An Integrated Approach for Process Control Valves Diagnosis Using Fuzzy Logic

Control valves are widely used in industry to control fluid flow in several applications. In nuclear power systems they are crucial for the safe operation of plants. Therefore, the necessity of improvements in monitoring and diagnosis methods started to be of extreme relevance, establishing as main goal of the reliability and readiness of the system components. The main focus of this work is to study the development of a model of non-intrusive monitoring and diagnosis applied to process control valves using artificial intelligence by fuzzy logic technique, contributing to the development of predictive methodologies identifying faults in incipient state. Specially in nuclear power plants, the predictive maintenance contributes to the security factor in order to diagnose in advance the occurrence of a possible failure, preventing severs situations. The control valve analyzed belongs to a steam plant which simulates the secondary circuit of a PWR—Pressurized Water Reactor. The maintenance programs are being implemented based on the ability to diagnose modes of degradation and to take measures to prevent incipient failures, improving plant reliability and reducing maintenance costs. The approach described in this paper represents an alternative departure from the conventional qualitative techniques of system analysis. The methodology used in this project is based on signatures analysis, considering the pressure (psi) in the actuator and the stem displacement (mm) of the valve. Once the measurements baseline of the control valve is taken, it is possible to detect long-term deviations during valve lifetime, detecting in advance valve failures. This study makes use of MATLAB language through the “fuzzy logic toolbox” which uses the method of inference “Mamdani”, acting by fuzzy conjunction, through Triangular Norms (t-norm) and Triangular Conorms (t-conorm). The main goal is to obtain more detailed information contained in the measured data, correlating them to failure situations in the incipient stage.

Real Time Automation and Ratio Control Using PLC&SCADA in Industry 4.0

Industrial Control Systems(ICS)and SCADA(Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition)systems play a critical role in the management and regulation of critical infrastructure.SCADA systems brings us closer to the real-time application world.All process and equipment control capability is typically provided by a Distributed Control System(DCS)in industries such as power stations,agricultural systems,chemical and water treatment plants.Instead of control through DCS,this paper proposes a SCADA and PLC(Programmable Logic Controller)system to control the ratio control division and the assembly line division inside the chemical plant.A specific design and implementation method for development of SCADA/PLC based real time ratio control and automated assembly line system in a chemical plant is introduced.The assembly line division is further divided into sorting stage,filling stage and the auxiliary stage,which includes the capping unit,labelling unit and then the storage.In the ratio control division,we have defined the levels inside the mixer and ratio of the raw materials through human machine interface(HMI)panel.The ratio of raw materials is kept constant on the basis of flow rates of wild stream and manipulated stream.There is a flexibility in defining new levels and the ratios of the raw materials inside the mixer.But here we taken the predefined levels(low,medium,high)and ratios(3:4,2:1,2:5).Control valves are used for regulating the flow of the compositions.In the assembly line division,the containers are sorted on the basis of size and type of material used i.e.,big sized metallic containers and small sized non-metallic containers by inductive and capacitive proximity sensors.All the processes are facilitated with laser beam type or reflective type sensors on the conveyor system.Building a highly stable and dependable PLC/SCADA system instead of Distributed Control System is required to achieve automatic management and control of chemical industry processes to reduce waste manpower and physical resources,as well as to improve worker safety.

Fault Detection and Diagnosis of Pneumatic Control Valve Based on a Hybrid Deep Learning Model

As the growing requirements for the stability and safety of process industries,the fault detection and diagnosis of pneumatic control valves have crucial practical significance.Many of the approaches were presented in the literature to diagnose faults through the comparison of residual sequences with thresholds.In this study,a novel hybrid neural network model has been developed to address the issue of pneumatic control valve fault diagnosis.First,the feature extractor automatically extracts in-depth features of the signals through multi-scale convolutional neural networks with different kernel sizes,which not only adequately explores the local distinguishable features,but also takes into account the global features.The extracted features are then fused by the feature fusion layer to reduce redundant features.Finally,the long short-term memory for fault identification and the dense layer for fault classification.Experimental results demonstrate that the average test accuracy is above 94%and 16 out of the 19 conditions can be successfully detected in the simulated actual industrial environment.The effectiveness and practicability of the proposed method have been verified through a comparative analysis with existing intelligent fault diagnosis methods,and the results suggest that the developed model has better robustness.

