Some might call this category “process control” or “instrumentation and control,” because the material in these topics is closest to the historical scope of ISA and is consistent with ISA’s original name, Instrument Society of America. But today, proportional, integral, derivative (PID) and other continuous control techniques are used in many applications outside the process industries. For example, they are used in areas such as automotive paint shop controls, motion controls, electrical equipment controls, building automation, ship stabilization controls, and many, many other areas.
PID is so pervasive that one could not be considered a well-educated automation professional if he or she does not know the basic concepts of PID and PID tuning. In fact, the CAP® Steering Team decided early on that while many people today work with manufacturing automation information technology, that does not involve basic plant floor control, it did not make sense for them to be called automation professionals without knowing the basics of plant floor control— including continuous control.
Measurements are extremely important in any automation task. It is really true that you can control
well only those things that you can measure—and accuracy and reliability requirements are continuing to
increase. Continuous instrumentation is required in many applications throughout automation, although
here we call it process instrumentation because the particular type of
transmitter packaging discussed is more widely used in process
applications.
There are so many measurement principles and variations on those
principles that this topic can only scratch the surface of all the available
ones, but it hopefully covers the more popular types. Analytical Instrumen-
tation and Control Valves are more applicable to process applications,
although these also are used in environmental and other applications in
a variety of industries. The type of control system documentation discussed
here is also more specific to process industries, but many outside
processes can learn from the high degree of development of these doc-
umentation conventions. The control equipment topic in this category
covers what has traditionally been called distributed control systems
(DCSs), although that designation no longer has intrinsic meaning.
Control valves are critical components of a control loop in process
and utility industries. It has often been demonstrated that, in nearly
all process plants, control valve problems are a major cause of poor
loop performance. A general knowledge of the impact of the control
valve on loop performance is critical to process control.
A Guide to the Automation Body of Knowledge, 2nd Edition Vernon L. Trevathan, Editor This 2nd edition gives you comprehensive information about all major topics in the broad field of automation. Edited by Vernon Trevathan with contributions from over 30 leading experts from all aspects of automation, this book defines the most important automation concepts and processes. You will turn to this book again and again as the ultimate source on what is encompassed by automation.
Format: Hardbound Book – 2006 ISBN: 978-1-55617-984-6 Length: 506 pages; Weight: 3 lbs. Member: $109.00; List: $129.00 www.isa.org/autobok
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