EPIC, A SOFTWARE TOOL FOR THE CONTROL ENGINEER IN EARLY PROCESS DESIGN

In the Process industries, the trend to more efficient and environment-friendly production leads to processes with more energy and material recycling. In case of high levels of integration, serious doubts arise about process stability, operability and controllability. Here, cooperation between process control engineer and process design engineer is essential. This cooperation is already needed in the early phase of process design when the choice of the process structure is still open. A prototype software system has been developed, containing a library of dynamic models for some common unit operations (CSTR's, binary distillation columns, heat exchangers). Further, tools have been developed for the evaluation of process stability, process controllability, control system interaction, control loop performance, control structure and overall control performance. The Process Information Matrix offers an overall view of the control structure. Ultimately, the commercial version of the software system has to be linked to flowsheeting packages for achieving smooth cooperation between process design engineer and process control engineer.