Application of Scilab/Xcos for process control applied to chemical engineering educational projects

Abstract

The study of process control applied to chemical engineering problems can be significantly improved by the use of simulation packages. However, it has been noted that few works have been focusing on elucidation of the use of open source packages for academic projects on process control. In fact, there is few online discussion groups aimed to the application of Xcos® package for chemical engineering projects. Given this, this work aims to apply the Xcos® for studying the implementation of the process control theory applied to chemical engineering projects, focusing on the development of control loops block diagrams, PID control tuning, and process response analysis. The purpose of the application is developing a virtual environment for academic discussion and repository of examples. The results of two benchmark case studies are illustrated, showing that the problems can be easily modified, allowing the student to solve other similar examples for future applications. For the first case, the settling time ranged from 24.067 to 72.492\u2009min, while for the second case the stabilization time ranged from 5.301 to 20.904\u2009min.The results evidence that the Xcos® software can be widely applied by the academic community, due to its simplicity and robustness in demonstrating the principal aspects of control theory.