Pilot/computer interface

Experimental unit used for these studies is a conventional automatic catalyatic reformer pilot plant having facilities to regulate process conditions with computer interfacing. Reactor is operated at desired temperature approaching isothermal conditions. 70 ml of I PR-2001 was tested under operating conditions similar to that of the commercial plant in cycle I [2,3,4] Subsequently, it was subjected to accelerated ageing at 10 bar, 500°C, 1.9 WHSV and H2 to... 

In spite of all this energy, the quality of human computer interfaces in many devices, safety and non safety-related, remains appalling. A perfect example is afforded by the McDonnell Douglas MD-11, which in spite of an obvious enormous amount of money spent on its avionics software, attracted this comment from its test pilot ... 

Barolo et al. (1998) developed a mathematical model of a pilot-plant MVC column. The model was validated using experimental data on a highly non-ideal mixture (ethanol-water). The pilot plant and some of the operating constraints are described in Table 4.13. The column is equipped with a steam-heated thermosiphon reboiler, and a water-cooled total condenser (with subcooling of the condensate). Electropneumatic valves are installed in the process and steam lines. All flows are measured on a volumetric basis the steam flow measurement is pressure- and temperature-compensated, so that a mass flow measurement is available indirectly. Temperature measurements from several trays along the column are also available. The plant is interfaced to a personal computer, which performs data acquisition and logging, control routine calculation, and direct valve manipulation. 

A pilot plant can be computer controlled in one of two ways supervisory or direct digital control as shown in Fig. 10. In the first, a computer supervises another primary control element. In the second, the interfacing element is eliminated and the controller (e.g., a valve) is regulated directly. New computer-based automatic instrumentation is likely to be supervisory because it is faster and less expensive. (See also Refs.P - l.)... 

CCR was incorporated about three years ago. Its board is elected and substructured into a series of committees, of which that dealing with the university-industry interface is perhaps the most significant for this presentation. It is currently developing Industry information stations in academic chemistry departments, a directory of industrial research laboratories and general topics of investigation, and a computer searchable file of research Interests of faculty in their first three years of academic life as a pilot project for possible later expansion to all faculty. 

The whole aim behind present ERF developments is to provide a means of control/adaptronics (that is easy to apply and economical) to a mechanism that has to be by its nature flexible in force, displacement or speed and hydraulically operated. Electronic solid-state semiconductor devices and computers are powerful, inexpensive and adequate for many applications in control, and yet their interface with hydraulic machines usually involves a bulky solenoid or an expensive servo-valve, often with a pilot stage and a power su > ply. The aim of ER research is to be able to influence a hydraulic mechanism directly with a current low enough to allow the integration of a system made up of electronic transducing and signal-conditioning equipment, computer processors and feedback monitoring, solid-state controllable field-excitation... 

Personal computer (PC) controllers are appropriate for the control of a laboratory or small- to medium-size pilot plant installations. The typical PC is augmented by the appropriate input/output (I/O) interface software. Software tools are available for the implementation of the previously discussed PID controllers using the PC. Advanced control algorithms can also be executed at the PC level. The PC also provides graphic capability for the monitoring of the performance of the control loop and can also provide data historian capability, which can be very important for polymer process development. 

Five participants took part in the pilot evaluation of EMA-Tactons in TableVis, with the implementation described in the previous section. All participants were visually impaired and used screen reading software to access information in computers. The structure of the evaluation session was as follows introduction to the interface and to the concepts involved in exploring data through interactive sonification set several tasks for data exploration and observe the participant perform the task, encouraging think-aloud explorations finish with a semi-structured interview. Only the columns navigation mode was used, where complete columns were compared by using HDS in TableVis. 

---