Inventory control of particulate systems.pdf

th 20 European Symposium on Computer Aided Process Engineering – ESCAPE20 S. Pierucci and G. Buzzi Ferraris (Editors) © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Inventory control of particulate systems Juan Du, B. Erik Ydstie, Christy M. Laird, Department of Chemical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, 15213, USA. ydstie@cmu.edu Abstract In this paper inventory control is applied to a particulate system. The performance of inventory control is guaranteed only if the zero dynamics of the closed loop system is stable. Mathematical analysis for the stability of the particulate system is derived to show that the zero dynamics is stable. The approach is illustrated by the application to thermal deposition of silicon in a fluid bed reactor. Simulation results are presented to support the mathematical conclusion. Keywords: Inventory control, Zero dynamics, Stability analysis, Particulate processes. 1. Introduction The complexities of particulate processes create challenges for control. The physics of particle processes include nonlinear behavior and distributed parameters. The reaction, growth, or decay mechanisms in particle processes are distributed across both external and internal coordinates. Ray et al. provide a nice review of the nonlinear dynamics that characterize polymerization processes. As Semino and Ray point out, much work has been accomplished to apply and solve the population balance for a variety of particulate systems. In recent years, more groups have developed control theory for a variety of particulate systems. Mantzaris applied nonlinear control techniques to cell growth processes. Diez et al. pointed out that inventory control is a promising method to control particulate systems. Furthermore White et al. showed that inventory control can be applied to the discretized population balance model without model