An Algorithm for Simultaneous Process Design and Control

Abstract

The need to develop algorithms for the simultaneous solution of process design and control design problems has been identified by many researchers during the past two decades. However, the multifacetted nature of the problem and the computational burden of the resulting mathematical formulations have restricted progress in this field. This paper introduces a new algorithm for the solution of the simultaneous process and control design problem. The basic idea is to analyze a sequence of combined configurations making use of a bounding scheme to successively reduce the size of the search space. The bounding scheme proposed is based on a steady-state relaxation of the combined problem that generates valid lower bounds and a restriction problem that generates valid upper bounds. Application of the proposed algorithm is illustrated with a number of case studies.