Filling Valve Control With Adaptive Flow Maps for Viscous Products
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing control systems for flow regulating valves in filling machines are not adequately responsive to changes in viscosity and pressure drops during the filling of packages with high-viscosity products, leading to slower reaction times and increased waste.
Innovation Solution
The control system dynamically adapts pre-stored fluid-dynamic maps based on real-time operating conditions and product characteristics, using a combination of flow feed-forward and proportional-integral-derivative control modules to adjust the valve position and flow rate, ensuring faster response to pressure disturbances.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Speed
If a conventional control system with fixed fluid-dynamic maps is used, then the device complexity is reduced, but the response time to pressure disturbances increases and manufacturing precision deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The control system dynamically adapts pre-stored fluid-dynamic maps based on real-time operating conditions and product characteristics. The system transitions from static, fixed maps to dynamic, adaptive maps that adjust according to actual viscosity and pressure drop conditions, enabling faster response to pressure disturbances while managing complexity through algorithmic adaptation rather than hardware complexity
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes the parameters of the fluid-dynamic maps based on detected operating conditions. By monitoring actual viscosity and pressure drop and adjusting the map parameters accordingly, the system achieves faster response times without requiring a completely new control architecture, thus balancing speed improvement with acceptable complexity levels
2Manufacturing precision
If pre-stored fluid-dynamic maps are used without adaptation, then device complexity is minimized, but manufacturing precision and product consistency deteriorate under varying viscosity conditions
Solution Approach 1:
The control system implements feedback by detecting actual operating conditions (viscosity, pressure drop) and using this information to adapt the fluid-dynamic maps. This closed-loop approach ensures filling consistency is maintained under varying conditions while keeping the adaptation algorithms computationally efficient to avoid excessive complexity
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary adaptation of the fluid-dynamic maps based on detected product characteristics before the filling process begins. By pre-adjusting the maps according to the specific product being filled, the system ensures manufacturing precision from the start without requiring complex real-time adjustments during operation
Data Source
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AI summary
A method for controlling a flow regulating valve (6) of a filling machine (1), controlling the flow of pourable food product, envisages: receiving an inlet pressure measurement (PIN) from a pressure sensor (14); receiving an inlet flow measurement (FIN) from a flow meter (16); determining a control signal (SC) for controlling an operating position of the flow regulating valve (6) by combined contributions (C1, C2) of a flow feedback control module (22), receiving at its input a flow set point (FSP) and the inlet flow measurement (FIN) and generating a first control contribution (C1) indicative of a difference between the inlet flow measurement and the flow set point; and a flow feed-forward control module (20), receiving at its input the inlet pressure measurement (PIN) and the flow set point (FSP) and generating a second control contribution (C2) as a function of the flow set point and inlet pressure measurement, using pre-stored fluid-dynamic maps, which may be a result of a characterization of the flow regulating valve in a test condition. The flow feed-forward control module uses the fluid dynamics maps in a dynamically adaptive manner, depending on different operating conditions of the filling machine and/or the related pourable food product, thereby adapting to the same different operating conditions and/or the pourable food product.