The post AutoQuiz: What Are the Advantages of Cascade Control? first appeared on the ISA Interchange blog site.
This automation industry quiz question comes from the ISA Certified Automation Professional (CAP) certification program. ISA CAP certification provides a non-biased, third-party, objective assessment and confirmation of an automation professional’s skills. The CAP exam is focused on direction, definition, design, development/application, deployment, documentation, and support of systems, software, and equipment used in control systems, manufacturing information systems, systems integration, and operational consulting. Click this link for more information about the CAP program.
a) Any disturbances that affect the slave variable are detected and compensated for by the slave controller before they have time to affect the primary control variable.
b) The controllability of the outside loop is improved because the inside loop speeds up the response of the process dynamic elements between the control variable and slave variable.
c) Nonlinearities of the process in the inner loop are handled by that loop and removed from the more important outer loop.
d) It can further improve the performance of loops that are already very controllable.
e) None of the above
The correct answer is D. Cascade control does very little to improve upon control loops that were previously stable. Examples are liquid level and gas pressure control loops.
Reference: Corripio, A.B, Tuning of Industrial Control Systems, 3rd Edition.
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