Case Study Projects in an Undergraduate Process Control Course

Abstract

In this paper we present a case study approach to teaching undergraduate chemical process control. During the last half of a one-semester chemical process control course, the students work in threeperson teams on a multivariable control project that they have selected from a choice of five processes. Each project is advised by a different member of an instructional team (instructor, course teaching assistant or a graduate student studying control). Each project includes many phases typically associated with a control design project: literature review, model development and process identification, control structure selection and controller tuning for SISO systems, multiple SISO loop tuning. This approach provides a sense of an industrial control problem for the undergraduate student, including working in a project team environment with a project advisor. It also gives the graduate students and teaching assistants experience in advising and teaching, and reinforces many control system co...