Tomar wg1
Tomar wg1
Tomar wg1
Meeting in Tomar
3 – 5 October
WG 1 on Plant Operation
Parallel Sessions
Jens Alex
Steven Isaacs
Ulf Jeppsson
Practical Aspects
(Steven Isaacs)
The first major topic - “Practical aspects” - was explained. In addition to the attached programme the
key words “Acceptance and Understanding” and “ Meaningful Control Goals” were stressed.
Acceptance: The acceptance of advanced control strategies on the part of communal leaders as well
as treatment plant personnel is of utmost importance. Regarding communal leaders, the control will
not be purchased or implemented otherwise. Regarding plant personnel, the control and automatic
measurements will not be supervised and maintained, perhaps not even used, otherwise.
Understanding: The plant personnel have to understand the controls and what they are trying to
achieve, otherwise they will make little effort to maintain the control and measurement systems.
The worst situation is to have a control system used incorrectly. This means either not used at all
(disabled) or used with wrong or poor measurements, or used with completely incorrect tuning
parameters and set points. If this occurs and continues, the respect for the control system, both at
the current plant and, through word of mouth, at neighbouring communities, will be lost. And
thereby the acceptance of the control system will decline.
Key principle: Just as in the case of automobile manufacturers, who learned that the design of a model
must also take into consideration the ease of maintenance and repair, control system design must
consider the issues of understandability and transparency in order to be accepted, understood and,
hence, well maintained and correctly implemented.
Meaningful Control Goals
Research in control system development for WWTP’s needs to consider the meaningfulness of the
control goal. Otherwise there will be a lack of acceptance for the system and a lack of willingness to
implement the system.
As an example, an obviously good control goal is the maintaining of effluent concentrations below set
limits. However, is it realistic to pursue effluent concentrations to ± a small tolerance around a set point
value? Particularly in view of all the other uncertainties in plant dynamics and measurements?
Benchmark
(Ulf Jeppsson)
An important ongoing action of WG 1 is the control benchmark project. The idea of this project is given
in the attached working programme. In addition the following issues were mentioned:
• summary of the present state of the benchmark action as presented in [1] and [2];
• presentation of the next steps of the benchmark, defined in a small meeting preceding the workshop
in Tomar:
- definition of a list of additional control variables (measurements) and control handles;
- preparation of a description of the properties of the newly defined measurements (delay time,
noise level, etc.).
Parallel Session No. 1 Monday, October 4th, 15.00-16.45
The aim of the discussions was to compile ideas of the participants with respect to the proposed
working programme, to discuss the proposal, to evaluate the defined goals and to plan the future actions
of the working group. There were two parallel sessions organised for each working group with a distinct
selection of participants. For this reason several topics were discussed twice.
One example of scalable complexity is the characterisation of organic matter by different COD fractions
as shown below.
XH
particulate
COD slowly
biodegredable
COD COD XS
soluble SA
COD readily
biodegredable
COD SF
Benchmark
The focus of the last minutes of the session were on the next steps of the benchmark project:
• additional sensors will be available -> this will allow more practical use of the benchmark;
• benchmark files will soon be readily obtainable;
• topic remains on the WG1 agenda but with varying emphasis at different meetings.
Finally, the first ideas for the programme and the location of the next working group were discussed.
This discussion continued during the second parallel session.
Parallel Session No. 2 Tuesday, October 5th, 9.00-10.15
Plant Wide Modelling
After a summary of the discussion of the first parallel session the use of simulation as a general
methodology was considered. Especially the purpose of “plant wide modelling” was put to question.
Interaction
The three major topics of WG1 are strongly related to each other. The figure below gives an impression
of the interactions between the different topics of the working programme.
Requirements &
practical Aspects
Problems, Tasks
Application for
• References to:
- cases of application of the published models;
- cases of validation of the published models.
• Scalability of models (possibility to select a proper model for a given case, simple and complex
models).
• Reliability of models:
- calibration/verification methods;
- uncertainty analysis.
As a result of the discussion the “Public Model Library” was supported by the participants, the use of a
web site was considered as a good technical platform for the library and a strong possibility for co-
operation with the activities of working group 2 on “Integrated Modelling” was realised. A combined
meeting of both working groups (1 & 2) was proposed. The tentative location and date is Gent, Belgium
in the fall 2001.
• Spring, 2000, Vienna, Austria: „Plant wide modelling for WWTP control and operation“. Topics:
- guideline and framework;
- state of the art in various countries;
- typical plant configurations;
- evaluation of needs.
• Fall 2000, San Sebastian, Spain: „Anaerobic digestion as an important unit process in WWTP’s“.
Topics:
- state of the art;
- IWA working group to be invited;
- identify what local control is used.
Literature
[1] J. Alex, J.F. Beteau, J.B. Copp, C. Hellinga, U. Jeppsson, S.Marsili-Libelli, M.N. Pons, H.
Spanjers and H. Vanhooren: Benchmark for evaluating control strategies in wastewater treatment
plants. ECC’ 99, August 31- September 3, 1999, Karlsruhe, Germany.
[2] M.N. Pons, H. Spanjers and U. Jeppsson: Towards a benchmark for evaluating control strategies
in wastewater treatment plants by simulation. ESCAPE 9 (European Symposium on Computer
Aided Process Engineering - 9), May 31-June 2, 1999, Budapest, Hungary (Computer and
Chemical Engineering Supplement, pp 403-406, 1999).
Appendix
Working Programme of WG 1.