A completely real time approach to process control education for process systems engineering students and practitioners

The traditional approach to process control education of process systems en gineers has been to employ the classical methods of process control that we re originally developed as a substitute for the real time simulation of pro cess systems. It is our contention that with the availability of fast and e asy-to-use simulation software, classical methods have limited relevance fo r the process control education of practicing process systems engineers. In this paper, we will outline our real time approach to process control inst ruction. The methodology is, then, illustrated by application to the feedba ck control of liquid level in a separator. Finally, the results of student subject evaluations from implementation in both the senior undergraduate pr ocess control course at the University of Calgary and in the AEA Technology Engineering Software process control training course are presented. (C) 20 00 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.