Optimizing the Control System of Clinker Cooling: Process Modeling and Controller Tuning

• Main Author: Dimitris Tsamatsoulis
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-08-01
• Series: ChemEngineering
• Subjects: cement; clinker; cooler; PID controller; robustness; loop shaping
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2305-7084/5/3/50

This paper aims to present efficient efforts to optimize the proportional-integral-differential (PID) controller of clinker cooling in grate coolers, which have a fixed grate and at least two moving ones. The process model contains three transfer functions between the speed of the moving grate and the pressures of the static and moving grates. The developed software achieves the identification of the model parameters using industrial data and by implementing non-linear regression methods. The design of the PID controller follows a loop-shaping technique, imposing as a constraint the maximum sensitivity, <i>M_s</i>, of the open-loop transfer function and providing a set of PIDs that satisfy a range of <i>M_s</i>. A simulator determines the optimal PID sets among those calculated at the design step using the integral of absolute error (<i>IAE</i>) as a performance criterion. The combination of a robustness constraint with a performance criterion, <i>M_s</i> and <i>IAE</i> respectively, leads to an area of controllers with <i>M_s</i> belonging to the range of 1.2 to 1.35. The IAE is between 4.2% and 4.8%, depending on the set-point value. PID sets located near the middle of this area can be chosen and implemented in the cooler’s routine operation.