Separate Control of High Frequency Electro-hydraulic Vibration Exciter

The working frequency of the conventional electro-hydraulic vibration exciters,which consist of a servo valve and a hydraulic cylinder,is generally restricted within a narrow range due to limited frequency response capability of the servo valve itself.To counteract such restriction,a novel scheme for an electro-hydraulic vibrator,controlled by a two-dimensional valve（2D valve） and a bias valve in parallel,is therefore proposed.The frequency,amplitude and offset are independently controlled by rotary speed,axial sliding of the spool of the 2D valve and axial sliding of the spool of the bias valve.The principle of separate control was presented and the regulation approach of frequency,amplitude and offset was discussed.A mathematical model of the hydraulic power mechanism for the proposed vibration exciter was established to investigate the relationship between the amplitude and the axial sliding of the 2D valve＇ spool,as well as that between the offset and the axial sliding of the bias valve＇s spool at various frequencies.An experimental system was built to validate the theoretical analysis.It is verified that the 2D exciter is capable of working smoothly in a frequency range of 5- 200 Hz.And its frequency,amplitude and offset can be controlled respectively by either closed loop or open loop method.There is a linear relationship between the output amplitude and the spool axial opening of the 2D valve until a point when the flow rate becomes saturate and the amplitude remains constant.The offset displacement of the cylinder＇s piston is linearly proportional to the axial displacement of the spool of the bias valve,when the valve opening is less than 25%.Thereafter,the slop of the offset curve decreases and tends to saturate.The proposed electro-hydraulic vibration controlled by the 2D valve not only facilitates the realization of high-frequency electro-hydraulic vibration,the high-accuracy of vibration can also be achieved by means of independent controls to the frequency,amplitude and offset.

TRANSIENT RESPONSE OF A VALVE CONTROL HYDRAULIC SYSTEM WITHLONG PIPES

The simulation model of a valve control hydraulic system with long pipe isestablished in Simulink4.0, and then the step responses of the systems with difference pipeparameters are investigated by simulation. Simulation results show that the long pipes will slowdown the step response of system and make it fluctuate periodically. The results of simulationconform to the results of experiment on the whole, which proves the mathematic model is correct.

Parameters Sensitivity Characteristics of Highly Integrated Valve-Controlled Cylinder Force Control System

Nowadays, a highly integrated valve?controlled cylinder(HIVC) is applied to drive the joints of legged robots. Although the adoption of HIVC has resulted in high?performance robot control, the hydraulic force system still has problems, such as strong nonlinearity, and time?varying parameters. This makes HIVC force control very diffcult and complex. How to improve the control performance of the HIVC force control system and find the influence rule of the system parameters on the control performance is very significant. Firstly, the mathematical model of HIVC force control system is established. Then the mathematical expression for parameter sensitivity matrix is obtained by applying matrix sensitivity analysis(PSM). Then, aimed at the sinusoidal response under(three factors and three levels) working conditions, the simulation and the experiment are conducted. While the error between the simulation and experiment can’t be avoided. Therefore, combined with the range analysis, the error in the two performance indexes of sinusoidal response under the whole working condition is analyzed. Besides, the sensitivity variation pattern for each system parameter under the whole working condition is figured out. Then the two sensitivity indexes for the three system parameters, which are supply pressure, proportional gain and initial displacement of piston, are proved experimentally. The proposed method significantly reveals the sensitivity characteristics of HIVC force control system, which can make the contribution to improve the control performance.

Adaptive H-infinity control of synchronous generators with steam valve via Hamiltonian function method

Based on Hamiltonian formulation, this paper proposes a design approach to nonlinear feedback excitation control of synchronous generators with steam valve control, disturbances and unknown parameters. It is shown that the dynamics of the synchronous generators can be expressed as a dissipative Hamiltonian system, based on which an adaptive H-infinity controller is then designed for the systems by using the structure properties of dissipative Hamiltonian systems. Simulations show that the controller obtained in this paper is very effective.

