The Durban Branch has been very active with two excellent speakers for their July and August meetings.
John Wright presented a paper on wireless transmitters and their application in the industrial control world. His talk kept the unusually large number of attendees at the meeting extremely interested, as evidenced by the questions and answers that followed. John took his audience from the difficulties encountered in selecting transmission frequencies in various countries to avoid problems associated with licensing; through an outline of currently available field devices with their capabilities and limitations, finally to comments on results being achieved with a portable system that is on trial in a major South African petrochemical refining environment.
John has been with Honeywell for 32 years holding different positions within the company and is presently sales lead for sub-Saharan Africa in the Industrial Measurement and Control Division. The Durban branch appreciates Honeywell's sponsorship of the July meeting.
Pieter Steenekamp presented a talk on the subject of multivariable control using its application in distillation to illustrate the concepts involved. Pieter has written a 'simple' (his words, not mine!) Model Predictive Control package that has been implemented on a number of sites in the South African petrochemical and mineral processing industries, and he used this in simulation mode to take the audience through the typical steps involved in loop response testing and setting up of the controller. He then illustrated the effects of changing tuning constants and plant dynamics which led to a lively discussion with the floor on the ideal application regimes for such controllers. Judging by the number of questions this was a highly successful meeting.
Pieter is an independent process control consultant who has worked for over 30 years on process control projects in many different industries, a number of these using Model Predictive Control applications with great success. A demonstration version of his MPC controller may be downloaded free of charge from http://www.randcontrols.co.za
The Durban Branch wishes to thank Sappi Saiccor for its sponsorship of the August meeting through the 2006 corporate sponsorship programme.
The Durban Branch also took the opportunity to make three presentations. The first one was to University of KZN student Luke Harrison, who received the second tranche of his SAIMC Scholarship Award. This was inaugurated by the SAIMC this year in a move to assist the development of highly promising young engineers in process control, and is awarded to the most outstanding student in that discipline.
The second presentation was to Warren Sachs, who received an iPod as the lucky draw winner in our recent challenge to members to submit their topics for discussion at the recent SAIMC Bosberaad.
Finally, the Durban Branch presented Engen Refinery with its Patron Member certificate which was received by Brian Thompson, a regular supporter of our activities.
Dean Trattles
SAIMC Durban branch chairman
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