A geometric observer design for a semi-batch free-radical polymerization system
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
7-12-2019
Abstract
In this work, a geometric observer (GO) is formulated and tested using experimental data from the Automatic Continuous Online Monitoring of Polymerization reactions (ACOMP) system for a semi-batch free-radical polymerization reactor that synthetizes polyacrylamide. The available measurements include the weight-average molecular weight, the concentration of monomer, and the volume of internal contents. Different combinations between innovated states and measurements offer a number of possible structures of the GO. The computation of the minimum singular values and condition numbers permit to select the most promising structures. To overcome inadequacies observed in full-order architectures, low order GOs with passive structures are explored. The best observer is selected, compared with a standard estimation strategy and tested under various experimental operating conditions. The observer performance is evaluated qualitatively and quantitatively as a tradeoff between dynamic property estimation and signal processing.
Publication Source (Journal or Book title)
Computers and Chemical Engineering
First Page
391
Last Page
402
Recommended Citation
Salas, S., Romagnoli, J., Tronci, S., & Baratti, R. (2019). A geometric observer design for a semi-batch free-radical polymerization system. Computers and Chemical Engineering, 126, 391-402. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compchemeng.2019.04.026