A novel adaptive backstepping design of turbine main steam valve control

The problem of transient stability for a single machine infinite bus system with turbine main steam valve control is addressed by means of a novel adaptive backstepping method in this paper.The recursive design procedure of the proposed controller is much simpler than that of the existing controller based on conventional adaptive backstepping method.In the system,the damping coefficient is measured inaccurately,and the reactance of transmission line also contains a few uncertainties.A nonlinear robust controller and parameter updating laws are obtained simultaneously.The system does not need to be linearized,and the closed-loop error system is guaranteed to be asymptotically stable.The design procedure and simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed design.

MODELING, VALIDATION AND OPTIMAL DESIGN OF THE CLAMPING FORCE CONTROL VALVE USED IN CONTINUOUSLY VARIABLE TRANSMISSION

Associated dynamic performance of the clamping force control valve used in continuously variable transmission （CVT） is optimized. Firstly, the structure and working principle of the valve are analyzed, and then a dynamic model is set up by means of mechanism analysis. For the purpose of checking the validity of the modeling method, a prototype workpiece of the valve is manufactured for comparison test, and its simulation result follows the experimental result quite well. An associated performance index is founded considering the response time, overshoot and saving energy, and five structural parameters are selected to adjust for deriving the optimal associated performance index. The optimization problem is solved by the genetic algorithm （GA） with necessary constraints. Finally, the properties of the optimized valve are compared with those of the prototype workpiece, and the results prove that the dynamic performance indexes of the optimized valve are much better than those of the prototype workpiece.

STUDY ON FLUID THICKNESS BETWEEN POPPET AND VALVE GUIDE IN CONTROL VALVE OF INJECTOR

The physical model of -20 diesel oil and force model of injector controlvalve of common rail system is built. The changes of the fluid thickness are investigated on thebase of the results of CFD and experiments for control valve of injector. The results indicate thata fluid thickness of 0.02-0.03 mm between the poppet and valve guide is sufficient to dampen anyexcessive control valve poppet bouncing.

A new adaptive backstepping method for nonlinear control of turbine main steam valve

A new approach for nonlinear adaptive control of turbine main steam valve is developed. In comparison with the existing controller based on ＂classical＂ adaptive backstepping, this method does not follow the classical certaintyequivalence principle in the design of adaptive control law. We introduce this approach, for the first time, to power systems and present a novel parameter estimator and dynamic feedback controller for a single machine infinite bus （SMIB） system with steam valve control. This system contains unknown parameters such as reactance of transmission lines. Besides preserving useful nonlinearities and the real-time estimation of uncertain parameters, the proposed approach possesses better performances with respect to the response of the system and the speed of adaptation. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed approach is better than the design based on ＂classical＂ adaptive backstepping in terms of properties of stability and parameter estimation, and recovers the performance of the ＂full-information＂ controller. Hence, the proposed method provides an alternative for engineers in applications.

Positioning-control Based on Trapezoidal Velocity Curve for High-precision Basis Weight Control Valve

Traditionally, basis weight control valve is driven by a constant frequency pulse signal. Therefore, it is difficult for the valve to match the control precision of basis weight. Dynamic simulation research using Matlab/Simulink indicates that there is much more overshoot and fluctuating during the valve-positioning process. In order to improve the valve-positioning precision, the control method of trapezoidal velocity curve was studied. The simulation result showed that the positioning steady-state error was less than 0.0056%, whereas the peak error was less than 0.016% by using trapezoidal velocity curve at 10 positioning steps. A valve-positioning precision experimental device for the stepper motor of basis weight control valve was developed. The experiment results showed that the error ratio of 1/10000 positioning steps was 4% by using trapezoidal velocity curve. Furthermore, the error ratio of 10/10000 positioning steps was 0.5%. It proved that the valve-positioning precision of trapezoidal velocity curve was much higher than that of the constant frequency pulse signal control strategy. The new control method of trapezoidal velocity curve can satisfy the precision requirement of 10000 steps.

