Pressure buffering control to reduce pollution and improve flow stability in industrial gas headers

Abstract

This paper describes various regulatory and advanced control schemes which can be applied to industrial gas headers. The intention is to exploit the buffering capacity for pollution control as well as improve flow stability for consumers. The control schemes are compared using a Monte Carlo simulation on a simulated case study and a sensitivity analysis is done to evaluate the impact of variations in the gas properties on the cost functions. A compensated linear model predictive controller (CLMPC) is implemented on a real industrial header and compared with standard proportional–integral (PI) control. It is found that gas emissions and consumer stability can be substantially improved by intelligently utilising the available pressure buffering capacity in industrial gas headers.