Jan Hill

Control strategies for refiners Part I: Soft sensors for CD-refiner control

Abstract Internal variables in (C)TMP-refining processes (e. g. temperature, consistency, fiber residence time, backward flowing steam and forces acting upon the chips and pulp) are defined as physical states obtained in different parts of the refining zones. In short, they differ from the traditional external variables (e. g. dilution water feed rate and specific energy) which are not obtained from measurements or physical models of the process in the refining zone. The internal variables are the backbone of physical models and are used in this paper as soft sensors for advanced process control. Besides the shape of the temperature profile, the position of the maximum temperature and the shape of the consistency profiles inside the refining zones are important to control as they are directly linked to the development of different pulp and handsheet properties. To illustrate the capability when using combined modeling and control strategies, the concept is applied on a full scale CD82 refiner. This means both temperature and consistency control in the flat zone and the conical zone, together with an overall estimator for fiber development. Finally, in this paper it is shown that the production can be increased significantly without changing the refiner motor load nor violating the pulp property specification.

Refiner optimization and control Part IV: Long term follow up of control performance in TMP processes

This paper focuses on three important issues; Process understanding in relation to control of nonlinear processes; Natural decoupling by using internal state measurement devices; Long term follow up procedures of process control investments. As an example, a new control system for Thermo Mechanical Pulp (TMP) refiners is used, based on a cascaded control structure. The internal states, in this case the refining zone temperature profiles, are controlled in the inner loop whereas the outer loop handles pulp properties. The characteristics of the temperature profile dynamics makes it possible to introduce a decoupling scheme where the anti-diagonal elements in the transfer function matrix describing the process, can be eliminated naturally. The system can handle several pulp propertied simultaneously but in this study mean fiber length (MFL) is the target variable. The process is followed about 200 days in manual mode control and 200 days in automatic mode. It is shown that the standard deviations in the pulp property variables freeness (CSF) and MFL were decreased about 40 and 60%, respectively. Significant reductions in variability of shives and a motor load standard deviations was achieved. On top of this, an increased production was obtained and the control system runnability was raised from 50% to 98%, levels that are far from commercial MPC-control concepts in TMP refining control.

Pulp property development Part I: Interlacing under-sampled pulp properties and TMP process data using piece-wise linear functions

Thermo-Mechanical Pulp (TMP) refiners served in this work as an example of how to combine oversampled and undersampled variables on a common timeframe for further analysis. To get more information from the refining process, temperature measurement arrays in the refining zones were studied alongside process measurements such as motor load, production rates, plate gaps, dilution waters, pulp properties and manually measured blow-line consistency. The undersampled data set consisted of 63 laboratory samples obtained at a Swedish TMP mill, which were tested for tensile index, mean fiber length and Somerville shives content. The pulp samples were obtained at five different periods during three months to cover a large dynamic operating window. The data set was expanded using a piece-wise linear approach. The measurements inside the refining zone were shown to be important variables when interlacing the undersampled pulp properties with the oversampled process data set, consisting of 350 000 samples. Use of an extended entropy model provided a palette of information about the process conditions inside the refining zone. Particularly, the residence time and the consistency in the refining zones were essential for the pulp property development, as a link between the refining segment pattern used and the current state of refiner operation.

Refiner optimization and control Part III: Natural decoupling in TMP refining processes

In TMP-refining processes, the stabilization of the fiber pad inside the refining zone requires a new control approach. Specific energy control tends to be complex and most often affected by a number of disturbances not so well specified in traditional MPC-concepts. To describe the dynamics in such nonlinear processes is difficult, tedious and requires significant maintenance support. This paper focuses on two important issues related to modeling in mechanical pulping processes: measurements of internal states inside the refining zone and in particular natural decoupling to find a model suitable for future process optimization and improved control concepts of complete refiner lines. The idea is to show how this complex process, with serially linked refiners or refining zones, can be modeled and controlled using a simplified process description. In this series of papers, data from a commercial Twin-refiner and a CD-refiner are available as inputs. As an example of internal state measurements, refining zone temperature profiles and estimated distributed consistency in the refining zone are used. We show that the characteristics of the temperature profile dynamics makes it possible to introduce a decoupling scheme where the anti-diagonal elements in the transfer function matrix describing the process can be eliminated naturally, independent of which refiner is to be controlled.