ADAPTIVE CONTROLLER AND ITS APPLICATION IN FORCE SYSTEM OF ASYMMETRIC CYLINDER CONTROLLED BY SYMMETRIC VALVE

Partial pressure, system vibration and asymmetric system dynamic performance exit in asymmetric cylinder controller by symmetric valve hydraulic system. To solve this problem in the force control system, model reference adaptive controller is designed using equilibrium point stability theory and output error equation polynomial. The reference model is selected in such a way that it meets the system dynamic performance. Hardware configuration of asymmetric cylinder controlled by asymmetric valve hydraulic system is replaced by intelligent control algorithm, thus the cost is lowered and easy to application. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed adaptive control sheme has good adaptive ability and well solves asymmetric dynamic performance problem. The designed adaptive controller is fairly robust to load disturbance and system parameter variation.

High Speed On/Off Valve Control Hydraulic Propeller

The work-class remotely-operated-underwater-vehicles（ROVs） are mainly driven by hydraulic propulsion system,and the effeciency of hydraulic propulsion system is an important performance index of ROVs.However,the efficiency of traditional hydraulic propulsion system controlled by throttle valves is too low.Therefore,in this paper,for small and medium ROVs,a novel propulsion system with higher efficiency based on high speed on/off valve control hydraulic propeller is proposed.To solve the conflict between large flow rate and high frequency response performance,a two-stage high speed on/off valve-motor unit with large flow rate and high response speed simultaneously is developed.Through theoretical analysis,an effective fluctuation control method and a novel pulse-width-pulse-frequency-modulation（PWPFM） are introduced to solve the conflict among inherently fluctuation,valve dynamic performance and system efficiency.A simulation model is established to evaluate the system performance.To prove the advantage of system in energy saving,and test the dynamic control performance of high speed on/off valve control propeller,a test setup is developed and a series of comparative experiments is completed.The smimulation and experiment results show that the two-stage high speed on/off valve has an excellent dynamic response performance,and can be used to realize high accuracy speed control.The experiment results prove that the new propulsion system has much more advantages than the traditional throttle speed regulation system in energy saving.The lowest efficiency is more than 40%.The application results on a ROV indicate that the high speed on/off valve control propeller system has good dynamic and steady-state control performances.Its transient time is only about 1 s-1.5 s,and steady-state error is less than 5%.Meanwhile,the speed fluctuation is small,and the smooth propeller speed control effect is obtained.On the premise of good propeller speed control performance,the proposed high speed on/off valve control propeller can improve the effeciency of ROV propulsion system significantly,and provides another attractive ROV propulsion system choice for engineers.

An experimental study on flowrate and stability for 600MW supercritical steam-turbine control valve

An experimental study on flowrate and stability of a type of control valve of 600MW supercritical steam-turbine was presented by measuring instruments of static, dynamic pressure and vibration in self-designed test rig. The investigation shows that flow coefficient is 30% up more than that of the control valve of GX-1 type used widely in domestic power plants now, as small-medium lifts. If the relative lift (h/D) is less than 20%, the valve can always work steadily in all the pressure ratios. When the h/D is between 20% to 24%, big vibration of valve stem occurs if the pressure ratio is between 0.7 to 0.8. When h/D is more than 25%, relatively great vibration happens in a wide range of pressure ratios of 0.4 to 0.85.

Nonlinear variable structure excitation and steam valving controllers for power system stability

A set of novel nonlinear variable structure excitation and steam-valving controllers are proposed in this paper. On the basis of the classical dynamic equations of a generator, excitation control and steam valving control are simultaneously considered. Design of these controllers combines the differential geometry theory with the variable structure controlling theory. The mathematical model in the form of ＂an affine nonlinear system＂ is set up for the control design of a large-scale power plant. The dynamic performance of the nonlinear variable structure controllers proposed for a single machine connected to an infinite bus power system is simulated. Simulation results show that the nonlinear variable structure excitation and steam-valving controllers give satisfactory dynamic performance and good robustness.

