Customer Reviews

Instrument Engineers' Handbook,Third Edition: Process Control

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The first edition was published in 1969, the second edition was released in 1982 (Volume 1) and 1985 (Volume 2). This latest edition comprises over 3000 pages between the 2 volumes. Each volume includes 8 chapters with many sub-headings per chapter.

The Flow Measurement (29 sub-headins) and Analytical Instrumentation (60 sub-headings) chapters were heavily revised for the 1995 edition of VOLUME 1. PLC's & Other Logic Devices (10 subheadings), DCS & Computer-based Systems (16 sub-headings) and Process Control Systems (27 sub-headings) were largely rewritten for the 1995 edition of VOLUME 2. Within each product-oriented sub-heading (eg. Magnetic Flowmeters, Infrared Analyzers, DCS Basic Packages), in addition to extensive treatment of the applicable technology, a comprehesive listing of manufacturers and typical price ranges is provided. Under Process Control Systems, a diverse group of applications (Airhandler Controls, Clean Room Controls, Distillation Advanced Controls, Compressor Controls, Reactor Control & Optimation and many others) is profiled. Throughout this handbook, process control is treated in the time-domain to minimize mathematical complications implicit in frequency-domain analysis. Its focus is the practicding engineer and explains most control phoenomena visually.

Over 250 contributing authors are listed, including many prestigious names immediately recognizable by process control professionals. Liptak personally authored a substantial number of revised and up-dated easlier contribution of pioneering practitioners. This opus is a tour de force.

Liptak is a long-time industrial consultant, teaches a graduate course in advanced process control at Yale and writes the widely-followed Lessons Learned feature in CONTROL magazine. He has also lectured at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and been published on the editorial pages of the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

Absolutely the Very Best Process Control Reference for the Process Control Engineer - Now Updated and Expanded !!. This is the second volume of the Instrument Engineer's Handbook, and. as its title suggests, it deals with Process control and Optimization, covering everything from Control Hardware, Control Theory, Control Strategies, and the Control and Optimization of Specific Unit Operations.

The Chapters on Control Hardware cover in detail transmitters, controllers, control valves, regulators and other types of final control elements, PLCs, and other logic devices, human interfaces and displays, including the design of control rooms.

The Chapters on Control Theory and Control Strategies covers everything from control basics and PID controllers, to tuning methods, stability, process characteristics, process modeling and simulation, model-based control, genetic and other evolutionary algorithms, fuzzy logic programming, neural networks and other advance control strategies.

The Chapters on Control and Optimization of Unit Operations provide both in-depth of both the theory of operation and control, and practical implementation for the control of pumping, distillation, chemical reaction, heat transfer and many other.

While evaluating and reviewing such sophisticated topics about Process Control, this handbook also tries and succeeds to provide and reinforce the reader with the most useful tool for the Automation and Control Engineer: Common Sense. In order to emphasize the importance of Common Sense, the Author gives some practical recommendations that include the following ones:

- Before we can control a process, one must fully understand it.
- Being progressive is good, but being a guinea pig is not. Therefore is the wrong control strategy is implemented, the performance of even the most advanced digital hardware will be unacceptable.
- And Instrumentation, Automation, and Process Control Engineer or Technician is doing a good and better job by telling plant management what they need to know, and not what they like to hear.
- If an instrument is worth installing, it should also be worth calibrating and maintaining. No device can outperform the reference against it was calibrated.
- Trust your common sense not the sales literature. Independent performance evaluation based on the recommendation of international and national users associations should be done before installation, and not after it.

I am an Industrial Practitioner of Process Measurement & Control. I have been working in the Process Industries for more than 16 years as an Automation, Instrumentation, Process Safety and Process Control Engineer. I consider this book to be the very best reference in the field for anyone and everyone working in these areas or in areas related with their Industrial applications. You will find this handbook useful, either if your work is related with the engineering, maintenance or operation of Process Control Systems.

