The problem of integrated design and control of plantwide systems coupling endothermic and exothermic reactions is addressed. Processes simultaneously carrying on the endothermic first-order reaction A→R+Q and the exothermic second-order reaction B+Q→P are considered. As the physical properties of the species involved vary, possible flowsheets are identified and feasible control strategies are ...

This paper summarizes my struggles in the plantwide control field.

Control structure design deals with the structural decisions of the control system, including what to control and how to pair the variables to form control loops. Although these are very important issues, these decisions are in most cases made in an ad hoc fashion, based on experience and engineering insight, without considering the details of each problem. In the paper, a systematic procedure ...

Control structure design deals with the structural decisions of the control system, including what to control and how to pair the variables to form control loops. Although these are very important issues, these decisions are in most cases made in an ad-hoc fashion, based on experience and engineering insight, without considering the details of each problem. In the paper, a systematic procedure ...

Plantwide control is concerned with the structural decisions involved in the control system design of a chemical plant (C.S. Foss, Critique of chemical process control theory, AIChE Journal 19(2), 1973) 209±214; ``Which variables should be controlled, which variables should be measured, which inputs should be manipulated, and which links should be made between them?'' In particular, the ®rst is...

Design, economics, and plantwide control of a glycerol-tert-butyl alcohol (TBA) etherification plant are presented. The reaction takes place in liquid phase, in a plug flow reactor, using Amberlyst 15 as a catalyst. The products' separation is achieved by two distillation columns where high-purity ethers are obtained and a section involving extractive distillation with 1,4-butanediol as solvent...

Economic plantwide control of the cumene process over a large throughput range (design to maximum achievable throughput) is studied. The process has 12 steady state operating degrees of freedom (DOFs), which are optimized for maximum hourly profit. At maximum throughput, the highest number of constraints (eight) is active leaving four unconstrained degrees of freedom. Reasonable controlled vari...

A systematic top-down procedure to design an effective plantwide control system for economically (near) optimum process operation over a wide throughput range is developed. The proposed procedure focuses on devising a control system for optimal operation at maximum throughput, where usually the highest number of constraints is active and the economic benefits of improved operation are the great...

The paper addresses the problem of testing various control configurations for binary distillation columns. Analyzing from plantwide control point of view the place of distillation column within the plant, the result will be the best control configuration. The proposed application Test BCC is a very useful tool to evaluate the resulted control configuration for distillation columns. First, it is...