Steady-state and dynamic simulation of gas phase polyethylene process

Abstract

Gas-phase polyethylene (PE) processes are among the most important methods for PE production. A deeper understanding of the process characteristics and dynamic behavior, such as properties of PE and reactor stability, holds substantial interest for both academic researchers and industries. In this study, both steady-state and dynamic models for a gas-phase polyethylene process are established as a simulation platform, which can be used to study a variety of operation tasks for commercial solution polyethylene processes, such as new product development, process control and real-time optimization. The copolymerization kinetic parameters are fitted by industrial data. Additionally, a multi-reactor series model is developed to characterize the temperature distribution within the fluidized bed reactor. The accuracy in predicting melt index and density of the polymer, and the dynamic behavior of the developed models are verified by real plant data. Moreover, the dynamic simulation platform is applied to compare four practical control schemes for reactor temperature by a series of simulation experiments, since temperature control is important in industrial production. The results reveal that all four schemes effectively track the setpoint temperature. However, only the demineralized water temperature cascade control demonstrates excellent performance in handling disturbances from both the recycle gas subsystem and the heat exchange subsystem.