AN EFFICIENT INITIALIZATION PROCEDURE FOR SIMULATION AND OPTIMIZATIONOF LARGE DISTILLATION PROBLEMS

An efficient initialization procedure for steady-state distillation si mulation problems involving a large number of components is presented. The proposed initialization procedure employs ''lumping'' and ''delum ping'' of the components present in the mixture. The problem of initia lization is then reduced to a system of component mass balance equatio ns for each plate. The procedure generates good initial estimates and is not time consuming. The method initially developed for petroleum fl uids has proven to be efficient also for other hydrocarbon mixtures. T his is shown with two series of examples of distillation problems, by comparison with traditional methods of initialization. Two optimizatio n problems solved with a ''lumped'' system are also presented and comp ared to the optimum solution found with the original system.