A chemical reactor is one of the common apparatuses in chemical industry. Despite a large number of the works related to automation and control of chemical reactors, the problem of synthesizing control systems that provide the maintenance of optimal modes of their operation remains practically unsolved. This is related to the principal feature of chemical reactors as controlled objects, namely, manifold, non-linearity, and multi-coupling. An outcome from this situation is to develop a physical theory of control, in particular synergetic control theory.
The problem of analytical synthesis of nonlinear control law of the chemical reactor temperature regime has been solved. We use the methods of synergetic control theory, simulation methods and methods of computational experiment.
The paper deals with continuous stirred tank reactor equipped with a mechanical stirrer and cooling jacket. The reactor operates in the polytropic mode. The multistep series-parallel exothermic process is carried out in the reactor. The objective of chemical reactor operation is to obtain the key product of specified concentration.
Using the analytical design method of aggregated regulators, a non-linear control algorithm was synthesized, which solves the problem of stabilization of reaction mixture temperature in the apparatus under the action of disturbances on the object. Computer simulation of the object–regulator isolated system showed such properties of synthesized control system as the disturbance invariance, covariance to the given actions, and asymptotic stability.
Synergetic Control Theory and Vibro-Mechanics: a Conceptual Relation