Advanced Control for PVC Production 1

Abstract In the last decade, the affordability of powerful computers finally made it possible to exploit the advanced control concepts control theorists have been developing since the 1960’s. As a result, control of continuous processes as refinery distillation columns have seen a rapid evolution from single loop PID’s to multivariable predictive controllers with built-in constraint optimization and with diminishing horizon formulation whose performance cannot be matched by the old РГО solutions. Currently, predictive control technology is penetrating batch processes as well. The paper describes its application to PVC production.