Chemical Process Dynamics and Control with MATLAB

Understanding how chemical processes behave over time and how to control them is essential for ensuring safety, efficiency, and product quality. This text-based course guides you through the core principles of process dynamics and control, translating complex mathematical models into practical simulations. You will start by mastering foundational concepts of system dynamics, transfer functions, and transient responses before moving on to practical simulation techniques. By working through clear explanations and structured code examples, you will learn how to model physical systems and evaluate control loop performance. You will also explore modern control practices, including digital control basics and system tuning methods, ensuring your skills align with current industry standards. What you'll learn: - Understand the fundamental principles of first-order and second-order system dynamics - Build mathematical models of chemical processes using state-space representations and transfer functions - Analyze feedback control loops, including PID controller tuning and stability criteria - Write and execute MATLAB scripts to simulate dynamic process responses to step changes - Apply block diagram algebra to simplify complex multi-loop control systems - Explore modern digital control concepts and basic model predictive control strategies This course begins with essential definitions of process variables, feedforward, and feedback mechanisms. You will then progress step-by-step from manual differential equation modeling to automated script-based simulation and controller tuning. This course is designed for undergraduate chemical engineering students, process engineers, and technical professionals looking for a clear, beginner-friendly introduction to process dynamics. No prior control theory experience is required, though a basic familiarity with algebra and general chemical engineering concepts is helpful. Start reading today to master the core principles of chemical process control and simulation.