Inferential Active Disturbance Rejection Control of a Distillation Column

Fahad Al Kalbani, Jie Zhang
2015 IFAC-PapersOnLine  
The distillation column is an important processing unit in the chemical and oil refining industry. Distillation is the most widely employed separation method in the world's oil plants, chemical and petrochemical industrial facilities. The main drawback of the technique is high energy consumption, which leads to high production costs. Therefore, distillation columns are required to be controlled close to the desired steady state conditions because of economic incentives. Most industrial
more » ... ion columns are currently controlled by conventional multi-loop controllers such as proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controllers, which have several Usually I look back at the last three years of my PhD journey and wonder whether I did any work at all, or if I just channelled the intellect, support, and energy of everyone around me into a coherent curriculum vitae, attaching my name to it in each process. If Newcastle University allowed it, I would list everyone in this thesis as co-authors, but I expect they will have to settle for a brief, inadequate mention here at the beginning. This PhD thesis is a culmination of an excellent working relationship with my supervisor Jie Zhang, to whom I am eternally thankful and grateful. Jie provided continuous support during my PhD and generously gave me huge guidance during the critical issues I normally faced. His vast experience in process control theories and his willingness to share his knowledge has supported me during my three and half years of research.
doi:10.1016/j.ifacol.2015.09.001 fatcat:5wzlmazh4rdmfggp5g5vmujsly