change in PD as a result of a given change in PD is

determined by the characteristics of the final control element, the process and the transducer.
The ratio of the percentage change in the output (PV) to the percentage change in the input
(PD) is called the process gain. Note, that the terms input and output, used here, relate only to
the process. The process gain is usually designated KP where:

∆ PV (% )
KP =
∆ PD (% )

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Process Control and Instrumentation Basic Measurement Concepts

Thus, for example, if as a result of a 50% step change in the PD, the PV also changes by 50%
then the process gain (KP) is unity. However, if the PV changes by 100% then KP = 2. This
shows that just changing the span can dramatically change the process gain.

Generally, the process in gain should normally lie between the 0.5 and 2.0. If the process gain
is less than 0.5 the transmitter span is typically to wide for good control. And if the process
gain is greater that 2.0, this is usually an indication that the control valve is oversized.
Again it should be noticed that the process gain will never be completely linear. Nonlinearity
is a function of the final control element, the process, and the transducer. Generally, however,
most nonlinearity will be due to the valve itself. That is, the process gain will, typically, vary
as a function of the valve operation.

The foregoing discussion on process gain is valid only for the process discussed – referred to
as a self-regulating process. A self-regulating process (Figure 1.6) is characterised by a
process response in which, as a result of an input step-change, the output rises or falls to some
new steady-state value – after any process dynamics have died out.

Output Input
Figure 1.6. Illustration
of a self-regulating
FT process response in
which, as a result of an
input step-change, the
output rises or falls to
some new steady-state
value.
Not all processes are self-regulating. In the tank level process shown in Figure 1.7, assume
the valve is closed. If now the valve is stepped open to some set level (e.g. 30%) the level
will start to fall and the tank will continue to empty at the rate determined by the valve
opening. If the valve had opened to 50% the outflow rate would be greater and therefore the
tank level would fall at a faster rate. And it would continue to fall until the tank was empty.

Flow in

Output Input Figure 1.7. Illustration

of an integrating
LT process response in
which, as a result of an
input step-change, the
output rises or falls at a
constant rate.
Process medium

This is called an integrating process and the process gain is now a measure of the rate at
which the output (PV) varies according to a known step change of the input (PD). Thus:
∆ PV (% ) / sec
KP =
∆ PD (% )

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Process Control and Instrumentation Basic Measurement Concepts

Here the gain is expressed as inverse-seconds. Thus a tank having a process gain of
0.001/seconds will take 1000 seconds for the tank level to change from full to empty with the
valve fully open. Here, tank level control should be relatively easy to implement because it
takes so long for the tank to drain.

If, however, the process gain were only 0.01/seconds the tank level would change from full to
empty in only 10 seconds. Because there is less time to respond to an upset this loop would
be more difficult to control.

1.4 First order lag

In the simple ball-cock valve system shown in Figure 1.8 (a) the tank is empty and the valve
is fully open. As the water level rises towards the maximum level (H), the ball float rises and
starts to close the valve. And as the float continues to rise (Figure 1.8 (b)), a point will be
reached when the valve is fully closed.

Figure 1.8. Ball-cock valve

(a) system (a) the tank is empty and
the valve is fully open (b) as the
water level rises towards the
maximum level (H), the ball float
rises and starts to close the valve.
H

h
(b)

This simple system gives rise to the classic first-order lag response (Figure 1.9) in which the
level (h) is plotted against time (T). The first-order lag is the simplest response encountered
and can result from liquid and therefore level in a single tank (as shown) or a bare wire
thermocouple. All first-order systems are characterised by their ability to store energy in only
one place.

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Process Control and Instrumentation Basic Measurement Concepts

1.0

0.8

0.6
h Figure 1.9.
Classic first-order
0.4
lag response in
which the level (h)
0.2 is plotted against
time (T).
0
0 1 2 3 4 5
t
All first-order response is are basically the same shape – with the time-constant (τ) defined by
the time required for the variable to reach 63.2% of its final value. It is also interesting to
observe that had the tank continued to rise at its initial rate it would have filled the tank in the
time defined by the time-constant – in this example just one minute. It is generally accepted
that the time required to reach 99% of the final value is given as 5 x τ (e.g. in this example 5
minutes).

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