M. Soroush et C. Kravaris, MULTIVARIABLE NONLINEAR CONTROL OF A CONTINUOUS POLYMERIZATION REACTOR - AN EXPERIMENTAL-STUDY, AIChE journal, 39(12), 1993, pp. 1920-1937
This experimental work concerns the multivariable nonlinear control of
a continuous stirred-tank polymerization reactor. The globally linear
izing control (GLC) method is implemented to control conversion and te
mperature in the reactor in which the solution polymerization of methy
l methacrylate takes place. Control of conversion and temperature is a
chieved by manipulating the flow rate of an inlet initiator stream and
two coordinated heat input variables. Conversion is inferred from on-
line measurements of density and temperature. A reduced-order state ob
server is utilized to estimate the concentrations of monomer, initiato
r and solvent in the reactor. The concentration estimates are used in
the control law. This study demonstrates the considerable computationa
l efficiency of the nonlinear controller, which is implemented on a mi
crocomputer. The experimental results show the excellent performance o
f the controller in the presence of active state and input constraints
. A systematic approach is also given for the synthesis of output feed
back controllers within the GLC framework for processes with secondary
outputs.