Fuzzy-GMC Control of Gas-Phase Propylene Copolymerization in Fluidized Bed Reactor

¹ Chemical Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, University Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
² Chemical & Petroleum Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Technology and Built Environment, UCSI University, 56000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
³ Multiphase Systems Research Lab. School of Chemical Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Tehran, P.O. Box 11155/4563, Tehran, Iran.

^* Corresponding author: mohd_azlan@um.edu.my

Abstract

A modified two-phase model for gas phase propylene and ethylene copolymerization was chosen to represent the process in a fluidized bed reactor. This model considered the entrainment of solid particles in the reactor, as a modification to the original two-phase model assumptions. The non-linearity of this process makes it difficult to control just by using conventional controller such as PID. A hybrid control strategy (a simple designed fuzzy logic controller (FLC) integrated with generic model control (GMC)) is designed to control the temperature of the reactor. This advanced control system was compared with the GMC and conventional PID controller. The simulation results showed that the hybrid controller (Fuzzy-GMC) performed better than both GMC and PID in terms of both servo and regulatory control.