MULTI-BED CATALYTIC REACTOR CONTROL-SYSTEMS - CONFIGURATION DEVELOPMENT AND EXPERIMENTAL TESTING

Several systems for the control of product concentration in a two-bed laboratory catalytic reactor are investigated in a coordinated computational and experimental analysis. The reaction is exothermic and the reactor is nearly adiabatic. Control action is restricted to changes in the temperature and flow rate of a quench stream injected between the beds. Algorithms for control and estimation of unmeasured concentration are derived from Linear Quadratic Gaussian control theory and are executed in a digital computer interfaced with the reactor. Only feedback configurations were needed and practicable and were shown to effect about an 80% reduction in concentration excursions in the mid range of disturbance frequencies. Reactor model accuracy was found to be important to control quality when disturbances were large and when a reduction was attempted in the number of temperature measurements. © 1979, American Chemical Society. All rights reserved.