This work aims to improve corporate functional departments' confidence in adopting modern control approaches in new scenarios and thus presents control structure solutions based on model predictive control (MPC) for two control problems facing existing upstream oil and gas production plants. These are the disturbance growth in the series connected process and the control system dependency on operators. The suggested control solution integrates MPC as a master controller for the existing classical control of each subsystem, with a focus on those with high interaction phenomena. The proposed approach simply and inexpensively encompass MPC features such as predictions, optimizations, coordination and constraint handling as well as PID features like simplicity and ease of troubleshoot. In addition, the proposed control concept utilises the process safeguarding information and enhances the plant-wide optimal performance. The suggested control solution supports the role of control room operators, which is shown to reduce the growth in the impact of process disturbances. Compared with some alternative control structures (centralised MPC, decentralised MPC, distributed MPC (DMPC), and hierarchical DMPC) this proposal is simple, inexpensive to implement, and critically, builds on the local team operational experience and maintenance skills. Three process models were developed that representing the common gas treatment processes in upstream oil and gas plants, gas sweetening, gas dehydration and hydrocarbon dewopointing. The models were utilised to examine different control structures and proposals. These models are not only of benefit to studies on upstream oil and gas processes, but also to Large Scale Systems (LSS) in general. The models were used to analyse the disturbance impacts on a series connected processes, therefore to provide answers about how process malfunctions and different disturbances affect the processing operations. The proposed control system is designed on a cascade strategy and thus provides a flexible system control almost like a decentralised structure in dealing with disturbances and unit failures, and at the same time improves the closed loop performance and the plant-wide optimal operation. The control system contain MPC's that are designed to regulate the critical loops only while the rest of the uncritical loops will continue to function in a decentralised fashion under PID control algorithm. This minimises any design and set up costs, reduces demand on the communication network and simplifies any associated real time optimisations. The improved local control reduced the need for control room operator interactions with their associated weaknesses. The proposed control structure communicate with the process safeguarding system to enable prompt response to disturbances caused by unit failures, and shares critical information with adjacent MPC's, which indeed works as a feed-forward, to reduce the impact of process disturbances and enhance optimality. The control system design is simple, inexpensive to implement and significantly reduces the frequency of plant shut downs and saves on operating costs by properly controlling the disturbance growth in the process.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:721869 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Al-Naumani, Yahya |
| Contributors | Rossiter, J. A. |
| Publisher | University of Sheffield |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/17979/ |
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