Michael Brown's Basic Troubleshooting and
Loop Tuning

(Not for sale in Southern Africa)

Michael Brown Control Engineering now offers a new and very practical approach to the basics of regulatory control loop optimisation. This is a course consisting of 31 chapters and based on articles on the subject Michael Brown has written over the past few years. The course covers some of the fundamentals of the subject, and careful study of the various chapters will allow you to gain a really good understanding of some of the really practical principles of optimising simple loops.

The course is offered on a CD which can be purchased from Michael Brown Control Engineering. For prices and ordering information, please contact the company at michael.brown@mweb.co.za . Please specify which country you are ordering from, as there are differing price structures for different countries because of postage costs. Unfortunately the CD is not for sale in Southern Africa.

DESCRIPTION OF CD CONTENTS
"The True Magic Is To Really Understand What You Are Doing"

This CD offers a new and very straight forward and easily understandable approach to the basics of practical regulatory control. This differs considerably from the very mathematical and idealistic standpoint from which control is normally taught by most academic institutions.

My approach is based on work performed over 20 years in literally hundreds of plants in many countries around the world, where we have found that in general at least 85% of all regulatory control loops operate extremely inefficiently in automatic. Over 50% of most loops have problems in them. (Usually people in the plants are completely unaware of these problems). After performing optimisation in these plants, control performance of virtually every loop worked on is vastly improved. Very often literally hundreds of times better.

To be able to optimise loops successfully, it is essential that the person doing the work understands the true practicalities behind control. Apart from a good basic knowledge and understanding of the process itself, and of the control requirements, he or she must be able to analyse each loop to ascertain the type of process dynamics, to determine if any problems exist in the loop, and then finally to apply the most appropriate type of tuning to achieve optimum performance for that particular loop.

Our experience to date is that very few people have any real understanding of the true practicalities of control, as they have never been taught this, and have had to "feel their way", which often results in incorrect concepts, and lack of ability to optimise loops to operate efficiently.

The contents of this CD address the correct approach, and deals with all the elements in the loop, including the process.

The following subjects are covered:

• Process classes and dynamics.

• Final control elements.

• Digital controllers.

• Tuning.

• Many other subjects, including problems that may be encountered with digital measuring techniques, noise and filtering, and non-linearity in control loops.

Once this CD has been properly studied, it will be possible for the student to tackle optimisation with much more understanding and confidence. 

Examples of articles on this CD

For prices and ordering information, please contact the company at michael.brown@mweb.co.za

(For sale in Southern Africa as in other countries)

Description of CD Contents

Over 100 articles containing descriptions of very interesting problems and
solutions encountered by Michael Brown during his years of work in many
plants in various countries around the world. There are also some articles
discussing some of the basics of optimisation, and the need for it in plants
worldwide. One particular article shows you how to calculate how well your
controls are operating in your own plant.

For prices and ordering information, please contact the company at michael.brown@mweb.co.za

Examples of articles on this CD

Introducing the latest CD:

ADVANCED OPTIMISATION TECHNIQUES

(Not for sale in Southern Africa)

Description of CD Contents

This is a continuation of the optimisation techniques described in my
previous CD "Basic Troubleshooting and Loop Tuning", which discussed
analysing regulatory control loops, and the basics of tuning processes with
simple dynamics. Such processes are probably encountered in plants in about
60 - 70% of most cases.  However there are many more types of dynamics, many
of them being quite complicated.  It is vital for successful optimisation
that one can identify all the dynamic types that occur in the process, and
learn how to effectively tune the controller in the best possible way.
There are also other problems that can occur in processes where feedback
control cannot operate effectively, as in the case of interactive processes,
and where slow processes are upset by external load changes.  Feedforward
techniques can be very powerful to remedy situations like this. 

This new CD covers all these points.  Another important feature in the work
is that the basics of the theory behind practical control techniques are
discussed in more detail than was given in the first CD.  The result is that
the student will gain a much better understanding of the practice, and as a
result will get much more confidence in understanding how, and why, things
work as they do.   

Feedback from people who have worked through this material indicate that
they have found the teachings incredibly useful and powerful.  Many people
have come back to me and told me how they have managed to get controls to
work successfully in automatic, that were always previously in manual.  I
personally believe that the knowledge contained herein, has given me the
confidence I have, to be able to identify and solve most problems that I
encounter in my professional life. 

Examples of articles on this CD

For prices and ordering information, please contact the company at michael.brown@mweb.co.za