Control of a Fluidized Bed Polyethylene Reactor

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In present paper, dynamic behavior and control of a fluidized bed reactor for polyethylene production has been considered. A double active sites model for Ziegler-Natta catalysts is used for simulation of polymerization reaction. Hydrodynamic behavior of the bed is modeled using a two phase model including bubble and emulsion phases in which bubble phase has plug flow pattern with differentially variable velocity and size through the bed and emulsion phase has the CSTR flow pattern. The reactor model is validated using industrial data. Conventional PID controllers with anti-windup are considered for control purposes. It has been shown that the control system has satisfactory performances either for setpoint tracking or load rejection. To improve the performance of the control system for load rejection the cascade control strategy has been considered.