15th Triennial World Congress of the International Federation of Automatic Control
  Barcelona, 21–26 July 2002 
A GLC CONTROLLER FOR THE CONTROL OF THE METHYL METHACRYLATE POLYMERIZATION
Mehdi Rafizadeh1, Ahmad Afshar2, and Hassan Gharghi2
1 Polymer Engineering Department
2 Electrical Engineering Department
AmirKabir University of Technology
Tehran, IRAN, P.O. Box 15875-4413
Email: mehdi@cic.aku.ac.ir

To produce a certain polymer with desired properties, some of polymerization variables should be controlled. In this paper, a oil bath was designed and constructed for the heating and cooling of the reactor. Then, a mechanistic model was developed for the solution polymerization of methyl methacrylate in a batch reactor. This model is highly non-linear. A Globally Linearizing Control (GLC) strategy was applied to control the reactor temperature. A linear PI controller was designed to eliminate the error. The controller performance was viable and the previously developed GLC method is suitable for the oil heating system.
Keywords: Chemical industry, Feedback control, Linear control systems, Linearization, Modeling
Session slot T-Mo-M21: Posters of Industrial Applications/Area code 7a : Chemical Process Control