A Comparative Study on Vortex Transmitter versus Differential Pressure Transmitter for Flow Control

Abstract

This research emphasizes on the study of Vortex transmitter and Differential Pressure (DP) transmitter performance for a laboratory pilot plant by observing process response criteria consisting of dead-time (TD), rise time (TR), overshoot (%OS) and settling time (TS) for set point changes in a Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) flow control architecture. Four experiments were conducted; rising set point for Vortex transmitter, rising set point for DP transmitter, falling set point for Vortex transmitter and falling set point for DP transmitter. Limit tolerance test for Vortex transmitter and DP transmitter were done to determine the operational limits. Continuous Cycling Method is applied for controller tuning. Control and data collection for the flow plant is done using Distributed Control System (DCS) in real time. It is observed that Vortex transmitter produces a smaller TD, TS, Ts and %OS compared to DP transmitter for falling SP experiment, while less conclusive results were obtained for rising SP set up where Vortex transmitter produces a larger TD and Ts but smaller TR and %OS.