Process control computer-assisted

While digital integrators serve to measure peak areas and retention times, they are of limited use for instrument control purposes and advanced data processing. Therefore, computer-assisted chromatography systems have almost completely replaced digital integrators. The personal computer used in these systems has to fulfill the following tasks ... 

Monitoring and control of the production process will be performed by a combination of instrumentation and control equipment plus manual involvement. The level of sophistication of the systems can vary considerably. For example, monitoring well performance can be done in a simple fashion by sending a man to write down and report the tubing head pressures of producing wells on a daily basis, or at the other extreme by using computer assisted operations (CAO) which uses a remote computer-based system to control production on a well by well basis with no physical presence at the wellhead. 

Fig. 2. Schematic of a multipurpose fine chemicals plant. Computer-assisted process control is utilized.

This paper describes work on equipment and instrumentation aimed at a computer-assisted lab-scale resin prep, facility. The approach has been to focus on hardware modules which could be developed and used incrementally on route to system integration. Thus, a primary split of process parameters was made into heat transfer and temperature control, and mass transfer and agitation. In the first of these the paper reports work on a range of temperature measurement, indicators and control units. On the mass transfer side most attention has been on liquid delivery systems with a little work on stirrer drives. Following a general analysis of different pump types the paper describes a programmable micro-computer multi-pump unit and gives results of its use. 

Baumgartner, W. E., Ricker, T. Computer assisted dielectric cure monitoring in material quality and cure process control, SAMPE J., 19, 6 (1983)... 

The Corey-Wipke approach considered above actually represents a backward computer-assisted search of synthetic pathways, which is set up as an interactive procedure with the operator helping to guide the selection of the most promising routes. In this approach the computer is assigned to the job of accumulation, storage, and processing of all chemical information amenable to formalization, while the chemist is supposed to make a final evaluation of the suggested retrosynthetic solutions and to control the direction of further searches. 

Computer-assisted process control and process engineering Fast-advancing technology core chemical engineering research payoffs... 

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