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A Tutorial on Cascade Control
March 15, 2010
What is Cascade Control?
In single-loop control, the controller’s set point is set by an operator, and its output drives a final control element. For example: a level controller driving a control valve to keep the level at its set point.
Single Loop Control
In a cascade control arrangement, there are two (or more) controllers of which one controller’s output drives the set point of another controller. For example: a level controller driving the set point of a flow controller to keep the level at its set point. The flow controller, in turn, drives a control valve to match the flow with the set point the level controller is requesting.
Cascade Control
The controller driving the set point (the level controller in the example above) is called the primary, outer, or master controller. The controller receiving the set point (flow controller in the example) is called the secondary, inner or slave controller.
What are the Advantages of Cascade Control?
There are several advantages of cascade control, and most of them boil down to isolating a slow control loop from nonlinearities in the final control element. In the example above the relatively slow level control loop is isolated from any control valve problems by having the fast flow control loop deal with these problems.
Imagine that the control valve has a stiction problem (see blog on valve problems.) Without the flow control loop, the level control loop (driving the sticky valve) will continuously oscillate in a stick-slip cycle with a long (slow) period, which will quite likely affect the downstream process. With the fast flow control loop in place, the sticky control valve will cause it to oscillate, but at a much shorter (faster) period due to the inherent fast dynamic behavior of a well-tuned flow loop. It is likely that the fast oscillations will be attenuated by the downstream process without having much of an adverse effect.
Or imagine that the control valve has a nonlinear flow characteristic (see blog on valve problems.) This requires that the control loop driving it be detuned to maintain stability throughout the possible range of flow rates. (Of course there are better ways to deal with nonlinearities, but that is the topic of another blog.) If the level controller directly drives the valve, it must be detuned to maintain stability – possibly resulting in very poor level control. In a cascade control arrangement with a flow control loop driving the valve, the flow loop will be detuned to maintain stability. This will result in relatively poor flow control, but because the flow loop is dynamically so much faster than the level loop, the level control loop is hardly affected.
When Should Cascade Control be Used?
Cascade control should always be used if you have a process with relatively slow dynamics (like level, temperature, composition, humidity) and a liquid or gas flow, or some other relatively-fast process, has to be manipulated to control the slow process. For example: changing cooling water flow rate to control condenser pressure (vacuum), or changing steam flow rate to control heat exchanger outlet temperature. In both cases, flow control loops should be used as inner loops in cascade arrangements.
Does Cascade Control Have any Disadvantages?
Cascade control has three disadvantages. One, it requires an additional measurement (usually flow rate) to work. Two, there is an additional controller that has to be tuned. And three, the control strategy is more complex – for engineers and operators alike. These disadvantages have to be weighed up against the benefits of the expected improvement in control to decide if cascade control should be implemented.
When Should Cascade Control Not be Used?
Cascade control is beneficial only if the dynamics of the inner loop are fast compared to those of the outer loop. Cascade control should generally not be used if the inner loop is not at least three times faster than the outer loop, because the improved performance may not justify the added complexity.
In addition to the diminished benefits of cascade control when the inner loop is not significantly faster than the outer loop, there is also a risk of interaction between the two loops that could result in instability – especially if the inner loop is tuned very aggressively.
How Should Cascade Controls be Tuned?
A cascade arrangement should be tuned starting with the innermost loop. Once that one is tuned, it is placed in cascade control, or external set point mode, and then the loop driving its set point is tuned. Do not use quarter-amplitude-damping tuning rules (such as the unmodified Ziegler-Nichols and Cohen-Coon rules) to tune control loops in a cascade structure because it can cause instability if the process dynamics of the inner and outer loops are similar.
Stay tuned! Jacques Smuts – Author of the book Process Control for Practitioners
Posted in 7. Control Strategies
18 Responses to “A Tutorial on Cascade Control”
lndas: October 18, 2011 at 10:32 am
Excellent treatment on the subject. I could get an idea about cascade control as practiced in industries.Thanks for the article.
alex: December 19, 2011 at 4:34 pm
really very useful. thank you.