If you are a beginner to Process Control, you may also want to consider "Process Dynamics, Modeling, and Control (Topics in Chemical Engineering)" by Babatunde A. Ogunnaike, which is an excelent introductory reference to Chemical Processes Dynamics and Control.

This book is a Must Have in your Engineering Library.
Liptak provides extensive detail for this to be your one-stop-shop for controls as well as a great introduction & encyclopedia for the rookies.
Hats off to Liptak and his team.
Just brace yourself for the 1,500 pages of information !! ;)

Excellent reference book for chemical engineers involved in process control design.

Where the author is most familiar is with general control concepts, e.g., ratio control, split-range control, cascade control. Where he is less successful is where controls are applied. Currently, I am involved in a process involving crystallizers.

An experienced crystallizer engineer with 40 years experience glanced at this section and cried, "Posh." Then, again, he is a bit skeptical. Looking at it myself, I found a few generalities but still managed to create a workable control scheme with the help of some reference information from an AIChE course run by Wayne Genck and Tim Nordahl (my skeptic).

In the crystallizer section, chapter 8.18, he defines seven variables and three equations allowing for four degrees of freedom. This is a concept key to this reference. The seven variables include: temperature and flow of the feed; temperature and flow of the cooling or heating medium; level of supersaturation (critical variable in crystallization); ratio of mother liquor recycled; and removal/dissolution rate of fine crystals. Fines must be removed or re-dissolved in the solvent: the goal is large, inclusion-free crystals. Four degrees of freedom means that four loops should be used to control these variables. Any more than that and the process is over-constrained with the result that the loops will interfere with each other.

By working through the background information and with the help of Shinskey's "Process Control Systems," I was able to use Liptak's handbook to develop what should be a robust control system.
This handbook includes sections on PLCs, DCS - and integration with other systems, programming, valve hardware, fieldbus, sizing control valves, etc.

Unlike other reference books, it is possible to buy Volume II without Volume I. Volume I seems to refer to instrument set-up.

I have a couple of other instrument handbooks but this looks to be superior to the others.

If this review was helpful, please add your vote. Thanks.

The second volume of Bela Liptak's "Instrument Engineers' Handbook" series is another phenomenal piece of work. Written to help newly-minted engineers come up to speed with practical applications in industry, it is a masterpiece of technical content and outstanding readability. My review covers the third edition of this book which is not the latest edition, although from what I have seen of Liptak's references throughout the years subsequent editions just keep getting better.

My two-year Instrumentation students use this book as a primary reference for their studies in control algorithms and final control elements. The fact that my students (who are not being trained as engineers, but technicians) find this book of significant value to their learning is a testament to its writing quality. While some of the sections delve into mathematics well beyond my students' abilities (e.g. Differential equations, Laplace Transforms, Nyquist plots -- all subjects appropriate for readers at the engineering level), there is enough content within its 1500+ pages still accessible and relevant enough to their learning that I have used this as the primary text for my courses on control valves, PID, and process optimization.

One of the unique features of this volume is a chapter (number 8 in the third edition) found near the end of the book entitled "Process Control Systems." The subject of this chapter is the application of process control strategies to a varietry of common industrial processes (HVAC, boilers, chillers, compressors, heat exchangers, distillation columns, evaporators, pumps, chemical reactors, turbines, water treatment, etc.). This chapter alone would be worth the price of the book, with practical insight on the best strategies to apply to various processes, and why they work.

If I had anything negative to say about this book, it is that writing style betrays its collective authorship. All of the "Instrument Engineers' Handbook" volumes are collective works, with chapters written by different authors. Bela Liptak serves as the editor-in-chief in these volumes. As such, style and presentation varies a bit from chapter to chapter. This should not discourage anyone from buying the book, though. It is a must-have for any professional in the field of industrial instrumentation and automation.

The purchase was so eacy and reliable.

I love to buy again from amazon

Abu Augustine