Part 1-What is advanced process control?

摘要

A stream of e-mail that followed my January and February editorials has convinced me that an advanced process control (APC) tutorial would be beneficial.First,a conceptual discussion:What does APC attempt to do and how does it make money? At the first level,APC aims to produce products at target qualities,while keeping the unit within constraints.Handling disturbances such as crude,coker drum and FCC feed switches,and ethylene cracker furnace starts and stops is no small feat.APC that can keep product qualities steady during these disturbances eliminates product downgrading and reduces the potential for incidents.