DF: August 9, 2012 at 7:25 am
Excellent overview, I’ve liked the site so much I’ve bought the book Thanks! 😉 Jan: September 25, 2012 at 8:25 am
I like your articles. Simple, short and useful. Thank you!
Is there an article on detuning controllers? I’ve hear the term a lot but it is not completely clear to me what it actually means and when it should be done (or not)
Jacques: September 25, 2012 at 2:40 pm
Jan, I have made a note to write my next article about detuning controllers. Thanks for the suggestion.
Shweta Garg: October 9, 2012 at 5:49 pm
A simple and clear explanation with all the necessary and important points mentioned. Thank you Sir for such an effort u made for others Looking for new articles!
Jeff: October 11, 2012 at 10:58 pm
Thanks for such a wonderful summary of cascade control!
frank: December 17, 2012 at 3:56 pm
I have a cascade loop that seems to favor the low side of my setpoint. The process will edge up slowly and achieve a small but acceptable overshoot and then the output will plummet down causing a large overshoot, only to have the process repeat itself again. It does not appear to be an oscillatory process as it controls slowly under the setpoint but on the other hand it reacts extremely fast when the pv is above the setpoint. It appears that the master controller is the culprit in my situation. I fear that if I lower my gain any more, it will take the process too long to reach its setpoint from below. Have any ideas on why this might be occuring/ how to fix?
Thanks, Frank
Jacques: January 31, 2013 at 9:02 am
Frank, from your description it seems that you might have too much gain and too little integral action in your controller. I often see this on flow loops that have been tuned using trial and error, but it occurs on other loops too. Please take a look at this article for a good method to tune your controller: http://blog.opticontrols.com/archives/383 – Jacques
Jarret: February 26, 2013 at 6:58 pm
Hi, I just wanted to say thank you for putting this stuff in plain English. I’m training for a career in process operations and these blogs are excellent. Thank you sir.
Rocketman: July 11, 2013 at 10:49 am
The course I had in college left me scratching my head with how to implement it; thanks for bring reality into the subject.
Abel Ekwonyeaso: August 12, 2015 at 2:00 pm
This is an excellent article, which has given me a good explanation on the Cascade control system. I have ordered your book on Amazon. Great! Thank you!
Victor Parra: July 6, 2016 at 5:16 am
I think I could have a very good example of a missaplied cascade control loop, at least, I can’t imagine why they are using it. On the same line there are a pressure controller (PC) and a flow controller (FC). PC is the outer controller, while FC is the inner in the cascade. PC should maintain a certain pressure in a vessel, the excess of pressure is sent whether to the fuel gas network or to the flare. Flow not needs to be controlled. As per my understanding, pressure and flow are fast variables, so this application could not accomplish THE RULE for a cascade control (inner loop x3 or x5 times faster than outer loop). I’m doing my homeworks and studying the trends, and I can see how both pressure and flow are oscillating, I think both controller are fighting since peaks and valleys in one variable match with valleys and peaks in the other one. Does anybody have an idea about the reason to use this configuration pressure cascaded over flow?
Jacques: July 8, 2016 at 3:46 pm
Victor, if the vessel has a large gas volume, i.e. long time constant, there may be benefits to having the flow controller. But if the volume is so small that the pressure loop does not respond significantly slower than the flow loop, you may be better off with simple pressure control loop.
Thomas: September 6, 2016 at 7:12 am
If I use cascade control system for level (master) and flow (slave), how can I limit the flow at certain number i.e 50 m3/hr. From my understanding, for cascade control system, the setpoint for level is fixed while the setpoint for flow is floating to ensure level meets the setpoint. Is it applicable for all cascade control system scenarios? Jacques: November 16, 2016 at 2:17 pm
Thomas: Simply limit your level controller’s output to the maximum allowable flow rate. Yes, for all cascaded level-flow loops.
Trizzy: April 10, 2019 at 7:14 am
When tuning a cascade control loop, why is it better to not use integral action in the secondary controller?
Jacques: April 10, 2019 at 7:20 pm
Trizzy – Integral action should be used in the secondary controller. If a disturbance
pushes the secondary process away from its setpoint, the control loop needs integral action to fully bring the process back to setpoint. If not, the disturbance will also affect the primary process, which is undesirable.
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