Optimal design and control of a high-purity industrial distillation system

In this paper, a complex industrial distillation system, designed in a traditional manner without considering the interactions of design and control, is introduced and shown to be severely ill-conditioned, Through rigorous modelling and sensitivity analysis, a new control scheme is first proposed for overcoming the history of operational difficulties experienced by the system. A simultaneous dynamic optimisation-based approach is then implemented to highlight the economic and operability benefits that could have been obtained if design and control interactions had been systematically considered in the first place. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.