TTC process control trainer: Motivations and the design of a laboratory trainer to meet Saudi Arabia educational needs

This paper reports on the design and motivations behind the construction of a process control trainer at Technology Transfer Center, Yanbu, Saudi Arabia. There are many difficulties faced by tertiary technical educational institutes throughout Saudi Arabia. Universities and colleges face difficulties like ensuring the availability of suitable laboratory trainer within manageable lead time and cost, quality and responsive technical support throughout the laboratory trainer´s lifecycle, possibility for customizations and ensuring that the laboratory trainer suits local norms and culture. These difficulties serve as the motivation to pursue this project. The process control trainer consists of level, flow and temperature processes. The controller is a software controller in the form of a graphical user interface programmed in National Instrument LabView environment. The major components are the RTD temperature sensor, ultrasonic flow sensor, float type level sensor, variable frequency drive, variable speed pump, solid state relay and heater. The three processes data are measured by the sensors and fed into the controller via the National Instrument USB6008 data acquisition module. The controller output signals are sent via the same data acquisition module either to the variable frequency drive and onwards to the variable speed pump or the solid state relay and onwards to the heater to control the process variables. Thirty six laboratory experiments are designed utilizing the process control trainer to meet the course learning outcome of course EEET1508. The process control trainer is currently deployed in a cohort of thirteen EEET1508 students pursuing their certificate in instrumentation engineering at Yanbu Technical Institute. The feedback gathered will be utilized to improve on the design of the process control trainer and the laboratory experiments.