Simulation on venting process and valve opening control method for gas trunk pipelines

Determining the venting time of a gas trunk pipeline segment provides an important basis for formulating an emergency plan in the advent of unexpected accidents.As the natural gas venting process corresponds to the transient flow,it is necessary to establish a transient hydraulic-thermal simulation model in order to determine the venting time.In this paper,based on two kinds of venting scenarios in which there is only one venting point in the venting system of a gas trunk pipeline segment—namely,where the venting point is either at one of the two ends or at the junction of two gas trunk pipeline segments—transient hydraulic-thermal simulation models are established.The models consist of gas flow governing equations,the gas state equation,gas physical property equations,initial conditions,and appropriate boundary conditions.The implicit central difference method is used to discretize the gas flow partial differential equations,and the trust-region-dogleg algorithm is used to solve the equations corresponding to each time step,in order to dynamically simulate the whole venting process.The judgment condition for the end of the venting process is that the average pressure of gas trunk pipeline segment is less than 0.11 MPa(actual pressure).Comparing the simulation results of the proposed model with those of the OLGA software and real operational data,we find that the venting time error is less than 10%.On this basis,a venting valve opening control principle is proposed,which prevents the venting noise from exceeded the specified noise value(85 d B)in the venting design of domestic gas pipeline projects.The established calculation model for venting time(dynamic simulation model)for a gas trunk pipeline segment and the proposed opening control principle of venting valve provide reference for the optimal operation of gas pipeline venting systems.

Effect of Cone Angle on the Hydraulic Characteristics of Globe Control Valve

Globe control valve is widely used in chemical, petroleum and hydraulic industries, and its throttling feature is achieved by the adopting of valve plug. However, very limited information is available in literature regarding the influence of valve plug on the internal and external features in globe control valves. Thus the effect of valve plug is studied by CFD and experiment in this paper. It is obtained from external features that the pressure drop between upstream and downstream pressure-sampling position increases exponentially with flow rate. And for small valve opening, the increment of pressure drop decreases with the increase of cone angle（β）. However, with the increase of valve opening, the effect of cone angle diminishes significantly. It is also found that the cone angle has little effect on flow coefficient（Cv） when the valve opening is larger than 70%. But for the cases less than 70%, Cv curve varies from an arc to a straight line. The variation of valve performance is caused by the change of internal flow. The results of internal flow show that cone angle has negligible effect on flow properties for the cases of valve opening larger than 70%. However, when valve opening is smaller than 70%, the pressure drop of orifice decreases with the increase of β, making the reduction in value and scope of the high speed zone around the conical surface of valve plug, and then results in a decreasing intensity of adjacent downstream vortex. Meanwhile, it is concluded from the results that the increase of cone angle will be beneficial for the anti-cavitation and anti-erosion of globe control valve. This paper focuses on the internal and external features of globe control valve that caused by the variation of cone angle, arriving at some results beneficial for the design and usage of globe control valve.

Piezoelectric Pump Used in Bionic Underwater Propulsion Unit

A new piezoelectric pump can pump liquid either forward or backward and adjust the flow rate. Thus an object can be driven forward or backward at different speeds. The driver of the pump, a circular piezoelectric plate, is modelled by Finite Element Method （FEM） in ANSYS and its performance is simulated and analyzed. The pump gives the best performance when the driving signals of the inlet and outlet valves have a bigger duty cycle and the plate has a higher voltage applied.

A rotary pneumatic actuator for the actuation of the exoskeleton knee joint

Rotary pneumatic actuators that are made out of linear one are always best suited for exoskeleton joint actuation due to its inherent power to weight ratio. This work is a modified version of knee actuation system that has already been developed and major modifications are made in order to make it more suitable for human wearing and also to reduce its bulkiness and complexity. The considered actuator system is a rotary actuator where a pulley converts the linear motion of the standard pneumatic piston into the rotary motion. To prove the capability of the actuator, its performance characteristics such as torque and power produced are compared to the required torque and power at the knee joint of the exoskeleton in swing phase and are found to be excellent. The two-way analysis of variance（ANOVA）is performed to find the effect of the throat area valve on knee angle. The ANOVA shows the significant effect of the throat area variation on the knee angle flexion made by the proposed actuator. A relationship between the throat area of flow control valve, that is connected to the exit port of the direction control valve, and angular displacement of the knee joint has been formulated. This relationship can be used to design a control system to regulate the mass flow rate of air at the exit and hence the angular velocity of the knee joint can be controlled.