Appeal to the Audience
The report talks about the importance of controller tunings in controlling industrial equipment. According to the report, controller valves are important in controlling the flow rat, the amount of input in machinery and also the amount of output of the machine. The importance of the controllers can be seen in controlling a water cooling machine in which case a slow controller would be inappropriate to be used. The importance of a feedback controller on the other hand is the essence that it enables the determination of an error that may occur between a set point and the process value hence determining the output rate of the system or machinery.
Achievement of Purpose
The report rather achieves the purpose of explaining the importance of describing the difference between three types of controllers. According to the report, feedback controllers can be divided in three parts. The proportion controller, the proportion integral controller and the proportional integral derivative controller are the three types of tuning controllers. Most of the industrial applications use the proportion integral controller and or the proration integral derivative controller. Their main function is the adjustment of the process variable and they also allow for a system to strive for the zero difference between the error and the variable associated with the process being controlled. Integral describes the stability of a given system.
Appropriateness of Tone
The article uses a rather academic tone by describing the equations of the three different controllers. It also talks of the methods of calculating the controller tunings greatly varying. In this experiment, various factors such as step, impulse, set point change and responses in disturbances will be evaluated to determine the proportional integral and the proportional integral derivative of various controller tunings. This will also help determine the effects of the tunings on the quality of controlling a given system.
Consistency of Point of View
The article goes on to consistently describe the three controllers in point of view. According to it, the three controllers have different specific equation describing them. The proportional controller is described by p(t)=P+kce(t). When using this controller, an increase in the proportional gain increase causes an increase in the response of the controller. On the other hand the proportional integral controller is described by the following equation p(t)=p+kce(t) +kc/i(e(t))dt. This is another basic type of controller. The integral action is responsible for taking the integral of an error and using it to decrease the error that may have occurred between the output of the process and the set point for the given process. The third type of controller is the proportional integral derivative controller. This type of controller operates by attempting to predict the error and use it to correct its proportionality to the rate of change in the error provided by the machine. These forms of controllers are not used for systems that include noise as their major output. This is as the noise makes it almost impossible for this type of controller to adequately anticipate the error that the machine can produce hence making it difficult to correct the error.
The experiment determining the functioning of these controllers uses a system of flow dye mixing that is made up of a dye feedback tank, a solution of ethylene blue, an impulse injector syringe, a controlling valve, a hand valve, a 20 spec spectrometer, curette, a grading cylinder, flasks, a camera, a pump and the Honeywell system.
The articles strength in describing the aim of the experiment is using various controllers to try and determine their efficiency in determining the fluid flow rate through the last flask in the apparatus. However, weaknesses arise when describing the results of the experiment as in some instances, depending on the controller being used, the fluid can partially flow through all the three flasks in the apparatus set up for the experiment. The calculation of the flow rate calibration, the spectrometer calibration, the response of the impulse, the response of the step and the disturbance response play a major role in determining the efficiency of the controller in question.
