The paper presents a new multivariable control concept for falling film evaporators (FFEs). Our concept solves the major challenges encountered in modern FFE control: large transport delays, additional control of the output mass flow, coupling of controlled variables, and disturbances due to time-varying input dry matter content. The challenges are addressed together, for the first time, by the following control design. Based on a dynamic nonlinear input–output model, we consider a linearizing output transformation to enable application of classical linear control methods composed of feedforward design, disturbance rejection, and a decoupling network. Due to these features, we are able to design robust PID and PI controllers that substantially compensate plant-model mismatches. Connecting our concept to a digital twin of the plant yields good performance, which encourages future application of the design in the real-world process.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)72-83
Number of pages12
JournalJournal of Process Control
Volume106
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Oct 2021

    Scopus subject areas

  • Control and Systems Engineering
  • Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering
  • Computer Science Applications
  • Modelling and Simulation

    Research areas

  • Digital twin, Falling film evaporator, Multivariable model-based control, Time delay, SCHEME, TRANSPORT, MODIFIED SMITH PREDICTOR, SYSTEMS, IDENTIFICATION, DELAY, FEEDBACK

ID: 86157996