Using SIR Epidemic Modeling and Control to Teach Process Dynamics and Control to Chemical Engineers

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about unprecedented opportunities to introduce control systems topics in the undergraduate engineering curriculum. This paper describes two computer modeling assignments based on MATLAB with Simulink developed for CHE 461: Process Dynamics and Control taught at Arizona State University during the fall 2020 semester. A myriad of important concepts, among these dynamic modeling using conservation and accounting principles, linearization, state-space system and transfer function model representations, PID feedback control and Internal Model Control design can be applied to the problem and explained to students in the context of a significant world event representing a unique “process” system, notably the COVID-19 pandemic.