DYNAMIC SIMULATION AS A TOOL TO INTEGRATE PROCESS DESIGN AND PROCESS-CONTROL

Dynamic simulation provides the process design and process control eng ineer with a highly effective tool to analyze process transients. When applied in the conceptual phase of a new process design, dynamic simu lation can be used to determine the optimum design of a process by sim ultaneously considering steady-state economics and plant-wide controll ability. A methodology is shown how rigorous dynamic process simulatio n can be used as a tool to effectively integrate the process design an d process control disciplines. Illustration on extractive distillation systems demonstrate that this analysis leads to an optimum economic p rocess design with a robust simple single-input single-output regulato ry control scheme that meets process operability requirements.