OPTIMAL-CONTROL OF A PLUG-FLOW REACTOR WITH A COMPLEX-REACTION MECHANISM

Optimal control problems appear frequently in chemical reactor design. We study the application of a strategy belonging to the class known a s gradient methods in function space to solve such problems by discret ization of the function space and an iterative conjugate gradient algo rithm. The algorithm is applied to a plug flow reactor model with vari ous levels of reaction mechanism complexities. The examples, in which the properties of the algorithm are examined in detail, range from the control of the first-order reaction model of a hexane isomerization m echanism to the control of oscillation patterns and mechanistic re-rou ting in the oscillatory Belouzov-Zhabotinski reaction. The algorithm i s successful in treating these highly nonlinear systems and hence prov ides a prospect of solving other complicated nonlinear optimal reactor control problems.