Development of Laboratory-based Quadruple Tank System (QTS)

November 2010-September 2011 | Haris M. Khalid, RajamaniDoraiswami, LahouariCheded and Moustafa El-Shafei

A laboratory-based QTS was developed from scratch in Control Systems and measurement laboratory at Systems Engineering Department, KFUPM, KSA.

The control of liquid level in tanks and flow between tanks is a basic problem in process industries. Moreover, there are situations where liquid is processed by chemicals or mixing treatments while not compromising on the level of liquid and its flow regulation. Vital industries where liquid level and flow control are essential include the petro-chemical industry, paper-making industry, and water-treatment industries. Preliminary analysis were made on a small-scale coupled tank system.

This concept helped in understanding the dynamics of QTS. All the tanks of the test system are joined together by a network of pipes. The dynamics were also created by simulating leakages in the tank by opening the drain valve, temperature and viscosity of liquid etc. The National Instruments LABVIEW package was employed to collect these measurements.