Intelligent Control Of Single Screw Polymer Extruder

Project Title:

Intelligent control of single-screw polymer extruder

Project Description:

diagram_of_single_screw_extruder.png killion%20KTS-100.PNG
The polymer processing industry is experiencing strong growth due to the increasing application of end polymer products. Meanwhile, extrusion is one of the main processing approaches involved in a wide range of applications. In such a process, the quality of end product depends highly on the control ability of melt temperature, melt pressure or viscosity within a narrow fluctuation range. Though melt temperature and melt pressure are easier to control, viscosity has been proven to be the most suitable control variable in extrusion. A consistent melt viscosity is highly important for controlling the product quality.
This project focus on the on-line monitoring and control aspects of extrusion and develop inferential methods for tracking energy consumption and melt quality on-line and an 'expert system' strategy to aid faster set-up and optimisation of process conditions. This will enable settings to be tuned to account for differences in machine design and material properties between different grades of polymer and for the identification and response to difficult to predict melting problems.

Three main tasks are:
[1] Development of inferential techniques to monitor melting stability.
[2] Development of low cost techniques to monitor power consumption on-line
[3] Development of an ‘expert’ system for machine set-up and on-line optimisation