Abstract:
Offshore oil production facilities exhibit
nonlinear dynamic characteristics. With the existence of
many flow regulating valves, these dynamics require to be
linearized in order to achieve the performance criteria
necessary for production of hydrocarbons. Consequently,
the dynamic nature of these valves affect their production
performance as regular tuning of process controllers are
required due to changes in reservoir fluid flow and future
constraints. To address this phenomenon, this paper
proposes an MPC-PID control system strategy for offshore
oil production platform. This strategy includes the use of
model predictive controller providing the most economic
and efficient set point for distributed PID controllers in the
respective loops. The model predictive controller employs a
strategy based on the process model to solve the optimal
control problem. The proposed approach is further
developed using a dynamic engineering design tools
available in MATLAB/Simulink and implemented on Gas-
Liquid Cylindrical Cyclone (GLCC) compact separator.
The system is subjected to set point variation and process
disturbances. The results indicate stable controller design
and prove the ability of MPC controller to handle
constraints and reject disturbances while reducing the
energy required and hence overall reduction in production
cost with maximum performance.
