TUNING CONTROLLER BY ZIEGLER AND NICHOLS METHOD TO SPECIFICATION TOP PRODUCT OF A DISTILLATION COLUMN

Abstract

This article seeks to find the tuning for a driver for the product specification of the top of a distillation column, in order to keep the product always in the desired specification  range and can generate great savings for the process. He carried out the approach system in a first order transfer function with the aid of the simulator ControlStation 3.5 and Excel. After we met the open loop parameters such as Kp (process gain), T (time constant) minutes and ? (delay constant). Subsequently, he selected the PID controller as it is indicated to slow processes and / or who do not wish residual errors and many swings. It analyzed three cases: The variation of the disturbance variable, the variation of the set value (SP) and the start of the process. For all of them the driver parameters were determined by Ziegler and Nichols tuning method in open loop, getting a Kc (controller gain) value of 3,957, a Ti (integration time) of 16 minutes and Td (time derivation) of 4 minutes. It was noted then that in both cases, the valuesfound in this line met all the pre-established criteria. Finally, we compared the results obtained by Ziegler and Nichols tuning with the other tuning methods, which further evidenced its efficiency.